Best Linux distro/laptop combo

John The Bad

I was wondering, what is the best combination of laptop and Linux distro? For example, I saw a beautiful laptop from HP that had complete touchscreen capability. It comes with Vista (a mediocre OS). I'd say I'd have some crack installing Ubuntu on this machine and attempting to get all the fancy touchscreen tools to work.

So, what's the best combo?

EKRIUQ

Windows 7 is orientated towards a lot of touch screen functionality, as for a linux distro, Ubuntu is probably the most advanced but isn't going to have touch screen functions up to speed for some while.

What don't you like about Vista it's not such a bad Operating System

Stuxnet

sabayon linux 4.2

Galen

Multi touch for any, all synaptics touchpad

http://ubuntu-snippets.blogspot.com/2009/03/multi-touch-for-anyall-synaptics.html

Multi-touch became trendy after iphone came up with it. We are seeing many new laptops with multi-touch. At hardware level, there is nothing special that you need, to make multi-touch work. You can also do two-finger scroll and two-finger tap to right/middle click. Also, three-finger tap, but, for me it is very hard to press three fingers at the same time(1 out of 10).

Create new file

gksudo gedit /etc/hal/fdi/policy/11-x11-synaptics.fdi

Paste the following code into the file and save it.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<deviceinfo version="0.2">
<device>
<match key="info.capabilities" contains="input.touchpad">
<merge key="input.x11_driver" type="string">synaptics</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.SHMConfig" type="string">On</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.EmulateTwoFingerMinZ" type="string">90</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.VertTwoFingerScroll" type="string">1</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.HorizTwoFingerScroll" type="string">1</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.TapButton1" type="string">1</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.TapButton2" type="string">3</merge> <!--two finger tap -> middle clieck(3) -->
<merge key="input.x11_options.TapButton3" type="string">2</merge> <!--three finger tap -> right click(2). almost impossible to click -->
</match>
</device>
</deviceinfo>

Restart hal and enjoy multitouch touchpad.

sudo /etc/init.d/hal restart

Update: Diagnosing your touchpad for multi-finger-sensing-capability
Few people have problem with this not working, while it works for few others. This is posted in ubuntu forums

synclient -m 100

Fifth column in the output f is number of fingers on your touchpad. Put two or more fingers on your touchpad and watch the column. If you see it more than one, this should work for you.

John The Bad

EKRIUQ wrote: »

Windows 7 is orientated towards a lot of touch screen functionality, as for a linux distro, Ubuntu is probably the most advanced but isn't going to have touch screen functions up to speed for some while.

What don't you like about Vista it's not such a bad Operating System

Truth be told, I haven't used it much. I think XP is a very good OS -- quite solid. But Vista seems clunky and unfinished and it's a hell of a resource hog. Also, it ain't open source.

John The Bad

Hi guys. Forget I mentioned touch-screen functionality, I only used that as an example. I want to know what people think is the best Linux/laptop combo.

Tom Dunne

Ubuntu is the business, for two reasons:

1: It passes The Wife Test.

I put Ubuntu on my wife's laptop over a year ago and she is quite happy with it. She can do all the usual stuff, including e-mail, surfing, Instant messaging, Open Office and so on.

2: Connectivity

I use it almost daily with a Live CD for my 3G Vodafone card. I actually find it more stable than Windows Vista

I am sure there are many more, but they are two that stick out for me.