what version of free linux

[JinLien]

Slackware = Unix like

or

RedHat/Fedora Core

or

Try one of the top 10 distros at Distrowatch.com

Presonally I prefer Debian base because of the comprehensive pool of deb packages and the ease of apt-get.

 

[Nothinman]

The problem is, those companies spend a lot of money on developing their intellectual property, and part of that property is in their drivers, so releasing it would let other people/corporations see what they're doing and how, creating the potential for others to profit from the development they've paid for.

From what I've read (nothing official that I know of) a large portion of the problem is that they don't own all of the IP in the drivers so they're legally bound to not release the source for them. I also have no doubts that there is a large chunk of nVidia IP in the drivers that they don't want to release either, but what would be the problem with putting that stuff in the firmware on the card? Wifi manufactures don't seem to have any problems with that.

Personally, I say more power to them as long as they release drivers for their hardware that I can use under my OS of choice.

But that's the point, they're not. If you buy any Apple machine with their hardware in it you can't use their drivers because they don't release PPC builds.

 

[LokeanSon]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
but what would be the problem with putting that stuff in the firmware on the card?

Cost, compounded by a legacy way of doing things. Wifi manufacturers don't have windows drivers that are multimegabytes in size. At least none I'm familiar with.

I just checkd on Nvidia's site... Their windows driver for XP/2000 32-bit is a 20mb download.

But that's the point, they're not. If you buy any Apple machine with their hardware in it you can't use their drivers because they don't release PPC builds.

First off, I was speaking selfishly. Second, mac's are closed architecture proprietary machines(x86 seems poised to change this to a degree). Buying one and expecting a world of choices on them is not reasonable.

 

[Nothinman]

I just checkd on Nvidia's site... Their windows driver for XP/2000 32-bit is a 20mb download.

And I'd be willing to bet at least 75% of that is the control panel userland stuff since the nvidia kernel module on Linux is 4.5M.

First off, I was speaking selfishly. Second, mac's are closed architecture proprietary machines(x86 seems poised to change this to a degree). Buying one and expecting a world of choices on them is not reasonable.

x86 is just as closed, the difference is that Intel doesn't make full blown machines. Apple's machines nearly all of the same hardware (IDE drives, SDRAM, PCI, PCI Express, etc) as any off the shelf x86 PC. Infact I think the only parts that Apples really owns is the branding, probably some custom OBP extensions and the closed software included in OS X.

 

[eklass]

my vote is for ubuntu. everything else aside, they've got the most helpful linux forum i've ever encountered. www.ubuntuforums.org

the laptop support is great, updates are consistent, and there's a good chance anythign you'll desire to do with it, has already been done, and is in a howto

 

[JeffCos]

I have a laptop that recently had issues and needed to be killdisked. Windows install freezes for some reason so can I install linux on here to get her back up and then install windows? What version of linux do you recommend for that? I see that eklass and Robor are running it on laptops, but each say different versions. But the majority of people here are going with Ubuntu...will it work?

 

[JinLien]

Originally posted by: JeffCos
I have a laptop that recently had issues and needed to be killdisked. Windows install freezes for some reason so can I install linux on here to get her back up and then install windows? What version of linux do you recommend for that? I see that eklass and Robor are running it on laptops, but each say different versions. But the majority of people here are going with Ubuntu...will it work?

Ubuntu & Suse both work great on laptop.

 

[JeffCos]

ok, ubuntu installed fine, but now how can i run the windows xp install CD. i tried booting it up during startup, but it still freezes. Is there a way to open it through ubuntu?

 

[rookie1010]

thanks for the replies

can i get both versions of suse for free?

What is a killdisk?

ok, ubuntu installed fine, but now how can i run the windows xp install CD. i tried booting it up during startup, but it still freezes. Is there a way to open it through ubuntu?

did you first install ubuntu and then tried to install windows?

if you istall windows first, can you then install ubuntu after the windows installation

 

[JeffCos]

Originally posted by: rookie1010
thanks for the replies

can i get both versions of suse for free?

What is a killdisk?

ok, ubuntu installed fine, but now how can i run the windows xp install CD. i tried booting it up during startup, but it still freezes. Is there a way to open it through ubuntu?

did you first install ubuntu and then tried to install windows?

if you istall windows first, can you then install ubuntu after the windows installation

kill disk is a program that writes 0's to your harddrive completely erasing all data.

No, i tried to install windows, but it wouldn't install. Then i tried to install ubuntu and that worked, but i've been told there's no way to install windows from ubuntu, which is what i need to do.

 

[Ausm]

I personally like Mepis over Ubuntu.


Ausm

 

[rookie1010]

I did not quite understand you

No, i tried to install windows, but it wouldn't install. Then i tried to install ubuntu and that worked, but i've been told there's no way to install windows from ubuntu, which is what i need to do.

you first tried to install windows on a blank disk and that would not install and then you installed ubuntu

and now you are trying install windows from ubuntu and that wont happen


i have got something wrong here