A quick note to those wishing to run another version of Linux on their System76 machine. Mine is:
1 x Pangolin Performance (PAN-P5) = $1,068.00
Bluetooth Bluetooth
Car AC Adapter no car AC adapter
Display Resolution 15.4" WSXGA+ Super Clear Glossy LCD (1680 x 1050)
Extra AC Adapter no extra AC adapter
Extra Battery no extra battery
Hard Drive 320 GB 7200 RPM SATA II
Hardware Warranty 1 Yr. Ltd. Warranty and 1 Yr. Technical Support
Laptop Bag no bag
Memory 4 GB - DDR2 800 MHz - 2 DIMMs
Operating System Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) 64 Bit Linux
Optical Drive CD-RW / DVD-RW
Processor Core 2 Duo P8700 2.53 GHz 1066 MHz FSB 3 MB L2 (25 Watt)
Wireless Intel Wi-Fi Link 5100 - 802.11A/B/G/N Up to 300 Mbps
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OpenBSD
OpenBSD 4.5 installs but does not boot successfully from the stock kernels (/bsd, /bsd.mp). There appears to be no work-around at this time.
The same boot error occurs with BSDAnywhere, which is based on OpenBSD. It is a LiveCD with a similar or identical to the current release of OpenBSD, which suggests the kernel itself is to blame. Guess we'll just have to wait for the next release of OpenBSD, which generally runs more reliably on older hardware (according to its website).
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Paldo Linux
Paldo Linux ("pure adaptable linux distribution": paldo.org/index-section-about.html), latest stable version 1.18, runs just fine with a Gnome desktop. Kernel is based on Linux 2.6.29.5.
It's thoroughly reliable (though nfs mounts may cause some process hangs), looks great and is MUCH FASTER than current Ubuntu (9.04). In particular, web browsing is a lot faster than on Ubuntu, surprising considering that the Paldo's Firefox is based on the same release (3.0.11) as the latest Ubuntu.
All multimedia works fine but 64-bit Flash must be downloaded from adobe.com and installed in /lib/mozilla/plugins/, e.g. as /lib/mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so.
Suspend works out of the box, but only if network connection is terminated by hand prior to suspend.
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