[plug] laptop

[W.Kenworthy]

I asked around others here who are using the tiny Vaio's before getting
one (work paid for it!).  Basically no one had hardware problems,
despite a couple looking "worn" and having been in use for some time.

IT support had to take an image of a hard-disk as they couldnt get one
or reinstall info from Sony (I find this hard to believe, but it *is*
rumour!) as some of those who got one killed the OS when "fiddlin" when
they first picked them up.

When I got it, I intended to cram XP into a dark corner, but ITS had
already had a go at it and set the admin password - rather than break
in, I patched XP using gentoo(!) and have not looked back.  Other than
some quibbles (the SD card setup is still clunky, suspend resume isnt
quite as "tuned" as I want etc), it "just works" - unfortunately my work
depends on this machine which makes fiddling difficult as I cant risk
breakage for the next couple of months :(  The install was actually a 2
week old tar.bz2 image of my old dell that died - I just untarred it
over XP after reformatting (reiserfs of course), made the necessary
changes to the custom kernel and rebooted.  Try that with doze!

I cant speak about support as I have not had a problem!

Billk

On Mon, 2006-08-14 at 18:07 -0700, Fred Janon wrote:
> I can't really give you any feedback on running Linux on either laptops
> but I had a laptop from Sony and I even ran into problems installing a
> regular version of Windows on it. They come with a Sony customized
> Windows and proprietary hardware. Even the Windows drivers for their
> CD-ROM/RW drives are not public. I imagine that they would not make
> public any H/W info to write Linux Open Source drivers. My experience
> with their service was pretty bad. I paid a lot more money for the Sony
> laptop than another brand and didn't get much more that the slick
> design and the brand name.
> 
> Apple laptops are still more expensive than the competition but now
> with the Intel procs you can even run OS X and Windows. The Apple
> service is very good in my experience and LOTS of people do Linux
> things with them. I see a lot of people doing Web development on them.
> When I have enough money, I'll probably buy one for my business.
> 
> Fred
> 
> 
> --- Adam Hewitt <adam.h at staff.iinet.net.au> wrote:
> 
> > Sorry for replying to my own post, however I just thought about the
> > new MacBook/MacBook Pro range which also seem to suit my requirements
> > perfectly. Has anyone bought one of these? 
> > 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: plug-bounces at plug.org.au [mailto:plug-bounces at plug.org.au] On
> > Behalf Of Adam Hewitt
> > Sent: Monday, August 14, 2006 8:08 PM
> > To: plug at plug.org.au
> > Subject: [plug] laptop
> > 
> > Hi All,
> > 
> > I am about to start employment with a new company and have been given
> > the opportunity to choose my own laptop. Obviously I don’t want to
> > push my luck, however I was offered the suggestion of a Sony Vaio SZ
> > which seems to be perfect. I will be working remotely, as the head
> > office is in Sydney, so having a built in webcam for video
> > conferencing is good and I have read good things about the Intel Core
> > Duo. I have done some searching on google and I have found some
> > semi-old articles relating to getting Ubuntu working on these laptops
> > with average results (www.emperorlinux.com sell it preinstalled with
> > linux so everything must work to some degree), but it wasn't with a
> > lack of effort.
> > 
> > Does anyone have any personal stories with this laptop, or any
> > suggestions for equivilent laptops?
> > 
> > Adam.
> > 
> > --
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> > 8/11/2006
> >  
> > _______________________________________________
> > PLUG discussion list: plug at plug.org.au
> > http://www.plug.org.au/mailman/listinfo/plug
> > Committee e-mail: committee at plug.linux.org.au
> > 
> > --
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> > 8/11/2006
> >  
> > 
> > -- 
> > No virus found in this outgoing message.
> > Checked by AVG Free Edition.
> > Version: 7.1.405 / Virus Database: 268.10.9/417 - Release Date:
> > 8/11/2006
> >  
> > _______________________________________________
> > PLUG discussion list: plug at plug.org.au
> > http://www.plug.org.au/mailman/listinfo/plug
> > Committee e-mail: committee at plug.linux.org.au
> > 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> PLUG discussion list: plug at plug.org.au
> http://www.plug.org.au/mailman/listinfo/plug
> Committee e-mail: committee at plug.linux.org.au