GNU/Linux on IBM Laptop T42
I started using GNU/Linux in spring 2005. After spending many hours of learning, I am quite satisifed with what it provides me. And now, I seldom boot into the Windows partition on my laptop machine. (Well, actually, I have another desktop machine, on which Windows is installed. I still often use that machine for some little work.)
Why I moved to GNU/Linux
Memory Management
The driving reason I tried GNU/Linux is that I was sick with the memory swapping with Windows on my laptop machine. Laptop machine usually has slow disk access, and Windows usually swap away the background applications into the harddisk. And when I open quite some applications, especially with some Java applications (e.g. JEdit, Eclipse), it consumes much memory on my 512Mb machine. When I switch between the running applications, it usually takes quite a few seconds to wait for the background application to appear. This is ok if the switch is infrequent, but I usually switch between the applications frequently. I usually solve this problem by closing some other applications of less use, but this is not the way I want to use my computer. Therefore I decided to try GNU/Linux and I found that it is better in the memory management.
Of course, I should not move to GNU/Linux due to this only reason. And these are some other reasons why I use GNU/Linux:
GNU/Linux is free of cost.
GNU/Linux is free of cost. I don't want to rely on software which is either expensive or is an illegal copy. Although my IBM laptop comes with a legal copy of Windows, I don't own many copies of Windows on other machines. Therefore, I should get used of GNU/Linux and avoid being too dependent on Windows. Indeed, this is the main reason I should learn and use Linux.
GNU/Linux is hard to learn?
But I don't think Windows is easy to learn also. I still remember the old days that I spent much time fixing the problems on Windows 95/98/NT. I think one reason why Windows is easy to me is that I have been using it for more than 10 years already. To some Windows newbies, they still have many problems for using Windows, like configuring the network or changing the Chinese input. Honestly, Windows has better graphical interface for configuration, so it is a bit easier to learn. But we need time to learn GNU/Linux, just like Windows, and therefore I should start using it earier.
GNU/Linux is FREE.
It is free, in terms of freedom instead of cost, as explained by the GNU Project. Well, I don't totally agree with its philosophy, but it seems reasonable. At least, I support its philosophy more than the philosophy of Microsoft, and therefore I should start using GNU/Linux to show my support.
Choice of Distributions
Linux is different from Windows, and it can be obtained from many distributions. I tried a few distributions before, like Mandrake Linux 10.0 (now Mandriva Linux), SuSE Linux Personal 9.2, but I finally chose Gentoo GNU/Linux. After using Gentoo GNU/Linux for about half an year, I changed to Ubuntu GNU/Linux and am using it currently.
Gentoo GNU/Linux
This is the first GNU/Linux distribution I seriously used. It helped me learn much about GNU/Linux, because it has a good installation handbook and forum. Some strengths of it include:
- Update - you don't have to re-install the system when there is a new release. You just have to keep updating the system and the changes provided by the new release is automatically integrated in your current system.
- Packaging system - Gentoo has a central repository of packages that can be installed on your system. A tool helps you download from that repository and install the package on your system.
- Source-based distribution - it provides the packages in source form, instead of binary form. So you have to build the package on your system before you can use them. It has the advantage that you can optimize for your system, for example, using a compiler flag for your CPU instruction set. Also, it allows you to remove some features a package provides, so that the package links against fewer libraries and become smaller and faster.
- Configuration - you may need do some configuration manually using a text editor. This helps you learn how to do many configurations in a GNU/Linux system.
Ubuntu GNU/Linux
This distribution seemed to be the most popular distribution, therefore I chose this one. It also has a reputation of easy installation, which makes most parts of a computer work after the automatic installation. Also it is based on the Debian GNU/Linux, which is known to have a good packaging system, wide application support, and be stable.
Actually, another reason that I wanted to stop using Gentoo GNU/Linux was that I would not recommend it to other people who wanted to try GNU/Linux. Therefore, I decided to choose a distribution that I would recommend to others and started using it, so that I could share my experience with others on the same GNU/Linux distribution.
Configurations
I planned to post the configurations for using GNU/Linux on my IBM T42 notebook, and for using it within HKUST CS department. I hope this can encourage more people to use GNU/Linux here.
You may find here some configuration guides on: