Today I found myself in need of a laptop to run Centos on. And that simple statement led to an all-day odyssey. My original plan was to purchase a laptop and install Centos 6 on it. I went to Staples and tried booting it on every model of laptop that they had in the store. They all come with Windows 8 installed, and for the edification of anyone who doesn't know this (I didn't until today) you have to conduct a real song and dance to get to the bios settings on one of those things: boot windows move mouse pointer to the top right corner of the screen move down to setting menu (gear) that shows up click on power off icon Hold shift key and left-click on "restart" it goes to the troubleshooting screen click on advanced troubleshooting click on "change uefi settings" now we get to the bios set secure boot off set legacy boot priority And then you can boot from a USB flash drive. *whew* (It's easy to put it back afterward, just go into the bios and tell it set to defaults, save and exit.) Anyway, I tried booting a Centos 6 Live CD image on a usb flash drive on every single model of laptop they had in stock and no joy on any of them -- they either hung altogether, started booting and hung at some point along the way, started a continuous cycle of start booting, reset, start booting again, or kernel panicked. Every last one. I then tried a Centos 7 Live CD image on another usb flash drive and then the third machine that I tried it on (Lenovo Ideapad S400 Touch) worked. So I bought that one and have now wiped Windows off of its hard drive and installed Centos 7 so it now looks and acts like a real computer. I never would have thought that it would take all bloody day to purchase one laptop. (And I'm going to be having nightmares about that Windows Boot Manager thing.) Since it has now become amazingly difficult to get a laptop if you're not planning to use Windows, at least around here, I'm wondering what the rest of you fine folks do when it comes to purchasing a laptop? Next time this comes up, I'd rather not have to spend all day on something that used to take fifteen minutes. -- MELVILLE THEATRE ~ Real D 3D Digital Cinema ~ www.melvilletheatre.com
> On Oct 1, 2014, at 22:57, Frank Cox <theatre at melvilletheatre.com> wrote: > [...] > Since it has now become amazingly difficult to get a laptop if you're not planning to use Windows, at least around here, I'm wondering what the rest of you fine folks do when it comes to purchasing a laptop?For the last few years I've been getting top of line Thinkpad T and X series. Too bad they've been making them cheaper recently.
Hello Frank, On Wed, 1 Oct 2014 22:57:30 -0600 Frank Cox <theatre at melvilletheatre.com> wrote:> Today I found myself in need of a laptop to run Centos on. And that simple statement led to an all-day odyssey.[snip]> Since it has now become amazingly difficult to get a laptop if you're not planning to use Windows, at least around here, I'm wondering what the rest of you fine folks do when it comes to purchasing a laptop? Next time this comes up, I'd rather not have to spend all day on something that used to take fifteen minutes.Dell Latitude series, from the old D810 to more recent E65xx ones. Regards, -- wwp -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 198 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature URL: <http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos/attachments/20141002/858bedb4/attachment-0003.sig>
My asus laptop booted linux fine... until the motherboard fried though.
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op 02-10-14 09:01, wwp schreef:> Hello Frank, > > > On Wed, 1 Oct 2014 22:57:30 -0600 Frank Cox <theatre at melvilletheatre.com> wrote: > >> Today I found myself in need of a laptop to run Centos on. And that simple statement led to an all-day odyssey. > [snip] >> Since it has now become amazingly difficult to get a laptop if you're not planning to use Windows, at least around here, I'm wondering what the rest of you fine folks do when it comes to purchasing a laptop? Next time this comes up, I'd rather not have to spend all day on something that used to take fifteen minutes. > Dell Latitude series, from the old D810 to more recent E65xx ones. > > > Regards, > > > > _______________________________________________ > CentOS mailing list > CentOS at centos.org > http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centosHello All, when buying laptops I try to avoid Ati/Radeon cards, because of pas issues. But maybe it would be all right now. Definitely no Broadcom wireless. No Lenovo because of id/pairing protected cards. In short, I look for laptops with as many Intel parts as possible. Although it is true that Amd is a lot of power for a buck. Greetings, J.
