Thinking about a Pangolin Performance

[robtg]

Nothing doesn't work on my PanP5. A few stuck pixels haunt me but that's life (I opted for the super-glossy screen). The only word that comes to mind describing the trackpad is hideous (sorry Tom). If I didn't actually use the laptop in my lap, I'd plug a USB mouse into the machine. The new Pangolin may improve upon this but to me, it's the only design problem with an otherwise excellent computer.

[tschlemmer]

I ordered a Pangolin Performance back is late August and everything worked out of after booting up except the finger print reader. I saw that there was information on the knowledge76.com site for the finger print reader. It is working now but I cannot get my finger print to be read correctly the 2nd time. The only issue I had was I had to get use to the trackpad as it was somewhat different from my old Dell laptop.

[japhyr]

Oceanfire, you revived a year-old thread. Did you ever pick up a System76 computer? I love my PanP5, and I'm very happy to have one of the wsxga+ screens.

[bgreenaway]

I love my Pangolin and the 1680x1050 glossy is just gorgeous. My only gripes are poor battery life (2 hours-ish) and that the trackpad is just...awkward, although it works fine. I just cannot get used to it. For lap use, I nearly always use a wireless mouse.

[tactician1016]

I, too, am all but sold on it. The only question is: is it good for a student entering college? I mean, is the OS simple to navigate and all that? Can it, say, connect to peripherals like an iPod? And if I am new to the whole open source thing, does that matter much (or, alternatively, is there a simple way to learn Linux programming with Ubuntu 9.10 [i think that's what it is now on the pangolin])? The only other alternative laptop I have explored for college is the standard MacBook.

[Flyers2391]

I, too, am all but sold on it. The only question is: is it good for a student entering college? I mean, is the OS simple to navigate and all that? Can it, say, connect to peripherals like an iPod? And if I am new to the whole open source thing, does that matter much (or, alternatively, is there a simple way to learn Linux programming with Ubuntu 9.10 [i think that's what it is now on the pangolin])? The only other alternative laptop I have explored for college is the standard MacBook.

depending on the iPod you have it should "just work". I was fresh on the scene a few years ago and I almost never need to troubleshoot or go into the terminal. Maybe I'm lucky but every peripheral I've plugged in (wireless mouse/keyboards, wired mouse/keyboards, external flash and hard drives, camera, music players, even an old scanner and at least 6 different printers) have all "just worked". I've tested 9.04 on several HP and ThinkPad laptops and haven't had any problems with wireless or other video drivers.

Unless you need something specifically tied to a macbook, ubuntu will be fine for you, not to mention a laptop that comes with it pre-installed

[tactician1016]

Well, then, I'm sold. Time to start saving for the Pangolin.

[oceanfirehawk]

Oceanfire, you revived a year-old thread. Did you ever pick up a System76 computer? I love my PanP5, and I'm very happy to have one of the wsxga+ screens.

Actually no, I ended up going with a Dell Desktop...shame on me

[HotShotDJ]

Actually no, I ended up going with a Dell Desktop...shame on me

No soup for you!

[HotShotDJ]

Well, then, I'm sold. Time to start saving for the Pangolin.

I think you will be very happy with your decision. I can speak on the question of the appropriateness of using Ubuntu in a university environment, since I've been doing it for years. The bottom line: no problem. Even after my university standardized on Microsoft Office 2007 and the docx file format. OpenOffice 3.1 handles both reading and writing to this format without a problem. For submitting papers/homework electronically, I would still recommend using OpenOffice's export to PDF function to assure that when your professors are reading your work, that your formating and font selections are retained. You wouldn't want to loose points on your grade just because Microsoft Office doesn't properly render standard formating & styles -- MS doesn't even conform to their own OOXML standard!

For writing research papers, I recommend that you use the firefox plugin Zotero. It integrates with firefox, openoffice, and even MS Word to help you manage your bibliography/citations. It is really an amazing piece of software!

I've also used PDF for my presentations designed using OpenOffice Impress but presented on the university's classroom PC's. It works pretty well, although slide transitions are lost -- no big deal, I don't use fancy transitions anyway. But, if your university classrooms allow you to plug in your laptop to their projector, OpenOffice with the Presenter Console extension (in Karmic, sudo apt-get install openoffice.org-presenter-console) is the best thing since sliced bread! It blows MS PowerPoint out of the water.

If worse comes to worse (it did for me, mainly because of my job at the university) you can run Windows through VirtualBox. The university gave me, at no cost, Windows XP, MS Office Enterprise, and SPSS, all of which work beautifully within a VirtualBox VM.

I really see no downsides to your choice of a PanP6 and Ubuntu. The options are almost limitless.