Re: Laptop recommendations?

On Mon, 2004-09-27 at 14:57, George Hartzell wrote:
> Sean McNeil writes:
>  > On Mon, 2004-09-27 at 14:16, George Hartzell wrote:
>  > > Peter Schultz writes:
>  > >  > How far off are we from a stable version of FreeBSD PPC?  Apple's 
>  > >  > laptops are sweet.
>  > > 
>  > > Except for the D#_at_% caps lock key.  It's IN THE WRONG PLACE and
>  > > apparent best tool for swapping it around (uControl) doesn't work
>  > > reliably and the dang led stays on anyway....
>  > 
>  > Huh?  I'm looking at my powerbook right now and the caps lock key is in
>  > the exact same place as it is on my logitec keyboard and my compaq
>  > laptop.  Only difference that I see is the backspace key says delete and
>  > there is no "delete" key that kills the character on the cursor.
> 
> Yeah, I'm an old weirdo [who also uses emacs a lot].  I grew up with
> the control key being that big sucker just to the left of the 'A' key,
> and reaching down and under to the bottom row bothers my left
> wrist/hand.  I'm otherwise keyboard agnostic (I don't care where the
> esc key is, I just use ctrl-[ and I'm used to figuring out just what
> the BS/Del key sends) but the ctrl key is important.  Fortunately, on
> PC hardware, it's easy enough to get it where i want/like/need it.

I see what you mean.  But they moved that a long time ago.  I'm amazed
you have managed to stick with the old positioning.  The feel of a
Logitech keyboard is pretty sweet.

> It may well be a minor nit, but they're not *your* fingers that start
> tingling.  It's enough to keep me from treating my 15" powerbook as my
> day-to-day unix machine.  Well, that and trying to live w/ the weird
> unix environment, which is a pale imitation of FreeBSD and our
> incredible ports tree.  It makes a great mac though (digital imaging,
> photoshop, etc...).
> 
> The powerbook hardware *is* nice.  FreeBSD/PPC and the powerbook might
> well be a different story (I could live w/ the led staying lit if that
> key were an otherwise reliable ctrl...).

That is actually the only reason I have a mac - I needed a mac.  IMHO I
don't think anyone should get a powerbook and then put FreeBSD on it. 
That is unless you could run mac software on it.  I would (will?)
someday get a desktop on ebay and put FreeBSD on it, though.

Oh, and EMACS RULES!!! ;-)