Fedora Queries for Laptop

Fri May 30 22:52:01 UTC 2008

The only areas where I tend to have problems with Fedora (and other
Linux distros) is:

1. ACPI related issues (sleeping -- or waking up after a sleep to be
more accurate)
2. Audio *in* -- audio out always works, but getting the mic to work
for skype etc is very, very, very, very hard. For me anyway.

Re playing video etc -- the secret is to install the right software.
Redhat have a very strict open source / no patent policy, so a fresh
Fedora install would seem useless when it comes to playing the most
popular formats out there (MPEG despite being an "open" standard is
riddled with patent issues).

Go to http://rpm.livna.org/rlowiki/
and install software such as mplayer  and you then have capabilities
that would far exceed what comes bundled with Windows and Mac.

The only other problem I've encountered is playing (deliberately)
broken DVDs: there are a few free Windows players  which work with
Wine (Windows emulator). Takes a bit of work to get them working, but
googling around you'll find many tutorials on this.

Finally: remember that with modern hardware you can run virtual
machines with almost no performance penalty. So the few bits of
Windows software that you really need to run and that won't work with
Wine -- just create a  Windows VM and run them in a window (you'll
need an Windows install CD/DVD and a licence key to get started)   The
only thing I havn't yet achieved is to run a virtual Mac :-(  That
would be nice.

J.

On Fri, May 30, 2008 at 11:25 PM, Kevin J. Cummings
<cummings at kjchome.homeip.net> wrote:
> Jigar Sutaria wrote:
>>
>> I have Dell Inspiron with all latest configuration. I want to know
>
> In the Linux world, the phrase "all latest configuration" is a meaningless
> one.  See below.
>
>> following work with Fedora or not
>> If they are working any configuration required or not (Any document
>> reference that can help me knowing this)
>>  1. Bluetooth data/voice
>> 2. USB Flash Drive
>> 3. USB Hard Drive
>> 4. Playing Movies VCD/DVD
>> 5. Playing Music
>> 6. Telephony Tools
>> 7. Microphone
>> 8. Webcam
>> 9  Scanner/Cameras
>
> And the answer is ...   *maybe*
>
> You need to provide more details of the particular devices.
> Bluetooth tends to work, but, not being a bluetooth user (other than my
> laptop supports it), I can't give you any details.
>
> USB Flash drives tend to work fairly well.  The USB Storage device interface
> seems to be well solved on Linux.  You will probably have more problems with
> the filesystem type on the USB stick than with the stick itself.
>
> Ditto for USB hard drives, though, there was a USB Hard Drive that had
> problems on Linux because the manufacturers ignored the USB storage standard
> and implemented an ms only shortcut which caused the drives to fail to work
> properly on Linux.  There were solutions published for how to get around
> this, but ultimately, the manufacturers were at fault.
>
> Movies (multimedia in general) is problematic.  Some solutions may not be
> "legal" in some locations.  Getting around DRM is illegal in some countries.
>  Solutions exist.  You will need to find them.
> Read as much as you can in the Fedora Release Notes about multimedia, and
> the supporting documents (like FedoraGuide.info).
>
> The same with Music, but, in general, there are enough tools out there that
> can either play or convert odd codecs into something that *is* playable.
>
> There are a number of Telephony tools out there.  It depends on your exact
> requirements.  Skype, MythPhone, Ekiga, and others exist.
>
> If you are having problems with your microphone, post about them here. Most
> microphones are a simple device and should work with the Linux sound
> systems.  Note, Pulseaudio in F9 is new and different from previous versions
> of Fedora.  There are still a few rough spots with it on some hardware.
>
> Webcams are a different matter.  Not all webcams work.  You *will* need to
> know the chipset it uses and arrange to use the appropriate driver for it
> (if one exists).  Many of the drivers out there are still ALPHA quality, a
> few are BETA quality, and others work well enough for general use.  YMMV,
> and you need to be aware.  Laptop Manufacturers change the underlying
> hardware at a whim because of supply/demand issues and versioning without
> thinking of us poor Linux users.
>
> Most cameras work as USB (or Firewire) storage devices, and can be mounted
> directly into your files system.  Of course, then you have to navigate to
> the proper subdirectory to actually find your pics/vids. Others can use
> tools like gphoto2 to access your camera memory directly.  Again, YMMV, and
> it depends on which camera you have.  Older cameras are more likely to be
> problematic than newer ones.
>
> Scanners need to be twain compatible in order to work correctly.  What bus
> does it use?  USB is common today, SCSI and Parallel was common a few years
> ago.  Parallel port scanners have the worst support.  They are also the
> least common today.
>
> IHTH!
>
> --
> Kevin J. Cummings
> kjchome at rcn.com
> cummings at kjchome.homeip.net
> cummings at kjc386.framingham.ma.us
> Registered Linux User #1232 (http://counter.li.org)
>
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