View previous topic :: View next topic |
Author |
Message |
tactless l33t
Joined: 14 Jul 2002 Posts: 642 Location: Mitzpe Adi, Israel
|
Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2004 8:59 am Post subject: Would you put Gentoo on a laptop? |
|
|
I'm waiting for my IBM Thinkpad R50e Celeron-M 1.4ghz Centrino laptop. I've been wondering what distribution to put on it...
Now, I love Gentoo on my desktop. I've been using it for years. However, on a laptop, I'm kind of worried... compiling (almost) any program you want to download is quite a beating for a laptop to take. It will also take quite a while on the Celeron-M. Binary packages are available, but AFAIK they aren't kept as up-to-date as the ebuilds. However, I don't know if other distros will support the Intel PRO/Wireless 2200 chipset. Debian seems to have a package, but god knows if it'll work, and if there's as great a community as these boards which will help me install it on Debian.
Recommendations? Suggestions? _________________ Tactless
"If it wasn't for fog, the world would run at a really crappy framerate."
Jabber: tactless@amessage.info |
|
Back to top |
|
|
BWoso l33t
Joined: 31 Dec 2003 Posts: 920 Location: Cleveland Ohio, USA
|
Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2004 9:08 am Post subject: |
|
|
I know many people with Gentoo on laptops, they have no problems with it. Just remember that Gentoo Rocks. _________________ I think that the forums are the greatest thing about Gentoo, thanks to everyone that posts on them!
The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.
-Mark Twain- |
|
Back to top |
|
|
mercurator Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 09 Aug 2004 Posts: 92 Location: Slovenia
|
Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2004 9:18 am Post subject: |
|
|
I say go for gentoo. I have it on my laptop, and I would never consider using annother distribution. Compiling is not an issue, especially if you use distcc.
Best Regards _________________ "Ignorantia non est Argumentum" - Benedict de Spinoza |
|
Back to top |
|
|
psyqil Advocate
Joined: 26 May 2003 Posts: 2767
|
Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2004 9:22 am Post subject: |
|
|
I tried a few, but nothing beats Gentoo!
Now my lappy isn't the fastest, so I build the system on my desktop and copied it over, now I can use it to build binary packages in a chroot on the desktop.
Another possibility is to mount the laptop-partition over nfs, chroot to that dir and let the faster machine do the work. |
|
Back to top |
|
|
z3ro Apprentice
Joined: 16 Jun 2004 Posts: 261
|
Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2004 9:23 am Post subject: |
|
|
Yes I would. |
|
Back to top |
|
|
plate Bodhisattva
Joined: 25 Jul 2002 Posts: 1663 Location: Berlin
|
Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2004 11:55 am Post subject: |
|
|
My 850 MHz PIII Vaio has been running Gentoo and FreeBSD since December 2002, and both emerge and portupgrade have been compiling the life out of its CPU: neither were any electrons harmed in the process, nor did the hardware suffer from this.
Specifically, I haven't heard of any problems with Thinkpads and Gentoo Linux for months now. I know your WLAN interface is perfectly supported, just search around the DT&T forum for convenient ways of setting up your wireless configuration. I suggest you go pester the IRC channel #gentoo-laptops on Freenode if things aren't performing as well as expected, but I seriously doubt you'll ever need to ask any questions there. |
|
Back to top |
|
|
pjp Administrator
Joined: 16 Apr 2002 Posts: 20417
|
Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2004 9:31 pm Post subject: |
|
|
You could build the binaries on another machine, then transfer them to the laptop.
Moved from Other Things Gentoo. _________________ Quis separabit? Quo animo? |
|
Back to top |
|
|
Riveri n00b
Joined: 20 Feb 2004 Posts: 65 Location: Tampere, Finland
|
Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2004 9:59 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Gentoo is working perfectly on my laptop
(1,6GHz Centrino)
so go ahead and install it... it's worth of those couple extra hours what it takes compared to other distros.
