[conspire] test drive of new laptop

[Paul Zander]

Update:

I made several bootable USB's.  Only UBUNTU actually has a live image with reasonably full functionality.  The laptop can connect to WiFi, no problems with uncommon Broadcom parts.  It can play YouTube, so some degree of display functionality.

It wouldn't work on websites that uses Flash, but that is a well known compatibility issue related to flash and FOSS.  In past, I've had to deal with "non free" after the basic install.

The Debian image only has options for installing.  I wish it had some live functionality so I could test drive gnome before deciding on windows manager. Currently I have LXDE on all my Linux boxes, from RaspberryPi to multi-core desktop.  BTW, last time I installed LXDE, there was a question, "Is this a laptop".  I was at a desktop, so I answered, "NO".  I got a really strange display. Finally I realized it was configured for cell phone/tablet.  Whoever wrote the installer hadn't thought that anyone might install LXDE on a desktop.  I had to redo the install and change that one answer.  I'm sure there is some way to just change the windows environment, but it probably would have taken me more time than just starting over.

Mint gave an option for "live", but it didn't seem to have any functionality.
Maker Faire is this weekend so I don't expect to make any more progress soon, but I think the machine passes the "keep or return" threshold.

     From: Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com>
 To: conspire at linuxmafia.com 
 Sent: Tuesday, May 5, 2015 1:13 AM
 Subject: Re: [conspire] test drive of new laptop
   
Quoting Paul Zander (paulz at ieee.org):

> So I will easily be able to test the new laptop.  If it passes, I will
> do the install to internal drive.  If not, I have the receipt in a
> safe place.  As others have indicated, Ubuntu probably has the drivers
> (if they exist).   If I install Debian, I have to do some thinking
> about the purity of FOSS vs. non-free.   At least the Linux world
> gives each of us choices.

Both Ubuntu and Debian have policies that greatly restrict or prohibit
making proprietary drivers & firmware available in the main installer
images.  (There are easy workarounds when you need something not
included, but certainly it can be an annoyance, such as whenever I was
reinstalling from scratch onto a machine that needed the Broadcom b43
firmware image file.  It's really not brain surgery, though:  You just
find the appropriate .deb, put it on a USB stick, and supply it during
the install.)

If you really care about that matter, you should look to variants such
as Linux Mint that pointedly include all the proprietary drivers &
firmware images they can.





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