Personal Bytes

If you read my sidebar just below my picture you’ll notice that I’m a big Linux fan and a Free/Open Source Software proponent. Moreover, if you track my blog long enough or care to take a look at the category Linux you’ll definitely see that I love Linux. I happily use it since 1997 when I first booted Redhat 5.0. I remember the first time my father brought a Redhat box directly from Hong Kong (you couldn’t buy one in Portugal by that time). It was 8 years ago and since then I fell in love with it.

In the last years, perhaps since 2002, you’ve been hearing about the idea of Linux taking on Windows on the desktop. 2002 ought to be the year of Linux desktop. And then 2003. 2004, 2005…

This year I haven’t heard about that. Well, as I’ve written before, this is definitely the year of Linux. Clap, clap. That’s a great achievement. But I’m one of those kind of guys that does never settle down with one accomplishment.

So, what now? Laptop.

After using several laptops and several distributions I gave up using Linux on my laptop (and hence bought a Macbook). Here are some reasons for it:

• [Lack of] ACPI support
• Suspend-to-Ram/Hibernate rarely works and when it does (and does not crash) you’ll have to wait long time between it’s operable. Oh, 3d acceleration? You can’t have that if you want Suspend to Ram!
• Using external displays is just a joke. Disable Beryl, restart X and if you’re lucky enough, it worked. Change the resolution for the external display? Sure, let me just hack xorg.conf a little bit (in the meanwhile, people are waiting and making jokes out of you)
• Fn keys are also subject to random will. On some laptops they work, on others you have to tweak X manually to make them work
• Battery (typo: not memory, of course) management is not efficient enough
• Lack of drivers from most SD card readers
• Bluetooth usually does not work (or at least correctly)
• Wireless support is fairly bad. Try connecting to some exotic setups like EAP/TTLS and you’ll see yourself downloading certificates, tweaking wpa-supplicant, killing NetworkManager so it doesn’t mess up, etc..
• Fingerprint reader requires huge loads of time for making it to work
• IRDA is another pain to setup correctly on most laptops

Regarding reason number 1 — and I definitely care to explain that one — we all know who’s responsible for it. Our beloved Microsoft. I’ve also explained a long time ago why ACPI support is broken on Linux. Nevertheless, it does not work. The other problems are mainly due to drivers (or lack thereof). However, why it doesn’t work is only relevant to those fixing it, not to those using it. Most of the users couldn’t care less why it doesn’t work — not working is enough for them.

If you have time to waste (you’re reading this, you certainly have) then take a look at the tons of reports written by users at TuxMobil. In most of the reviews you’ll find a list of things that do not work.

If you’re one of those lucky guys that have a laptop where you share none of the problems aforementioned, let me congratulate you. You are one lucky guy. I tried it one several laptops including HP nx1050, Asus S5N, IBM T60 and I’ve always, always, had problems.

This discussion was initially raised on P*’s private mailing list and it was very interesting. I don’t criticize for no reason (ok, except for this). I’ve been there, got the t-shirt. I know what works and what doesn’t.

The bottom line is that Linux still has a long way to go to be a solid choice for the laptop. If you’re willing to waste hours tweaking it than you should be fine. Since I prefer doing other things than tweaking wpasupplicant.conf files, my laptop was rightfully replaced by a Mac.

My desktop runs, and will still run, Linux. Also, I do have Debian running virtualized inside Mac OS X. It’s the cream on the top of the cake. It does not suffer from any of the laptop problems.

So, who wants to predict the year of Linux on the laptop? I’d go for 3Q 2008.