On Wed, 2014-10-01 at 22:57 -0600, Frank Cox wrote:> I'm wondering what the rest of you fine folks do when it comes to purchasing a laptop?Been using CentOS.available on a series of Dell Precision laptops (M4300, M4600) since 2007 or so without much difficulty.
Many years ago I purchased a Dell Inspiron direct from Dell and had very similar issues, so it is not just WinBloze 8, it is that the systems are intentionally set up to make it difficult. Took me about 3 hours just to get to the BIOS because the window of time was less than 1 second to hit the right key combo. The last time I purchased a laptop was from Emperor Linux in Atlanta, GA. http://www.emperorlinux.com/ I purchased a Lenovo W500 from them a few years ago with my favorite flavor of Linux already installed. They have very good support and the owners are very helpful. They also have a very large selection of models and you can choose your own hardware configuration. I have long since installed more recent versions of Linux, including Fedora 20. The best thing about purchasing from them is that they have tested and configured each computer before they ship them. It is a few hundred $$ more expensive than purchasing from a local big box store. I imagine I would have spent many hours researching and testing before I purchased, and then some additional time getting Linux installed and running on anything I purchased. As a business owner of a Linux consulting and training company, I consider my time worth at least $100 per hour which is my basic hourly charge when consulting. So figure that purchasing from Emperor saved me way more than the additional cost I paid to them. Plus I did not have to pay the M$ tax. I have also helped customers with recent Acers that seem to work well with Linux. I hope this helps. On 10/02/2014 12:57 AM, Frank Cox wrote:> Today I found myself in need of a laptop to run Centos on. And that simple statement led to an all-day odyssey. > > My original plan was to purchase a laptop and install Centos 6 on it. I went to Staples and tried booting it on every model of laptop that they had in the store. They all come with Windows 8 installed, and for the edification of anyone who doesn't know this (I didn't until today) you have to conduct a real song and dance to get to the bios settings on one of those things: > > boot windows > move mouse pointer to the top right corner of the screen > move down to setting menu (gear) that shows up > click on power off icon > Hold shift key and left-click on "restart" > it goes to the troubleshooting screen > click on advanced troubleshooting > click on "change uefi settings" > now we get to the bios > set secure boot off > set legacy boot priority > > And then you can boot from a USB flash drive. *whew* (It's easy to put it back afterward, just go into the bios and tell it set to defaults, save and exit.) > > Anyway, I tried booting a Centos 6 Live CD image on a usb flash drive on every single model of laptop they had in stock and no joy on any of them -- they either hung altogether, started booting and hung at some point along the way, started a continuous cycle of start booting, reset, start booting again, or kernel panicked. Every last one. > > I then tried a Centos 7 Live CD image on another usb flash drive and then the third machine that I tried it on (Lenovo Ideapad S400 Touch) worked. So I bought that one and have now wiped Windows off of its hard drive and installed Centos 7 so it now looks and acts like a real computer. > > I never would have thought that it would take all bloody day to purchase one laptop. (And I'm going to be having nightmares about that Windows Boot Manager thing.) > > Since it has now become amazingly difficult to get a laptop if you're not planning to use Windows, at least around here, I'm wondering what the rest of you fine folks do when it comes to purchasing a laptop? Next time this comes up, I'd rather not have to spend all day on something that used to take fifteen minutes. > > > -- > > > ********************************************************* > David P. Both, RHCE > Millennium Technology Consulting LLC > Raleigh, NC, USA > 919-389-8678 > > dboth at millennium-technology.com > > www.millennium-technology.com > www.databook.bz - Home of the DataBook for Linux > DataBook is a Registered Trademark of David Both > ********************************************************* > This communication may be unlawfully collected and stored by the National Security Agency (NSA) in secret. The parties to this email do not consent to the retrieving or storing of this communication and any related metadata, as well as printing, copying, re-transmitting, disseminating, or otherwise using it. If you believe you have received this communication in error, please delete it immediately. >
