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    B120 for Linux Lappy?

    Discussion in 'Linux Compatibility and Software' started by snyperx, Jan 3, 2006.

  1. snyperx

    snyperx Notebook Guru

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    I have been looking at picking up a refurbed B120 for running Linux. Has anyone else tried running Linux on the B120 base config? With the refurbs going for around $400 I thought this would make a great test unit. Thanks!
     
  2. Amber

    Amber Notebook Prophet NBR Reviewer

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    I moved this to software b/c i think you'll get a better response here.

    From my experience, Linux will pretty much run on anything. I've put on machines that were Pen. II and III with only 256mb of ram, and didn't have any problems.

    SG
     
  3. Sidicas

    Sidicas Notebook Consultant

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    Generally, I don't recommend running Linux on a laptop.
    The power-management isn't as good, you'll be lucky to get 75% of the battery-life you would get in Windows doing the same tasks. If you do use Linux, be sure to find a distro that gets good reviews for running on Laptops. You'll probably want to turn off most of the logging to /var/log.. The writing to the hard disk every few seconds will totally destroy your battery life.. I think there are some command-line programs like noflushd that will delay writing to the hard disk until there is a reasonable amount of data to be written. I've seen cases where a dual-booting iBook will get about 4.5 hours of battery life in Mac OS X and barely 45 minutes of battery life in a standard install of Debian (doing nothing but text editing in both cases). Guess which OS the user ended up using the most :)
     
  4. sivlardemalle

    sivlardemalle Newbie

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    The reason for that could be that power management isn't standard included on Linux. You should include some power management features [ http://tuxmobil.org/apm_linux.html].

    Greets,
    Rob.