Some companies sell laptops with Linux pre-installed. However in some cases I have read about, there may be significant caveats.

Some examples:

• Dell pre-installed their own drivers for Ubuntu on their laptops, and if you format the machine and reinstall, or reinstall a different distro, you can't get the source of the drivers and build your own.
• In ( Read more... )

A short extract of Neal Stephenson's seminal essay has been doing the rounds on HackerNews.

Unix - The Hole Hawg
THE HOLE HAWG OF OPERATING SYSTEMSOK, fine, so let's go with it ( Read more... )

[Another recycled mailing list post ( Read more... )

In fact, there are two free versions: one for Classic MacOS, made freeware when WordPerfect discontinued Mac support, and a native Linux version, for which Corel offered a free, fully-working, demo version ( Read more... )

I just finished doing up an old white MacBook from 2008 (note: not MacBook Pro) for Jana's best friend, back in Brno ( Read more... )

I have several RasPis lying around the place. I sold my π2 when I got a π3, but then that languished largely unused for several years, after the fun interlude of getting it running RiscOS in an old ZX Spectrum case.

Then I bought myself a π3+ in a passive-cooling heatsink/case for Yule 2018, which did get used for some testing at work, and since ( Read more... )

A response to a Reddit questionI can only agree with you. I have blogged and commented enough about this that I fear I am rather unpopular with the GNOME developer team these days ( Read more... )

A lot of my speculations concern the future of new, alternative operating systems which could escape from old-fashioned, sometimes ill-conceived models and languages ( Read more... )

They're a bit better in some ways. It's somewhat marginal now.

OK. Position statement up front.

Anyone who works in computers and only knows one platform is clueless. You need cross-platform knowledge and experience to actually be able to assess strengths, weaknesses, etc.

Most people in IT this century only know Windows and have only known ( Read more... )

I have been meaning to try Arch Linux for years.

As a former RPM user, once I finally made the switch to Ubuntu, more or less exactly 10y ago, well, since then, I have become so wedded to APT that I hesitate with non-APT distros ( Read more... )