[SATLUG] Need Laptop Recommendations

[Borries Demeler]

> 
> Hi Borries,
> 64-bit servers are great.  You are probably using all Free Software
> that has been ported to AMD64.

You are right.

> 64-bit desktops have (had?) issues.  For All-Free-Software desktops
> you don't have too many problems.  And the problems you do have are
> merely technical.  The right people just need to debug the problem and
> get it fixed.  However you start to have problems with non-Free
> Software on the desktop (i.e. Flash and Java browser plugins etc).
> For some of these types of problems you can just run the 32-bit
> versions but that has taken some time to get right so I have a little
> bit of a bad taste in my mouth for 64-bit desktops even though I have
> three of them.  Two at work and one at home.

I must admit I haven't used the 64-bit platforms as my primary desktop
yet, even though I run vnc on them for some standard apps. For the 32-bit 
apps I have used on the 64-bit platform (openOffice, vnc, vmware, scilab) 
I have not had any trouble yet - but your point may be well taken.

> I'm sure that the technical and political problems will all be ironed
> out eventually though.
> 
> Nick Petreley wrote a pretty good rant on this topic in the May Linux Journal.

I'll take a look, thanks for the pointer. 

-Borries