OSDev.org

Does anyone know of a magical place salling high quality laptops and let you specify excactly what you want and don't want! link vista, office, mcafee, etc.? I know I don't and it annoys the hell out of me...

Ok, so I'm kinda in love with Dell's XPS laptop's, but both Vista and office are forced upon me and I just can't accept that, and I don't care wether it would make a difference or not regarding the price.

I also considered the macbook pro, but i really really really hate hate hate hate osx.

So, whats left? I definently not buying a toshiba again...


Anyway, I'm through wining now.

Zepto?
Sager Notebooks?

Zepto simply doesn't have what i want and I don't have mch confidence in the quality either.
I don't know "Sager Notebooks" so I'll have to check that out.
I also found www.mybook.dk which looks promising, but since I've never heard of them before, I also have some doubt about buying from them and won't do so untill I read a few reviews.

Also keep in mind that while it would be nice with a danish keyboard layout, I don't really need it as such, so it doesn't necesarily have to be from a danish shop, it just has to be an european country.

edit:
I looked at sager notebooks and I must say the prices are impresive and also it seems they'll ship to Denmark with no added tax, but still they don't quite have what I'm looking for (but allmost) and i know nothing about the quality of their products.

Hi,

Not really a retailer, but there's a bit of a guide to building a laptop > here < - it may be a bit more hands-on than you wanted, if you just want manufacturer links.

> here < is a not-so useful guide!

Cheers,
Adam

I have been considering building my own, but I desided against it because I would have to go all the way in terms of what i really want, that mean a project which is far beyond what I can hope to to complete in any near future.

I have been able to find what I'm looking for, the www.mybook.dk i mentioned earlier, but I haven't been able to find much about the quality of their products.

try looking for systems at Newegg, TigerDirect, or another big reseller. they seem to have both have a fairly large stock of laptops.

i personally own a Macbook Pro and use OS X (i like it though). You can get a Macbook Pro, format the drive and install Windows if you wish (or a Linux distro, Ubuntu has a straightforward guide on installing it on an Intel mac)

hope you find something you like!

Can you really install xp on a macbook pro?
It doesn't matter anyway as I'm going for pure 64 bit now.

On another note it wasn't really fair when I said I hated osx as I haven't tried it for a long time, so I guess a question or two reagarding this would be appropiate.

I have considered which os I want to run.
I've allways loved the way debian runs thing, but it has its drawbacks too and somehow I allways end up screwing it all up in a hopeless atempt to get all the hardware working properbly, so i have more or less descided to go with ubuntu instead, but I also have a few questions regarding this.

1. As far as I know there is 3 popular releases: ubuntu, kubuntu and xubuntu. I know that the main difference is the desktop enviroment, but I haven't been able to confirm that this is really the only difference. Also I'm unsure whether to go with gnome or xfce. I'm fairly sure that KDE is out of the question though, it just seems like overkill for a desktop enviroment. I have been using gnome and it's ok i guess, but I have never used xfce. As far as I know xfce is a really lightweight desktop enviroment which doesnt take up alot of resources and isn't too flashy and this is something I really like to hear.
2. I also have some conserns regarding the packaging system. I know it's adopted from debian, but I also know that changes has been made. Whether or not this is a problem I don't know.

(now to the osx questions)
3. How different is the desktop enviroment really from windows, gnome and/or KDE?
4. Du you have 64 bit support?
5. What about software? Is osx basicly a pure linux dostribution now and if so, is there any complications at all involved with running regular linux software like GIMP, OpenOffice, etc.?
6. What about a package management system?
7. What about pc software not realsed specifically for mac?
8. How would the transition from windows XP be?

While I would like to see microshaft burn in hell, I do love XP as think it's a great OS, the best ever, but seemingly microsoft do not agree which means that sooner or later I will have to give it up and it might as well be now. Also there is no 64 bit support. Ok so there is a 64 bit edition out there, but first of all it is probably not possible to buy it anyware and secondly I doubt it is any good, it hasn't been given much attention and few people are using it.
I'll be dead long before I start using Vista so I guess my choises are ubuntu or osx (or debian if i ever get geeky enough), but I haven't got any experince with either of then.
I feel like I'm trapped in a corner here, so any advice you can give will be more than welcome.

