Laptop Recommendations?

[DoYouKubuntu]

This missing button thing is annoying!

[MoonRise]

It's missing for yours too but for some reason it appeared back under DYK's. Seems the last post now doesn't show a reply with quote?

[vinnywright]

WTF happend to the reply with Quote button ,,,,,,,it their on all the preveous posts exept the last one .......O well

Well, since you're a Kubuntu person, like me, none of this should be necessary. Just do what I did, wipe the drive, partition it to your liking, and do a fresh install of Kubuntu from DVD or your preferred medium. Everything works, such as the backlit keyboard, the volume control buttons, etc.

well if it happens (spending the $) I dont guess I nead a mobile computer (laptop) really,,,,,,so it will be the bad A$$ desktop with the hot swappable HD caddy, liquid cooling & the hottest i7 they offer ............and O ya it will be Kubuntu ,,,,,,,,this will push it over 2K for sure

VINNY

[DoYouKubuntu]

I did also read that a "restore" to a factory system consists of , you, making a Ubuntu-14.04 install then adding their PPA and installing the "driver" package .
I now wander if the "driver" package would work with Kubuntu install..............the gears turn and turn......

at the vary least it should be relatively easy to shrink the install partition,, make a new one,, install Kubuntu and try ,,,,,,,,,,right? + it will half to have a extra storage drive if I get it any way ,,,,,,,,so the extra installs can go to that if nothing elce.................the gears turn and turn ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Well, since you're a Kubuntu person, like me, none of this should be necessary. Just do what I did, wipe the drive, partition it to your liking, and do a fresh install of Kubuntu from DVD or your preferred medium. Everything works, such as the backlit keyboard, the volume control buttons, etc.

[DoYouKubuntu]

Yes, at least that's how I read the post, System 76 put all in a single partition.

Yes, that's correct. But someone else thought you were talking about them, not System76.

[vinnywright]

Yes, at least that's how I read the post, System 76 put all in a single partition.

ya I think I read that some where as well.

I did also read that a "restore" to a factory system consists of , you, making a Ubuntu-14.04 install then adding their PPA and installing the "driver" package .
I now wander if the "driver" package would work with Kubuntu install..............the gears turn and turn......

at the vary least it should be relatively easy to shrink the install partition,, make a new one,, install Kubuntu and try ,,,,,,,,,,right? + it will half to have a extra storage drive if I get it any way ,,,,,,,,so the extra installs can go to that if nothing elce.................the gears turn and turn ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

VINNY

[vinnywright]

It's all about choice, right?

,,,,yup.

I was firmly in the (at least 3 /, ~/,swap)install partitions.

but now I do a everything(but swap) in / install to a 30GB / partition then immediately link all my ~/ directory’s (just the standard)Music.Documents,Downloads,Videos,ect,ect) to their counterparts in a mounted at boot storage partition.


VINNY

[vinnywright]

I highly recommend installing a light-weight window manager like IceWM in case you seriously break something in your KDE installation and need a browser to google for help or post in this forum.)

I'll +1 that ,,,,,,,I install "fluxbox" for this .

VINNY

[DoYouKubuntu]

I'm firmly--and for ~30 years have been--in the multiple partitions camp. And in ~30 years I have never run out of space as a lack of poor planning--only as a result of increasingly larger and larger files filling up the space I had available!

I love having separate partitions because it so simplifies the upgrading process. I rarely do the version upgrade method of upgrading, as I prefer to start fresh and do a clean install, including wiping/formatting my root partition. Although I am borderline fanatical about backing up data and, therefore, stand very little chance of ever losing anything important, I can state categorically that I've never lost one iota of data via the 'wipe and clean install' method of upgrading--because I simply don't select my data partitions for formatting.

In *MY* world, I see no reason at all to prefer a single partition over multiple. However, if that's what works best for others, more power to them. It's all about choice, right?

[MoonRise]

Actually Multi here and it has saved me many, many times. That is, the HD was failing and for what ever reason, it always have read my HOME partition over any of the other partitions. Maybe it is where I generally layout the partition? Don't know but I truly keep separate partitions to that and that alone. Actually, I've gone a step further and keep HOME on a separate drive now but I still have it spilt for other OSes I use.

[GreyGeek]

I am a single partition user also.

One question my clients frequently asked was "How often should I back up?" My answer was "How much are you willing to re-enter after you lose it?".

Besides application bugs/failures a big cause of data loss is hardware failure. I was writing a GPS tracking truck tracking/inventory system control software (in VisualBasic at the time) for a major trucking company. They were running their payroll system on a pair of mirrored and striped drives on an IBM System 400. It turned out that BOTH HDs were powered by a single powers supply and when it died both the the HDs died. It took more than a week to bring their payroll system back up.

In some situations data retention involves tactics like backing up during noon lunch and after work. Other solutions involved writing the transaction (data) simultaneously to two separate HDs, i.e., redundancy. I often designed software to do that. Stripping and mirroring the HDs is also used.

Having a filesystem that allows removing bad HDs and inserting new replacements without stopping the system or loosing data is a huge leap forward. That's why I use the btrfs filesystem. I have experimented with adding four or five 16GB USB sticks to my btrfs fs and then randomly yanking one of them out of the active hub without data loss or any apparent performance penalties.

[eggbert]

That's the only argument I have ever heard, but since I do have fairly frequent backups, that is not a huge issue. Also, should you mess up your system so badly that you have to reinstall the OS, you can still mount your hard drive on a different system (or from a thumb drive) and back up your home folder this way. It's a bit more hassle, but I've never messed up my system so badly in all the 5.5 years I have been using Linux now, so the risk seems fairly low to me.

I agree with using a single partition. The disadvantages of having multiple partitions outweigh any supposed benefits. If you're going to make a separate partition for /home, you better make darn sure you properly estimate the size of / or /tmp or /var as these can grow over time. And even then, you never really know what's going to go in /tmp. Is the partition going to be big enough? So you either have to have a huge / partition that's a waste of disk space, or make some very careful estimates.

It's far better IMHO to just have a proper backup strategy for your /home directory (which you should have either way) and have a single / partition.

[DoYouKubuntu]

A Linux specialist who installs on a single partition

Are you referring to System76?

[DoYouKubuntu]

could you please tell me your experience with putting Kubuntu on this ,,,,,,,,, I am at the moment thinking of geting one of system 76's systems .
wanted to know if things like the cool back lite key board was easy to get working in Kubuntu

I forgot to address this: The beautiful, backlit keyboard works great in Kubuntu.

[Chopstick]

I'm not sure if I like the Burger King comparison (I'm not particularly fond of Burger franchises), but I agree that for new users it is probably good advice.