[Lancaster] Re: [offlist] Re: Laptop Power Managment

[Andy Baxter]

On Thursday 15 July 2004 18:49, Ken Hough wrote:

> > This is true - though consider also the power use of a
> > desktop versus laptop. Also the benefits of a laptop in
> > a region with frequent power cuts.
>
> That's possibly the biggest thing in favour of laptops in remote areas,
> especially if isolated from the mains supply during the rainy/stormy
> season. Even so, beware unprotected modems. Last year my sister lost her
> laptop's modem during a storm in this country.
>
> Alternatively, use a normal PC with a UPS.

i just found out via do a mini-itx motherboard with built in 12V DC-DC 
converter, so you can run it off a lead acid battery (The via EPIA-TC). could 
be useful for anyone wanting a pc to use in a vehicle or off wind/solar 
power.

> >>On my limited experience with Debian, I certainly wouldn't recommend it
> >>for remote places where expertise is limited. Debian is not friendly and
> >>you have to know it (and Linux generally) to manage it. I've recently
> >>installed/set up both 'woody' and 'sarge' and have to say that I'm not
> >>impressed with either. They may be good in expert hands for 'serious'
> >>server work, but in both cases, installation programmes are (IMHO)
> >>primitive and software is dated.
> >
> > Ah, now here I have to seriously disagree with you. I've used
> > Debian GNU/Linux as my main desktop for at least five years
> > (though I've rarely had much control over what's installed on
> > servers in places where I've worked).
> >
> > Debian is great for lazy people as it takes next to no management
> > to keep it going. Installation may occasionally be a pig, but that's
> > just one day out of more than a thousand over a machine's life. :-)
>
> Debian great for lazy people?
>
> Hand hacking is not for lazy people (ie Me). I guess you are not
> familier with the likes of 'YAST'. Just tell it what you want done and
> it does it. Now that's what I call being lazy. If you want to hand hack
> a quicky, that's still no problem. I accept that 'YAST' is a bit of a
> heavyweight for low spec hardware.
>
> Debian can be a pig because in many ways, it's not bog standard. For
> example, the standard 'X' setup utility 'xf86config' will fail, because
> by default it writes the config file to '/etc/X11/XF86Config'. Debian
> insists on this file being called '/etc/X11/XF86Config-4'. Also,
> 'xf86cfg' supplied with Debian fails miserably for a number of reasons.
> Not only does it by default write the config file to the wrong place,
> the file is incorrect (ie does run up X). Before running up 'xf86cfg',
> it's neccessary to manually set up a soft link (/dev/mouse) to point to
> the actual mouse device. Failure to do this causes 'xf86cfg' to crash.
>
> I've discovered a number of (unneccessary) sillies like this. All very
> well when you know about them.
>
> I will persevere with Debian because a number of people use it, so I
> want to understand it. IMHO, from a desktop users point of view, Debian
> just doesn't cut it.
>
> I'm now climbing into my asbestos suit!

some of this is fair enough, but on the whole i've found debian fairly easy to 
keep running once you know how things work. e.g. to set up X, just use 
'dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86'. Usually when you install a new package it 
gets set up with sensible defaults - e.g. apache is configured to server 
pages from /var/www. A good point is the range of packages is greater than 
any other distro i think - e.g. SuSE 9.1 has audacity but not rezound; debian 
has both. Also apt-get plus synaptic or aptitude makes package management 
quite easy.

What would make it a lot better is if there was a program which let you select 
packages to configure from a menu - e.g. there's no easy way to tell atm that 
it's xserver-xfree86 you need to reconfigure to set up X, out of the 3 or 4 X 
packages.

things that annoy me about it are:
- the out-of-dateness of the stable distro.
- sometimes things get changed for no reason when you upgrade, like the fonts 
in different applications.
- the documentation isn't that well organised - it would be better if there 
was a single front end to all the documentation, like in suse.

andy.
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Thanks, andy.