Zacariaz wrote:... so i have more or less descided to go with ubuntu instead, but I also have a few questions regarding this.

1. As far as I know there is 3 popular releases: ubuntu, kubuntu and xubuntu. I know that the main difference is the desktop enviroment, but I haven't been able to confirm that this is really the only difference. Also I'm unsure whether to go with gnome or xfce. I'm fairly sure that KDE is out of the question though, it just seems like overkill for a desktop enviroment. I have been using gnome and it's ok i guess, but I have never used xfce. As far as I know xfce is a really lightweight desktop enviroment which doesnt take up alot of resources and isn't too flashy and this is something I really like to hear.

The main advantage with xfce is speed, and one of the disadvantages is the relitive lack of theme-ability (because there have been fewer good themes written for xfce). Personally I like Gnome better than xfce or kde because I feel that everything is more at my finger-tips (mainly the three menus verses just one) and things are less cluttered (because things are distributed between two panels on the screen instead of being crammed onto one).

Zacariaz wrote: 2. I also have some conserns regarding the packaging system. I know it's adopted from debian, but I also know that changes has been made. Whether or not this is a problem I don't know.

AFAIK Ubuntu and Xubuntu use the standard 'apt-get' for installing packages. There is also 'Synaptic Package Manager' which is basically a GUI front-end for apt-get (it's really handy when trying to fight your way through dependency muck).

3. How different is the desktop enviroment really from windows, gnome and/or KDE?
4. Du you have 64 bit support?
5. What about software? Is osx basicly a pure linux dostribution now and if so, is there any complications at all involved with running regular linux software like GIMP, OpenOffice, etc.?
6. What about a package management system?
7. What about pc software not realsed specifically for mac?
8. How would the transition from windows XP be?

3. OS X has a fairly more user-friendly desktop imho than Windows, you can ask just about anyone who uses it.

4. Yes. OS X is a 64-bit OS. If you wish to run Windows, i think, currently now you can run 32-bit versions of Vista and XP

5. OS X Leopard (the current version) is a full UNIX OS. You get a terminal just like in Ubuntu, and of course it meets all POSIX requirements. OpenOffice and GIMP run successfully in OS X. Many different GNOME apps have been ported to the OS X environment, like GIMP.

6. I suppose you mean something along the lines of Synaptic or something. OS X does not have this, although the OS X install CD contains a package manager of sorts allowing you to install/remove optional applications. Many packages that you download have removal/update settings in System Preferences.

7. Over the past few years many different Windows programs have been ported to Mac OS X. There also is now a significant count of programs that are the equivalent to certain Windows programs. Microsoft Office for Mac, iWork from Apple, etc.

8. I transitioned from XP (actually Ubuntu, but i used XP before), and the transition was very easy. You just need to learn a few 'mac essentials' which you will find. But overall, you can figure the basics out in about one day. Many different Windows file extensions are supported in Mac (.zip, .txt, etc.) and Microsoft Office documents can be opened from iWork in OS X. OS X even now has a transition tool that takes your XP documents and puts them on your Mac.

A few extra sidenotes:

Hardware compatibility is not an issue. Just about all digital cameras are supported by OS X, many video camers, ever major printer company, etc. I haven't had any trouble with my peripherals at all. And drivers are automatically installed too, for most hardware that is.

And if your planning on using OS X as a development environment, keep in mind that OS X does not support ELF so you will have to build a cross-compiler to do stuff like OS developing -- at least for ELF. The development environment you get with OS X is very well designed, especially when writing programs for the OS X interface.

Thanks for the walkthrough. I have no plans of using ELF, so that wont be a problem. Still, though it sounds like a lot of improvement has been done regarding os, I think I'll go with ubuntu. The only question is whether is will be gnome or xfce, but I guess I'll just have to figure that out for my self; somehow...