Buying a laptop with no OS (to install Linux on).
in [UK Linux]
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From: Mark Hobley on 26 Mar 2010 01:25 Tony Houghton <h(a)realh.co.uk> wrote: > It could backfire if MS had any true competition with an effective > marketing department. Yeah Microsoft have created barriers to entry and this is at least immoral, and hopefully this is also illegal. I had developed a windowing system engine back in the 80s. It was way superior to that crappy one from America, although I never got round to releasing it. I was shocked that people started buying that crappy one. I went to buy a colour printer, and asked the shop to check that the programming codes were in the manual. The shop said "it comes with windows drivers". I told them that I was not using windows, and that I needed the control codes, so that I could drive the printer from my own software. They told me I needed to contact Hewlett Packard to obtain a software development kit. Mark. -- Mark Hobley Linux User: #370818 http://markhobley.yi.org/
From: Martin Gregorie on 26 Mar 2010 06:59 On Fri, 26 Mar 2010 05:25:45 +0000, Mark Hobley wrote: > The shop said "it comes with windows drivers". I told them that I was > not using windows, and that I needed the control codes, so that I could > drive the printer from my own software. They told me I needed to contact > Hewlett Packard to obtain a software development kit. > A good thing about HP Laserjets (and maybe other HP printers too) is that they all talk PCL. Later printers use a true superset of the PCL used by the earlier, simpler ones. IOW the latest Laserjet can be driven by a LJ2 driver. Same goes for any Epson that uses Esc/P codes - I've driven both 24 pin LQ printers and Colour Stylus 850C printers from a program that was written for an MX-80. No problems at all. -- martin@ | Martin Gregorie gregorie. | Essex, UK org |
From: alexd on 26 Mar 2010 17:14 On 25/03/10 09:26, chris wrote: > ies4linux is a good option for running IE on Linux if you have to use it. I find on my laptop that ies4linux eats RAM so quickly, that it uses more RAM than it costs me to run XP in Virtualbox, if I use it for more than a few minutes. -- <http://ale.cx/> (AIM:troffasky) (UnSoEsNpEaTm(a)ale.cx) 21:10:58 up 51 days, 12 min, 3 users, load average: 0.74, 0.26, 0.16 It is better to have been wasted and then sober than to never have been wasted at all
From: Martin Gregorie on 26 Mar 2010 19:44 On Fri, 26 Mar 2010 23:07:35 +0000, Ivor Jones wrote: > On 26/03/10 10:59, Martin Gregorie wrote: >> On Fri, 26 Mar 2010 05:25:45 +0000, Mark Hobley wrote: >> >>> The shop said "it comes with windows drivers". I told them that I was >>> not using windows, and that I needed the control codes, so that I >>> could drive the printer from my own software. They told me I needed to >>> contact Hewlett Packard to obtain a software development kit. >>> >> A good thing about HP Laserjets (and maybe other HP printers too) is >> that they all talk PCL. Later printers use a true superset of the PCL >> used by the earlier, simpler ones. IOW the latest Laserjet can be >> driven by a LJ2 driver. > > I use HPLIP. Works fine with Fedora 12 and my CLJ 2605dn. > I normally use an LJ5 on my server, which currently runs F10 until I find the time to upgrade to F12, but recently I wanted to print a refusal for for the NHS PCR take-on. If you've ever seen this POS you'll know why[1] I couldn't handle it with the LJ5, so I connected up an Epson LQ-550. F10 CUPS doesn't offer a driver for it, but I soon found that the generic Epson 24 pin driver worked once I boosted the print resolution (to 360x360 IIRC). [1] the bloody people make refusal as difficult as possible. Include the form with the info pack? Noooo - you have to find and download it. Then you find its printed in ash grey using a typeface and size carefully designed to make the already unreadably faint captions unreadably jaggy as well. BTW, they insist you use their form or your opt-out will be ignored. Its text was so faint that the LJ5 couldn't handle it, hence digging out the Epson which can't print that faintly, so did a good job. I also have an ancient Microware OS-9 system running the Sculptor 4GL system. Years ago I set up HP LJ2 and Epson MX-80 printer descriptions for it. These produce excellent, if basic, results on (respectively) the LJ5 and the LQ-550. I've also had equally good results from an Epson Stylus 850C using the MX-80 description. -- martin@ | Martin Gregorie gregorie. | Essex, UK org |
From: Simon Brooke on 27 Mar 2010 09:27
On Wed, 24 Mar 2010 16:33:29 +0000, Poster Matt wrote: > Hi, > > I'm intending to buy a new laptop and install Linux on it. Searching > around I've found it very hard to find a laptop for sale with no > operating system on it. In fact a company called Novatech (which I've > used before) is the only one I can find. > > Are there any other companies that you guys know of that sell OS free > laptops? It seems to me that there's a good chance that I will be forced > to pay for Windows even though I don't want it, a kind of Microsoft tax > achievable only as a result of their tremendous market dominance. > > Secondly - are there any laptop specific things I should keep in mind > when buying a laptop to install Linux on? Driver or hardware issues and > such like? I've never installed Linux on a laptop before. > > Finally are there any specific Linux distributions that I should think > about using or ones that I should avoid? > > Many thanks and regards, etc.. Seriously, why not buy a Dell (or other) with Linux pre-installed? It may not be the distro you want (Dell are still shipping Ubuntu Hardy Heron) but it does at least signal the market that people want Linux - and you also know that all the hardware on your laptop is supported. -- ;; Semper in faecibus sumus, sole profundam variat |