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Comment Re:Linux is for servers - not laptops (Score 2, Informative) 445

by MadTinfoilHatter (#26108983) Attached to: The Economist Suggests Linux For Netbooks

If you buy a netbook and the OEM Linux distro, customized by the manufacturer, doesn't run the hardware properly, please let us know.

Okay. I bought a HP2133 (model FU337EA#AK8) as a Christmas present for my sister. It came with Novell SLED 10. The out-of-the-box-installation was completely unusable. Besides choosing a distro that's a real PITA to get forum support about (and in cases like these, it's pretty much the only support you'll get), the hardware they included had linux support ranging from poor to horrible.

Here's a list of the worst problems:

-Graphics drivers. The laptop uses a VIA graphics card, and out of the box, it only runs in an awful looking 640x480-stretched-to-fit-the-screen-VESA-mode. There are some pre-compiled 3D VIA binaries for a few kernels of some distros. There's also some source code for 2D drivers that I couldn't get to compile. (Fortunately some kind soul did get them to compile, and was kind enough to make the binaries publicly available.) Of course getting it working it wasn't that easy. You see HP offers 2 different screen sizes on this laptop, and this model naturally carried the less common one. It took me three days and several forum posts to find the obscure lines to edit in xorg.conf (And I do mean obscure, not just tweaking the resolution or modlines.) Option "PanelID" "17" in combination with a few other tweaks, I believe was the key to success.

-Audio drivers. Well, they'll work out of the box it would seem, as long as you don't want to use the headphone jacks or a microphone. HP appears to be using a not-quite-supported ADI SoundMax AD1984A soundcard. If you want to use, say Skype, you need to download the latest nightly ALSA build and compile that. Then you'll get the mic and jacks working as well. The only problem remaining is that every once in a while artsd thinks that hogging all the CPU cycles is a really good idea, and the ordinary Skype package won't work. You'll want the one labelled static-oss.

-Wireless. So far I believe the community has identified 5 different WLAN-cards used in these laptops. All from Broadcom. If you follow the instructions in the wikis really, really carefully, you'll probably have it working in an hour or two. :-P

So to sum it up: The SLED system that came with the netbook was an unusable mess. I switched to Kubuntu that I somehow managed to get working through a lot of effort, patience, and community support. The HP netbooks look very nice, and have better keyboards that most comparable systems, but given the level of half-assedness to the default install it's hard to recommend them to anyone. (The other alternative is Vista which is much more expensive, and even harder to recommend.) It would seem that HP just assumes that people buying these things are just going to pirate XP anyway, so why bother with quality control?

Oh, and I've got an Asus EEE myself. No problems whatsoever, with that one. Didn't quite like the default install, so I installed Mandriva instead. Still no problems.
Links

Submission + - Legal Action Against Students By their University

Submitted by FSM_follower
FSM_follower writes: I have recently read on http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/staffordshire/6 686619.stm about legal action being take against students writing on private friends linked site such as myspace. Surely it is for private use and expression of oppinions in a free and open way. How can you possibly take legal action when it is a private oppinion expressed to friends over a private linked site between friends. Please read the link and comment, someone will know the full story and explain.
Linux Business

Submission + - It's real: Dell sells PCs with Ubuntu preinstalled

Submitted by
javipas
javipas writes: "Today could mark a turning point for the history of Linux. Dell will start today 4pm CST selling three machines with Ubuntu 7.04 preinstalled. The two desktops (XPS 410n, $899 and Dimension E520n, $599) and the notebook (Inspiron E1505n, $599)will be the first three machines with the popular Linux distribution installed by default. Dell has announced that they will provide hardware support, and they've created a new site devoted to give further Linux support and updates. At the moment the offer is available in the US, but we all hope the rest of the world can enjoy it very soon. Good luck!"
Patents

Submission + - Microsoft will not sue over Linux patents

Submitted by San Muel
San Muel writes: In an official statement, Microsoft has said it has no immediate plans to sue after alleging patent infringements by open-source vendors for the time being.

"If we wanted to go down that road we could have done that three years ago," said a Microsoft spokesperson. "Rather than litigate, Microsoft has spent the last three years building an intellectual property bridge that works for all parties — including open source — and the customer response has been tremendously positive. Our focus is on continuing to build bridges."
Music

RIAA Claims Ownership of All Artist Royalties For Internet Radio 458

Posted by Zonk from the isn't-that-called-stealing dept.
ISurfTooMuch writes "With the furor over the impending rate hike for Internet radio stations, wouldn't a good solution be for streaming internet stations to simply not play RIAA-affiliated labels' music and focus on independent artists? Sounds good, except that the RIAA's affiliate organization SoundExchange claims it has the right to collect royalties for any artist, no matter if they have signed with an RIAA label or not. 'SoundExchange (the RIAA) considers any digital performance of a song as falling under their compulsory license. If any artist records a song, SoundExchange has the right to collect royalties for its performance on Internet radio. Artists can offer to download their music for free, but they cannot offer their songs to Internet radio for free ... So how it works is that SoundExchange collects money through compulsory royalties from Webcasters and holds onto the money. If a label or artist wants their share of the money, they must become a member of SoundExchange and pay a fee to collect their royalties.'"
America Online

AOL Security Compromised by Teenager 99

Posted by Zonk from the off-the-shelf-hacking-oh-great dept.
Freaky_Friday wrote with a link to an InfoWorld article about a teenage kid accessing customer information at AOL. The alleged criminal trespass began late last year, and extended up through early April. According to the article, the guy used some 'off-the-shelf' hacking software he downloaded online to gain access to, and then transmit information from, AOL's systems. "The complaint states that Nieves admitted to investigators that he committed the alleged acts because AOL took away his accounts. 'I accessed their internal accounts and their network and used it to try to get my accounts back,' the defendant is quoted as saying in the complaint. He also admitted to posting photos of his exploits in a photo Web site, according to the complaint ... If the defendant was honest about his motivation in his reported confession, it's safe to assume that he wasn't interested in stealing data for financial gain, [Managing director of technology at FTI Consulting Mark] Rasch said. Still, it'll be interesting to find out what steps AOL is taking if customer data was in fact compromised, he said."

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