and nowdays iwp2200 works fine so it wont make a problem anymore. |
|
Back to top |
|
|
blackhaT n00b
Joined: 31 Oct 2004 Posts: 12 Location: /home/blackhat
|
|
Back to top |
|
|
electrofreak l33t
Joined: 30 Jun 2004 Posts: 713 Location: Ohio, USA
|
Posted: Sun Nov 07, 2004 1:43 am Post subject: |
|
|
I would put gentoo on my laptop, but my laptop is an old Gateway Solo 200Mhz... I know, it sucks, I mainly got it just so it could be portable, and it was only $25 (bought from a friend). Also, it only has a 2GB drive, so I don't think linux would fit on it if I want a decent desktop environment. If I could put it on my laptop, I would definately put gentoo on it though. I actually boot knoppix on it sometimes. Windows 2000 runs fine, and I have a minimal setup with only the neccesary MS Office on it, and Gaim, and Firefox and a few other things like an ssh client. I wish I could put Gentoo on it though. _________________ Desktop: ABit AN8, Athlon64 X2 4400+ 939 2.75GHz, 2x1GB Corsair XMS DDR400, 2x160GB SATA RAID-0, 2x20"W, Vista Ultimate x64
Laptop: 15.4" MacBook Pro 2.4Ghz, 2x1GB RAM, 160GB, Mac OS X 10.5.1
Server: PIII 550Mhz, 3x128MB RAM, 160GB, Ubuntu Server 7.10 |
|
Back to top |
|
|
Archangel1 Veteran
Joined: 21 Apr 2004 Posts: 1212 Location: Work
|
Posted: Sun Nov 07, 2004 1:43 am Post subject: |
|
|
blackhaT wrote: | I use gentoo on my laptop, works great . |
Same here... Software Suspend is about the only thing that has given me any trouble; other than a slightly dodgy hdd....
And that being said, it has worked okay, I just tend to break it by doing something dumb.
Compilations do take a bit longer yes; but it's not too awful on my 933. You really notice a serious difference for things like X/KDE/bootstrap/emerge system; but I don't wait around for them anyway. Bootstrap and emerge system are left overnight; same with KDE. Hence it doesn't really matter if it takes 3 hours or 6 - and they aren't things you'll have to do frequently. |
|
Back to top |
|
|
badMojo n00b
Joined: 30 Jul 2003 Posts: 53
|
Posted: Sun Nov 07, 2004 1:45 am Post subject: |
|
|
I have an Alienware Area-51m 3.0 ghz 1 gig of ram... Gentoo is perfect. |
|
Back to top |
|
|
val Apprentice
Joined: 30 Jun 2004 Posts: 234
|
Posted: Sun Nov 07, 2004 1:51 am Post subject: |
|
|
my first gentoo install (okay out of two) was on a laptop. It's also a centrino w/ 1.5GHz PM. Emerges don't take that long at all. Remember 1.5GHz PM is like a 2.5GHz P4. Not really that slow... well not by my standards. Anyway it takes maybe 5 minutes to compile a whole kernel from scratch. Make sure you install gcc 3.4 so you can use the pentium-m flags. Ndiswrapper works just fine with my ipw2200 wireless card. The only think I'm missing is software suspend. I'm working on that now actually. _________________ My log saw what happened to Laura Palmer. Go ahead. Ask it. |
|
Back to top |
|
|
codergeek42 Bodhisattva
Joined: 05 Apr 2004 Posts: 5142 Location: Anaheim, CA (USA)
|
Posted: Sun Nov 07, 2004 2:02 am Post subject: |
|
|
<edited> _________________ ~~ Peter: Programmer, Mathematician, STEM & Free Software Advocate, Enlightened Agent, Transhumanist, Fedora contributor
Who am I? :: EFF & FSF
Last edited by codergeek42 on Tue Nov 30, 2004 9:37 pm; edited 1 time in total |
|
Back to top |
|
|
val Apprentice
Joined: 30 Jun 2004 Posts: 234
|
Posted: Sun Nov 07, 2004 2:21 am Post subject: |
|
|
If you are going to erase everything windows, why not reject the EULA and pursue a refund? I know people havent' had great luck with that, but it's worth a shot. _________________ My log saw what happened to Laura Palmer. Go ahead. Ask it. |
|
Back to top |
|
|
codergeek42 Bodhisattva
Joined: 05 Apr 2004 Posts: 5142 Location: Anaheim, CA (USA)
|
Posted: Sun Nov 07, 2004 2:23 am Post subject: |
|
|
val wrote: | If you are going to erase everything windows, why not reject the EULA and pursue a refund? I know people havent' had great luck with that, but it's worth a shot. | Good idea. Though, I do want to verify the hwardware's integrity so that Dell people don't tell me that using another OS somehow validtaes the warranty or whatever. *shrug* _________________ ~~ Peter: Programmer, Mathematician, STEM & Free Software Advocate, Enlightened Agent, Transhumanist, Fedora contributor
Who am I? :: EFF & FSF |
|
Back to top |
|
|
asb002 n00b
Joined: 30 May 2003 Posts: 47 Location: Rochester, NY, USA
|
Posted: Sun Nov 07, 2004 4:26 am Post subject: |
|
|
I'm using Gentoo on my Dell Inspiron 3000 (P1-266, 144MB RAM, 6GB HD). Works great, better than any other distro I tried, and much more stable and secure than Windows. Compiling does take a long time, so maybe one of these days I'll set up distcc with my desktop and server. |
|
Back to top |
|
|
XQC n00b
Joined: 09 Sep 2004 Posts: 5 Location: Germany
|
Posted: Sun Nov 07, 2004 4:55 am Post subject: |
|
|
No.