1. use Fedora Live instead of CentOS for boot test, then install CentOS and replace the kernel with ELRepo kernel-ml. This is usually newer even than Fedora's, thus presumably with much better support for new HW than stock CentOS. Of course, the risk here is that CentOS would not install/boot to the point to have a working yum and (wired) network. This can be usually tweaked, but hackish. 2. search the net how well is supported (any) Linux distro by the models of interest, to not waste time trying them all at the shop. With ELRepo kernels one can usually replicate the same or better support for CentOS -- if it can be tricked into installing and booting a minimal installation with yum and network. Using Fedora for many years, I have noted that a new HW gets fully supported gradually over 6-12 months. For instance, the last laptop I bought was an Asus UX31E for which even the motherboard was not well supported at the begin. After a year or so all fit into place. :-) I also keep a copy of the full disk with the original OS untouched to not loose the warranty. Before installing I boot into any Linux Live I have at hand and issue something like: dd if=/dev/sda | xz -9c directing the output to a network storage. Hope this helps. Mihai On Wed, Oct 01, 2014 at 10:57:30PM -0600, Frank Cox wrote:> Today I found myself in need of a laptop to run Centos on. And > that simple statement led to an all-day odyssey. > > My original plan was to purchase a laptop and install Centos 6 on > it. I went to Staples and tried booting it on every model of > laptop that they had in the store. They all come with Windows > 8 installed, and for the edification of anyone who doesn't know > this (I didn't until today) you have to conduct a real song and > dance to get to the bios settings on one of those things: > > boot windows > move mouse pointer to the top right corner of the screen > move down to setting menu (gear) that shows up > click on power off icon > Hold shift key and left-click on "restart" > it goes to the troubleshooting screen > click on advanced troubleshooting > click on "change uefi settings" > now we get to the bios > set secure boot off > set legacy boot priority > > And then you can boot from a USB flash drive. *whew* (It's easy > to put it back afterward, just go into the bios and tell it set to > defaults, save and exit.) > > Anyway, I tried booting a Centos 6 Live CD image on a usb flash > drive on every single model of laptop they had in stock and no joy > on any of them -- they either hung altogether, started booting and > hung at some point along the way, started a continuous cycle of > start booting, reset, start booting again, or kernel panicked. > Every last one. > > I then tried a Centos 7 Live CD image on another usb flash drive > and then the third machine that I tried it on (Lenovo Ideapad S400 > Touch) worked. So I bought that one and have now wiped Windows off > of its hard drive and installed Centos 7 so it now looks and acts > like a real computer. > > I never would have thought that it would take all bloody day to > purchase one laptop. (And I'm going to be having nightmares about > that Windows Boot Manager thing.) > > Since it has now become amazingly difficult to get a laptop if > you're not planning to use Windows, at least around here, I'm > wondering what the rest of you fine folks do when it comes to > purchasing a laptop? Next time this comes up, I'd rather not have > to spend all day on something that used to take fifteen minutes.
On 10/2/2014 12:01 AM, wwp wrote:> Dell Latitude series, from the old D810 to more recent E65xx ones.well, I'd have said D600 to E64xx, as those big ones are boat anchors for travel. -- john r pierce 37N 122W somewhere on the middle of the left coast
On 10/01/2014 11:57 PM, Frank Cox wrote:> I'm wondering what the rest of you fine folks do when it comes to purchasing a laptop? Next time this comes up, I'd rather not have to spend all day on something that used to take fifteen minutes.I don't make laptop purchases often... but it's 100% Intel hardware when I do. Currently using a HP Envy TS m6-k025dx Sleek Book Refurbished from HP @ $529 [1]. You can still find them on-line... they were $750 new. Core i5 @ 2.6 GHz 8GB / 750GB 15.6" LED-backlit touch screen @ 1920x1080 Intel HD 4400 graphics 5.6 lbs Everything works out of the box with C7 including touchscreen, wireless, blue-tooth, camera, audio. I had to reassign two pins on the sound chip to enable the sub woofer. I'd want a better keyboard if I were using the machine to code... [1] Windows users were returning them in droves due to buggy Intel wireless drivers. Thanks for the $220 discount HP !
