Re: Status of Linux on Centrino?

colin353 wrote:
I'm running Fedora 5 on a Centrino (not Duo, though).

Fedora 5 does not tend to cooperate well with laptops, as I have
experienced. I would have to agree with Chris on this one- stick to
SuSE. One of my good friends runs SuSE on his laptop, and it performs
very well, even with his Centrino +wireless card.

FC4 works fine on ASUS and IBM, I not only have the wireless working, but without effort after install it started and hijacked a neighbor's connection. The ASUS has a start/stop button for the wireless and another for bluetooth. If you want security turn 'em off, or just take the lines out of modprobe.conf.

(Plus, with the latest from Novell, you can start looking into XGL...?)

I wouldn't worry about disabing your wireless- in fact, you probably
won't be able to get it to work anyway without lots of hard work... on
Fedora, anyway.

In terms of security. I wouldn't be that worried! You _are_ running
Linux, remember? :)

Which makes your packets harder to sniff how? You still want to run a firewall, and encryption. I also try to use secure protocols where it makes sense, ssh, pop3s, etc. I am not a trusting person, and I'm more worried about identity theft than viruses.

DO keep the updates current, the latest sendmail issue was serious, and could hit anyone who accepts mail.

Yes, I would wait. The amount of research you should do is directly
proportional to the amount of money you are planning to spend- and on a
high-end Duo laptop, I would research a lot.

The core-duo is not vastly expensive, but use some care in selection. I would go with the core-duo because it's harder to upgrade hardware than software. I'm staying with FC4 for most systems, because I have no experience with FC5 yet. I looked at SuSE, it's nice but not to my taste. Ubuntu has been stable on some work machines run by others, they like it, if you want KDE look for kubuntu.

Finally, my impression is that more people run Redhat Enterprise or FC than other distributions. That means your chances of getting an answer to a question are better. I would use that as just one thing to consider, but I wouldn't forget it.

There are several companies selling laptops with Linux installed, I belive tuxtops are still around. You might compare prices and features there. I believe there's a new ASUS with core-duo, I have to say I really like mine. Battery life with the big display (1400x900) isn't great, but the power saving in Linux works well with the CPU, so it's a bit of a wash.

--
bill davidsen
SBC/Prodigy Yorktown Heights NY data center
http://newsgroups.news.prodigy.com
.