This is the subject of a session I’m conducting as part of Ubuntu Open Week. Many thanks to Jono, Jorge, and the Ubuntu community of developers and users for making this happen, and allowing me to be a part of it.
I plan to discuss how to make smart buying decisions as a user of Free Software, and Ubuntu in particular. I’ll cover hardware, software, support, services, etc etc.
So, do you plan to attend? If so, are there subjects you’d like to see covered, or specific questions you want answered? Please let me know via comments and I’ll do my best to work such issues and questions into my session notes.
Of course, you’re always welcome to ask questions during the session. However, you may get a more researched and thoughtful (and therefore cogent) response if you give me a little time to prepare. So, have at the comments and let me know what questions you might have.
See you all at 2200UTC on Thursday!
Video Cards:
Intel – great support but not great for games, great on legacy
ATI – open source driver coming.. slowly, binary driver dropped support for many legacy cards, 3d on open source not good
nVidia – nothing usable open source, their binary drivers are the best and they support practically every card they ever made and update them to recent kernels/Xorgs
I’d love to see advice on getting local banks to support GNUcash, or at least publish the right information. Probably not quite the direction you expected.
Perhaps a question closer to the topic, then. Free software is valuable more for it’s capacity for improvement than perfection; we hear about how bug such and such is a show stopper for some firm from adopting, or a regression is costing them substantial sums. How much and where should a person or firm wishing to fix a confirmed bug pay?
I am looking forward to your session, and hoping to learn how to intelligently make my next laptop purchase, which I will probably do soon. I’d love to know how to both ensure that all the hardware is fully supported by Ubuntu, and also make sure I am aware of all my possible choices (ie outside of just the three laptops on http://webapps.ubuntu.com/certification/list/?release=8.10&category=Laptop). I also want to be supporting companies who are cooperative with open-source and doing good things for the world. So, I will be excited to hear what you have to say 🙂