..to take the full plunge. Over the next week, I'm going to do all the following:
Re-install my laptop, converting fully to Linux. Second Life runs natively under Linux now quite happily, and I can build a 64-bit client myself that way. No more waiting. I might see if I can tweak their cache code to only write to the cache on logout and read on login, since I have 2GB of RAM.
This is being pushed forward because, at this point, 64-bit Linux has better driver support than 64-bit Windows for my machine. This, I find both amusing, and rather sad. 64-bit Linux has a fully-functional native driver for my memory-card reader, and my bluetooth adapter, while no such driver exists for 64-bit Windows for either device last I checked. It supports suspend-to-disk better than Windows because it only writes out used memory instead of ALL memory, so I don't get a 5-minute suspend-restore cycle just because I happen to have 2GB of RAM and a slow-spinning hard drive. :-P
I'm done waiting because of, or accepting any more of HP's crap that flails wildly between, "It'd being worked on and should be out in 60 days!" to "We don't, will not, cannot, and have no intention of ever supporting 64-bit Windows on any of our home-market PCs, and all of our Laptops are considered home-market PCs. We do not, have not, and will not sell any laptop as a 'business computer' and we only support 64-bit Windows on our business-class computers." If their tech support can't even get their story straight, I'm assuming I'm being strung along, and moving on with alternatives.
So... I already organized my drive to have a 20GB Windows Software partition, a 20GB Linux Software partition, and a 20GB Documents partition so things shouldn't be that difficult. I'll just re-org things again while I do this, back up all the files to CD-R's then flat-format the entire drive down to a single Linux partition.
And no, I didn't forget to include a Swap partition in there. This laptop has not, and will not ever use Swap. I have 2GB of RAM for a reason.
And once that's running, I'll pick up the replacement screen, (dead hinges less than 4 months in) and before I install it layer some strips of fiberglass tape across the back to reinforce the hinge area with well-cured layers of epoxy rubbed in each time. Again, tired of waiting on HP to fix this glaring issue. So I'm fixing it myself with basic engineering. If I can find a cheap source of carbon-fibre tape and appropriate epoxy, I'd much rather use that. Anyone out there have any links to on-line stores for that kind of thing?8 commentsLeave a comment
I still haven't figured out how to really get around and do things in SL yet. But then again, the laptop I use only has 16M for VRAM, so despite the fact that I've got a 1 GHz processor and 512M of RAM. I think I'd need to have at least 32M of VRAM for SL to have a -chance- to run.
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SL requires nVidia or ATI displays, as they rely on certain texturing features that are only available in those drivers. Mesa3D doesn't work.
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Yeah, it's a Radeon Mobility graphics card, alas. It was loading, but it would get stuck while trying to render in-world items.
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"We don't, will not, cannot, and have no intention of ever supporting 64-bit Windows on any of our home-market PCs, and all of our Laptops are considered home-market PCs. We do not, have not, and will not sell any laptop as a 'business computer' and we only support 64-bit Windows on our business-class computers."
I think we had a discussion about this -- isn't Windows XP Professional a "business-class operating system"? Thus, if they're offering a "business-class operating system" on a "home computer", what the fuck good are they?
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The problem is the 64-bit part of the formula. They fully support 32-bit code, and software, and operation systems. They refuse to support anything 64-bit on anything except, specifically, their business-class desktop machines.
I'm only hosed because I specifically need a highly-mobile laptop, instead of being able to function tethered to a clunky desktop. :-P
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Yay Linux! :D
You should run Ubuntu or Gentoo.
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And I still need to come over and visit you and yours some time. =^.^=
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*grins* My fiance runs Gentoo on his laptop, and just installed Ubuntu on the desktop after finally giving up on Windows. The only reason he was even using Windows was to play counter strike and Warcraft. :P But he dual-boots on his laptop, so.
I'm almost tempted to switch over to Ubuntu myself, though I think I would miss OS X too much. :P
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