To Caldera or not to Caldera

[Brent Harding]

With dell redhat systems, how hard is it to get speakup on them? I've heard
the disk control drivers are binary provided by dell, no disk, no boot,
recompiling the kernel could jeopardize support for the hardware, as dell
builds the code right in to the kernel. I'm thinking of going preinstall of
linux for my next system, as I have plenty of access to windows on this
machine now, and my laptop, so if I need to use windows, not a lot will be
missing, if one networked the machines.
At 12:16 PM 9/3/00 -0700, you wrote:
>My experience with different Linux distributions has been that each one
>does things slightly different, configuration utilities, directory trees
>in different locations sometime symbolicaly linked for compatability,
>different startup scripts to bring up network connections and the use of
>different hw device file names. As a general rule I try to use the
>utilities of the Linux distribution that I am using to configure stuff
>first and if that fails I will try the generic Linux way. I think
>Caldera uses "lizard" which corresponds to the RedHat "linuxconf".
>
>Can you get a new IBM Thinkpad with nothing installed? I would opt for
>Linux since it should be cheaper but If you plan on running Windows
>under Vmware you may opt for a Windows pre-install since Windows may be
>alot cheaper when acquired with a Thinkpad. It would be nice if you get
>get the Thinkpad with Linux, Vmware and Windows pre-installed.
>
>Past experience with Dell computer we actually chose to pay more money
>with a pre-installed RedHat desktop to see how Dell would install Linux.
>Our only choice of pre-installed operating systems were Windows OR
>RedHat 6.0, since we wanted a multi-boot we then had to go out and
>purchase Windows 98 for an additional 200 dollars. I think I understand
>this philosophy, based upon statistics Dell wants to know if sales are
>from Linux OR Windows.
>
>One thing you may want to confirm is whether or not you can to a "text"
>based install with the Caldera distribution, I know with RedHat or
>Mandrake you can still select a "text" based install.
>
>Greg Keto
>
>Janina Sajka wrote:
>> 
>> I'm looking for a little advice from the sages on this list. I'm about to
>> buy a new portable computer. From the hardware side I've pretty settled on
>> getting yet another IBM Thinkpad. I've had good enough experience with
>> them for some years now to feel comfortable getting another Thinkpad. This
>> will be my third in a row.
>> 
>> IBM has actively begun supporting linux in that they now offer one of
>> their leading Thinkpad models with Caldera OpenLinux eDesktop 2.4
>> preinstalled. So, here's the dilemma--Shall I get the preinstalled linux
>> and then patch with Speakup and tweak for my needs? Or should I just get
>> the hardware I want and go with an install from scratch? I have no
>> experience with Caldera whatsoever. All my working experience on Linux has
>> been with RedHat (plus a few forays into Debian). My desktop system is
>> running RedHat, and I'm keeping that system for the foreseeable future.
>> 
>> So, what would you do? And, how would you decide?
>> 
>> On the plus side I see two advantages, primarily. First, I think I can
>> assume the unit will be functional out of the box. Or, is that
>> foolhardy? Is it likely to be functional in X, but have many console text
>> features missing?
>> 
>> My second reason for going with the preinstalled system is that I want to
>> get vmware running for Windows access in a Linux console. I've never
>> succeeded at getting X working on my own--so have always fallen short of
>> this goal to date. I feel I'm ahead of the game if I get a working X
>> environment out of the box. Is this enough reason to go with the
>> preinstalled Caldera?
>> 
>> I very much appreciate any wisdom you would share on this. Thanks in
>> advance to all of you.
>> 
>> --
>> 
>>                                 Janina Sajka, Director
>>                                 Information Systems Research & Development
>>                                 American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)
>> 
>> janina at afb.net
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> Speakup mailing list
>> Speakup at braille.uwo.ca
>> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>
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