On 2014-10-02, Frank Cox <theatre at melvilletheatre.com> wrote:> > Since it has now become amazingly difficult to get a laptop if you're not planning to use Windows, at least around here, I'm wondering what the rest of you fine folks do when it comes to purchasing a laptop? Next time this comes up, I'd rather not have to spend all day on something that used to take fifteen minutes.I know this is probably a bit sacrilegious, but recently I have been tending to get a Mac laptop, and run any linux distributions I need inside a VM. OS X is (just barely) tolerable enough to be usable for most of my desktop purposes. (It's not really cost-effective compared to non-Apple laptops, unfortunately.) --keith -- kkeller at wombat.san-francisco.ca.us
Any Windows 8 laptop requires "secure boot" does it not? If I'm not mistaken that's where your issues stem from. Just Micro$oft trying to get even more control from what I've heard. ? Sent from Mailbox On Thu, Oct 2, 2014 at 12:58 AM, Frank Cox <theatre at melvilletheatre.com> wrote:> Today I found myself in need of a laptop to run Centos on. And that simple statement led to an all-day odyssey. > My original plan was to purchase a laptop and install Centos 6 on it. I went to Staples and tried booting it on every model of laptop that they had in the store. They all come with Windows 8 installed, and for the edification of anyone who doesn't know this (I didn't until today) you have to conduct a real song and dance to get to the bios settings on one of those things: > boot windows > move mouse pointer to the top right corner of the screen > move down to setting menu (gear) that shows up > click on power off icon > Hold shift key and left-click on "restart" > it goes to the troubleshooting screen > click on advanced troubleshooting > click on "change uefi settings" > now we get to the bios > set secure boot off > set legacy boot priority > And then you can boot from a USB flash drive. *whew* (It's easy to put it back afterward, just go into the bios and tell it set to defaults, save and exit.) > Anyway, I tried booting a Centos 6 Live CD image on a usb flash drive on every single model of laptop they had in stock and no joy on any of them -- they either hung altogether, started booting and hung at some point along the way, started a continuous cycle of start booting, reset, start booting again, or kernel panicked. Every last one. > I then tried a Centos 7 Live CD image on another usb flash drive and then the third machine that I tried it on (Lenovo Ideapad S400 Touch) worked. So I bought that one and have now wiped Windows off of its hard drive and installed Centos 7 so it now looks and acts like a real computer. > I never would have thought that it would take all bloody day to purchase one laptop. (And I'm going to be having nightmares about that Windows Boot Manager thing.) > Since it has now become amazingly difficult to get a laptop if you're not planning to use Windows, at least around here, I'm wondering what the rest of you fine folks do when it comes to purchasing a laptop? Next time this comes up, I'd rather not have to spend all day on something that used to take fifteen minutes. > -- > MELVILLE THEATRE ~ Real D 3D Digital Cinema ~ www.melvilletheatre.com > _______________________________________________ > CentOS mailing list > CentOS at centos.org > http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
On 10/02/2014 06:39 AM, Brian Miller wrote:> On Wed, 2014-10-01 at 22:57 -0600, Frank Cox wrote: > >> I'm wondering what the rest of you fine folks do when it comes to purchasing a laptop? > Been using CentOS.available on a series of Dell Precision laptops > (M4300, M4600) since 2007 or so without much difficulty. > >I am typing this reply on a Dell Precision M4300 in Thunderbird on CentOS 6. Even though the M4300 isn't the newest thing out there, it is my primary machine, and has been for a year or so (previously my primary was a Dell Precision M65 for about four years). The M4300 is essentially the exact same thing as a Latitude D830, with a different main and video BIOS. The video chip in the D830, if you pull the heatsink, actually has the FX 360M silscreened on the die, even though it identifies as either an NVS135M or NVS140M (depending upon amount of video RAM). (The M65 is essentially the D820, and the