[mdlug] Linux push an economic phenomenon?

[Adam Tauno Williams]

On Fri, 2011-01-21 at 00:29 -0500, Garry Stahl wrote: 
> Dan Pritts wrote:
> > but...it's Unix, and it's a nice desktop environment. And I do not
> EVER spend time dorking around rebuilding my kernel to get something
> to work, nor do I ever have to dork with an Xfree86 configuration.
> There are things that don't work exactly as I like, but the time I
> used to spend customizing things to be "just so" I spend doing
> something else instead. 
> I never had an issue with that using Linux on the desktop.  It doesn't
> waste my time.  I have never rebuilt a kernel to get something to work.

"never" is a very long time.  I recall when LINUX on the desktop was
tricky and LINUX on the laptop was dicey.  But that is *not* currently
true.  I use LINUX on a laptop as my primary machine - everything works
out-of-the-box.  No fiddling with X, no kernel compiling.  It has pretty
much worked out-of-the-box for the last three to four years [assuming
you purchased hardware with the intention of running LINUX - if you just
try to throw it on whatever you have lying around I am certain your
experience will be quite different].

> Yes, Apple hardware looks nice, 

That is not a quantitative statement; personally I think their keyboards
are awful.

> it's still and Intel under the hood.  I
> like thinkpads because that grungy, dull looking finish is nigh
> indestructible.  I've had thinkpads older than dirt that looked brand
> new.  Thus far they have all been Linux friendly.  My current T-61 came
> loaded with Linux.

Currently I'm using an HP DV-3085DX that I am very happy with.
Previously I had a Toshiba P105-S6207 that also worked perfectly.  The
laptop before that was a Toshiba M35X-S163 where one did have to spend
~15 minutes after install getting the wireless to work (under openSUSE
10.3, with openSUSE 10.2 one had to also make the card reader work:
another ~5 minutes).  On none of those machines was X ever a problem.