[PLUG] Testing Linux on Portables

[John Jason Jordan]

On Sat, 7 Nov 2009 13:12:41 -0800 (PST)
Rich Shepard <rshepard at appl-ecosys.com> dijo:

>    If I bring a linux live disk to the store, and they let me reboot a
> portable to test for compatibility, how can I tell if sound, video,
> wireless, Ethernet, etc. are supported? Do I open a terminal and scan dmesg
> or is there a better way?

I'd use an Ubuntu live CD. Ubuntu is probably the most plug and play of
the distros these days, so it is the most likely to autodetect and
configure hardware.

Rather than poke through dmesg I am a big fan of real world hands-on
testing. If it works, cool. If not, on to the next machine.

Sound:	The Ubuntu live CD has that drumroll when it starts. If
you hear it, then sound is working.

Video:	Before going to the store look up the specs for the
machine to see what the native video resolution is. When you have
booted Ubuntu go into Preferences > Display to see if the resolution
matches. If not, move on to the next machine. Fixing video problems is
more pain than it is worth if you haven't yet bought the machine. As a
second consideration, lappies these days come with nVidia, ATI or Intel
video. ATI currently has a bad reputation with Linux. nVidia has very
good Linux support, but from everything I read they suck a lot of power
- not cool if you need to be on battery a lot. Intel gets good reviews
for power usage, but sometimes you can't get fancy stuff to work -
e.g., compiz.

Wireless:	If there is no ethernet cable connected, then Ubuntu
should show an icon with bars in the upper right of the Gnome panel.
(Sometimes the icon is a couple of monitor screens instead of the
bars.) Click on it to see if any wireless networks were detected.
Chances are excellent that there are a couple wireless networks
available in the store. You don't actually have to connect to them. If
Ubuntu sees wireless networks, then you know it found and configured
the wireless card. There could still be issues with WPA and other
stuff, but at least you know the wireless works at a basic level.

Ethernet:	It is unusual to find an ethernet device that Linux
does not support these days. Still, I would do lspci to see if the boot
process found the ethernet device, and then ifconfig to see if it shows
up. The output from those commands is short and can be read quickly in
the store when you have a nervous sales droid peering over your
shoulder. 

You might also bring a USB stick with you and write the output of dmesg
to it. That way you can take the dmesg output home to read it in detail.

Of course, before getting out my plastic I would also Google my tail
off on the specific model to see if there are any Linux gotchas.