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Build a MacBook Pro, but better

110 points posted to Laptops by horstbrack 03/12/07

The MacBook Pro is probably one of the best laptops on the market. There are only the following reasons, why I don't buy it:

- ATI graphics card with poor linux support
- only one mouse button
- I have to buy a MacOSX license, which I do not need.

I would suggest to build a laptop

-like the MacBook Pro
-with nVidia graphics card
-with 3 mouse buttons
-with a non-glossy display
-with a "no OS preinstalled" option (a "Linux preinstalled" option maybe difficult, because there are so many different Linux distributions...)
-without stupid "Microsoft Windows XXX compatible" stickers or "Intel inside" stickers, they are just ugly! (guess why the MBP doesn't come with an "Intel inside" sticker...)

doh123
03/13/07
ok, but the MBP has only one physical button, but it works as two. I haven't tried in Linux, but it works just fine as 2 buttons in Windows and OSX. Two fingers on the pad and click, or tap two fingers, and it does a right click. Also not sure why you'd want Linux when you can have OSX. If you wanted to run KDE or Gnome or something, you can do that also on OSX, and can even go command line and do everything there if you'd like. Being BSD its slightly different than Linux, but barely.
horstbrack
03/19/07
Yes, the single button can be used to do "secondary clicks", if you enable it in "Keyboard & Mouse" control panel. (I don't know if this works in Linux) But what about the middle button? How do I copy and paste in X without a middle mouse button?

Also, why should I want to pay a lot of money for MacOSX when I can have Linux for free?
horstbrack
03/24/07
As doh123 pointed out, it is possible to tap with to fingers on the pad to generate a "right click" under Windows. As I found out now, in Linux this will generate a middle click, and three fingers will generate a right click.

Regarding the ATI graphics, it is a major pain in the butt to get this thing running in Linux, but it works!
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