The fact that Gentoo (or Linux in general) doesn't seem to support WPA for WLAN is in my opinion the killer argument against Gentoo on my Laptop.
But I know there is a project going on, working on this issue. Though I don't know how far they have gotten.
But when the time has come, my laptop is then ready to say "Welcome to your new home, tux" |
|
Back to top |
|
|
JingBL n00b
Joined: 06 Nov 2004 Posts: 4 Location: Shanghai, China
|
Posted: Sun Nov 07, 2004 5:32 am Post subject: |
|
|
Gentoo works well on my Samsung P20. As for Thinkpad I think it would be fine, 'cause one of my friends uses Debian on his IBM Thinkpad and he speaks highly of its performance. So with better flexibility, Gentoo would work better on it. |
|
Back to top |
|
|
nilson n00b
Joined: 10 Sep 2004 Posts: 63 Location: Tuscaloosa, AL
|
Posted: Sun Nov 07, 2004 8:07 am Post subject: |
|
|
Gentoo would be the first thing to go on my new laptop. _________________ My server hasn't been updated since mid-2005. Scared to touch it. My desktop is in almost the same boat but is a little broken. But I still love Gentoo. |
|
Back to top |
|
|
swingarm l33t
Joined: 08 Jun 2002 Posts: 627 Location: Northern Colorado
|
Posted: Sun Nov 07, 2004 8:31 am Post subject: |
|
|
I have 2 flavors of Gentoo on mine(Compaq R3000Z w/Athlon64 CPU and 1gb ram) the regular 32 bit version and the AMD64 version. I do a moderate amount of bleeding edge stuff so it takes a bit of tweaking to get running right. All in all it works great! |
|
Back to top |
|
|
baeksu l33t
Joined: 26 Sep 2004 Posts: 609 Location: Seoul, Korea
|
Posted: Sun Nov 07, 2004 9:55 am Post subject: |
|
|
I have gentoo on my 1.3 GHz centrino, been really happy with it. Compiles don`t really take that long. OO was a six hour compile, but I guess that`s more or less normal for a box as old as mine (bought it 18 months ago already).
Hardware works fine, suspending, scaling, the whole shebang. It`s nice to be able to stretch out my meager batterylife a little more, and resuming from suspended state gives me a working X in ten seconds, which is kinda useful for just quickly checking emails and stuff. _________________ Gnome:
1. A legendary being.
2. A never ending quest to make unix friendly to people who don't want unix and excruciating for those that do. |
|
Back to top |
|
|
mrsteven Veteran
Joined: 04 Jul 2003 Posts: 1938
|
Posted: Sun Nov 07, 2004 10:30 am Post subject: |
|
|
BWoso wrote: | Just remember that Gentoo Rocks. |
Yes, it does. Gentoo runs on my ASUS M6700N, and it works fine. Because you can get the newest kernel and other software (with support for new laptop hardware), I think nothing beats Gentoo here. _________________ Unix philosophy: "Do one thing and do it well."
systemd: "Do everything and do it wrong." |
|
Back to top |
|
|
sireyessire Advocate
Joined: 20 Mar 2003 Posts: 2991 Location: back in Paris, France
|
Posted: Sun Nov 07, 2004 10:57 am Post subject: |
|
|
codergeek42 wrote: | Purchasing an Inspiron 8600 some time in the next week or two. I plan on installing pure Gentoo on it just as soon as I boot ino Win XP Home (it comes with it ) and verify that all the hardware works good. =) |
it was exactely what i did and it rocks dude! _________________ I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.
Albert Einstein
Try simpler first
Shockley |
|
Back to top |
|
|
tsunam Retired Dev
Joined: 23 Feb 2004 Posts: 343
|
Posted: Sun Nov 07, 2004 2:15 pm Post subject: |
|
|
can always join #gentoo-laptop. we are there and there's quite few who are extremely knowledgeable in the channel. I've learned a lot there myself, since i've joined...how much of it i'll keep is unknown
Dell 600m here (works mostly..not everything works but it does its job) |
|
Back to top |
|
|
|