D820 just has a slightly crippled BIOS that reports the video as and NVS-series instead of an FX-series). With a Penryn CPU and sufficient RAM the box is snappy (I have a T9300 in mine, although the T9500 or X9000 would be a bit faster. The X9000 is over three times the price of a T9300, used, and the difference between a Penryn at 2.5GHz and at 2.8GHz is minimal; now, the 2.5GHz T9300 will wipe the floor with a 2.6GHz Merom-core T7800 (I've tried this comparison, and the Penryn is significantly faster). And since many sellers just list the speed and not the core, you're guaranteed a Penryn if you get a 2.5GHz, but the T7800 Merom and the T9500 Penryn are both 2.6GHz..... and while the T9300 and T9500 are both listed as 35W chips (the X9000 is a 44W chip, and while it will work, these machines are already straining in the thermal management department.....) the T9300 does run a bit cooler, and that's good for the GPU, which shares the heatpipe radiator with the CPU and northbridge. Do note that the FX 360M is one of the heat-plagued nVidia chips, so I have a small supply of known working motherboards (mine are in machines....) on-hand, since the GPU will fail sooner or later. As to the wifi, I'm using a Dell-branded Broadcom BCM4321 802.11a/b/g/n card, using the ELrepo kmod-wl built from the 'nosrc' RPM available from ELrepo (the kmod interface means kernel updates shouldn't break it.....). The reason for the Broadcom has to do with another OS that I'm dual-booting on this machine..... I know, that's probably more than you wanted to know.... but, not too incidentally, a gently-used M4300 can be had on eBay for less than $100. I got another spare just this past week for about $60, 1920x1200 screen and all. I have thought about trying for an M4400 with a quad-core, though.
On 10/02/2014 02:11 PM, Mike McCarthy, W1NR wrote:> If you look at the Latitude and Precision offerings from Dell you will > notice that RHEL is offered as an OS. These are specifically designed > to run Linux and therefore, they should all work fine with CentOS as > well.Very true; Dell has offered RHEL on the Precision workstations, desktop and mobile, for a number of years.
On Wed, 2014-10-01 at 22:57 -0600, Frank Cox wrote:> Today I found myself in need of a laptop to run Centos on. And that simple statement led to an all-day odyssey. > > My original plan was to purchase a laptop and install Centos 6 on it. I went to Staples and tried booting it on every model of laptop that they had in the store. They all come with Windows 8 installed, and for the edification of anyone who doesn't know this (I didn't until today) you have to conduct a real song and dance to get to the bios settings on one of those things: > > boot windows > move mouse pointer to the top right corner of the screen > move down to setting menu (gear) that shows up > click on power off icon > Hold shift key and left-click on "restart" > it goes to the troubleshooting screen > click on advanced troubleshooting > click on "change uefi settings" > now we get to the bios > set secure boot off > set legacy boot priority > > And then you can boot from a USB flash drive. *whew* (It's easy to put it back afterward, just go into the bios and tell it set to defaults, save and exit.) > > Anyway, I tried booting a Centos 6 Live CD image on a usb flash drive on every single model of laptop they had in stock and no joy on any of them -- they either hung altogether, started booting and hung at some point along the way, started a continuous cycle of start booting, reset, start booting again, or kernel panicked. Every last one. > > I then tried a Centos 7 Live CD image on another usb flash drive and then the third machine that I tried it on (Lenovo Ideapad S400 Touch) worked. So I bought that one and have now wiped Windows off of its hard drive and installed Centos 7 so it now looks and acts like a real computer. > > I never would have thought that it would take all bloody day to purchase one laptop. (And I'm going to be having nightmares about that Windows Boot Manager thing.) > > Since it has now become amazingly difficult to get a laptop if you're not planning to use Windows, at least around here, I'm wondering what the rest of you fine folks do when it comes to purchasing a laptop? Next time this comes up, I'd rather not have to spend