Frequently Asked Questions

If your question isn't found below, ask us, and we can add it.

What is Linux?

We have a page just for that question, here.

What software comes with a Linux Laptops computer?

We install literally hundreds of packages, and provide a CD with thousands more. We have a separate page on the subject, here.

What is the difference between Linux on a laptop computer and Linux on a desktop or server machine?

First, laptop computers are rarely used as servers, so the user interface and the selection of user-level programs are important.

Second, laptop computers have many devices not typically found on desktop computers, such as such as power management (APM), PCMCIA ("PC-Card" or "CardBus") slots, Infrared serial (IrDA) ports, and Universal Serial Bus (USB) ports. They often have non-standard versions of common devices such as floppy drives, CD-ROM drives, modems, sound ports, and display controllers.

If you bought some random portable computer, you might need to locate drivers and specially configure the system. For some devices on some common laptop models there is no driver available, so you would not be able to use those parts of that computer under Linux.

I already have a laptop computer. Can you help me put Linux on it?

Supporting all the hundreds of different laptop computer models is far more than we can afford to do. We have chosen a few models which we have verified to work well with Linux, and we have gathered together the drivers for the devices built into those models.

What Linux distribution comes on my Linux Laptops computer?

We use the Debian distribution, with improvements such as configuring it for your particular machine, and preparing it for remote administration.

We chose Debian for several reasons. The most important is that it has earned its reputation as the most reliable distribution. It also offers far more software packages than any other distribution, over three thousand and growing fast. It is a little harder to install than some of the commercial distributions, but installation is our problem.

Can I run Windows programs on my Linux Laptops computer?

As delivered, no. However, you can install software on it which will allow you to run those programs:

• The simplest way is to install Windows98 in a spare disk partition and "dual-boot" -- that is, choose which operating system to use each time you restart your computer.
• You can install a commercial program called VMware and Windows98. Then, you can run just about any Windows program without ever shutting down Linux. When Windows98 crashes, your Linux programs keep on running.
• Your computer comes with VNC ("virtual network computing"), a product of Olivetti/Oracle Research Labs, installed. It lets you connect via a network to a Windows machine running the free VNC Server, and see its desktop in a window on your own screen. When Windows crashes, your computer is unharmed. (You can also use VNC to see your laptop screen in a window on your Windows box.)
• Finally, there are increasingly many programs which can read files created by Windows programs, so you might not need to run a Windows program after all.

How does Linux Laptops choose which model computers to sell?

We mean to sell the best computer available in each category at any time. As newer machines become available, we carefully evaluate them, and verify that all the devices in them are fully compatible with available Linux device drivers. In the future we expect to help develop drivers for unsupported devices, where manufacturers coöperate by releasing programming information.

If you think we could be selling a better computer in some category, please write and tell us. We might already be testing it, we might already have rejected it for incompatibilities, or we might not know about it yet!

What is the stock ticker symbol for Linux? I want to buy shares.

Linux doesn't have a ticker symbol. There are many ways to participate in its success, but your broker won't know about most of them. Still, there are some public companies involved with Linux, as traced by the Linux Weekly News Linux Stocks Page.