all day on something that used to take fifteen minutes. >Choosing a laptop these days does have some extra pitfalls, especially if you're a GNU Linux user. I have just started college (return to education) and while waiting for my student finance having been looking round at the laptop options. My intention is to run CentOS 6.x and VM Windows and any other OS etc. After discarding many options I seem to have settled with an eye on a HP ProBook 455 G2. http://store.hp.com/UKStore/Merch/Product.aspx?id=G6W43EA&opt=ABU&sel=PBNB This system has legacy BIOS options if you read the manuals and does mention linux quite a bit. There is info about Ubuntu and below is a link to the laptop on Ubuntu certification site. http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/hardware/201404-14968/components/ If anyone is running CentOS on this series of laptop, I would very much like to hear your experiences! Regards Phil -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 836 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: <http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos/attachments/20141004/938e4a88/attachment-0003.sig>
On Sat, 2014-10-04 at 12:56 +0100, Phil Wyett wrote:> On Wed, 2014-10-01 at 22:57 -0600, Frank Cox wrote: > > Today I found myself in need of a laptop to run Centos on. And that simple statement led to an all-day odyssey.> My intention is to run CentOS 6.x and VM Windows and any other OS etc. > After discarding many options I seem to have settled with an eye on a HP > ProBook 455 G2. > > http://store.hp.com/UKStore/Merch/Product.aspx?id=G6W43EA&opt=ABU&sel=PBNBThere are several ProBook 455 G2 variants. Your one is G6W43EA. AMD Dual-Core A6 Pro-7050B APU with Radeon R4 Graphics Very unimpressive CPU. I stopped buying anything that low in performance 4 years ago. But it is your choice. For simple writing it may be sufficient. If you can afford it, and regardless of which machine you eventually purchase, increase the memory to 8 GB. http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php Seeing off-the-shelf computer systems available only with Windoze greatly depresses me. Inevitably one wonders if Centos will cleanly install on them or whether the hardware/firmware have been 'windozed' to prevent the installation of superior competing operating systems. The windoze monopoly should be stopped by law. The only hope is the EU's anti-competition policy since the USA will not act. -- Regards, Paul. England, EU.
On 10/4/14, Phil Wyett <philwyett at aura-tech-systems.co.uk> wrote:> My intention is to run CentOS 6.x and VM Windows and any other OS etc. > After discarding many options I seem to have settled with an eye on a HP > ProBook 455 G2. > > http://store.hp.com/UKStore/Merch/Product.aspx?id=G6W43EA&opt=ABU&sel=PBNB > > This system has legacy BIOS options if you read the manuals and does > mention linux quite a bit. There is info about Ubuntu and below is a > link to the laptop on Ubuntu certification site. > > http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/hardware/201404-14968/components/ > > If anyone is running CentOS on this series of laptop, I would very much > like to hear your experiences!I don't run C6 on this series but having tried both C6 and C7 on a HP Touchsmart with AMD/ATI GPU, my suggestion echos others in the thread, stay away from AMD graphics for laptops. C7 works fine, once I got proprietary AMD drivers installed and remembered to recompile them after a kernel version jump.
On 10/02/2014 06:57 AM, Frank Cox wrote:> I went to Staples and tried booting it on every model of laptop that > they had in the store. They all come with Windows 8 installed, and > for the edification of anyone who doesn't know this (I didn't until > today) you have to conduct a real song and dance to get to the bios > settings on one of those things:I also wanted to make sure that Linux is supported by my new laptop so I went to the store and booted a live CD. For better hardware support and newer drivers I didn't choose CentOS but Lubuntu LTS. Luckily, the first laptop, a Toshiba Satellite L50 booted without any issues. WIFI was also working so I took that. I wouldn't use mail order since I've read that there are different hardware configurations possible, although they're using the same model name. -- Gru?, Christian