Date: Wed, 9 May 2001 19:31:55 +0200 From: Brad Knowles <brad.knowles@skynet.be> To: Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@physics.iisc.ernet.in>, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Laptop recommendations in France / Europe? Message-ID: <p05100326b71f2d99792e@[194.78.241.123]> In-Reply-To: <20010509133826.I82438@lpt.ens.fr> References: <20010509133826.I82438@lpt.ens.fr>
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At 1:38 PM +0200 5/9/01, Rahul Siddharthan wrote:
> Can anyone suggest a good place, in France or in a neighbouring
> country, to buy a not too expensive (say, < 10000 FRF / 1500 Euro)
> laptop/notebook which works with FreeBSD -- or, at the very minimum,
> with Linux? And preferably without Windows pre-loaded at all, so that
> I don't pay a microsoft tax?
I don't know if you speak French, or what kind of keyboard you
prefer, but keep in mind that each country in Europe typically has a
slightly different keyboard layout than all the others. Swiss German
is not the same as German German, which is not the same as
Netherlands Dutch which may or may not be the same as Belgian Dutch
(or French), which probably isn't the same as French French, etc....
I have had an *EXCEPTIONALLY* hard time getting a proper
English-language keyboard over here, and I've finally had to settle
for an International English model. This is one where the "\" key is
not above the "Return" key (as it should be), but is instead between
the single/double-quote key and the "Return" key (which is two rows
tall). This is one where there is an extra key between the left
shift key and the "Z" key, which is where they've stuffed the "~".
Meanwhile, where "~" belongs (next to "1" and above the "Tab"
key), they've inserted an entirely new and different key that doesn't
belong on the keyboard at all (one with the combined +/- symbol, as
well as the section symbol).
Of course, very few of the non-alphanumeric keys are marked with
words (as they should be), and instead have symbols on them, such as
an up arrow (for shift). This isn't so much of an issue, until you
get to the "Option" and "Command" keys, which have totally bizarre
symbols on them, which you end up just having to completely ignore
and touch-type instead.
If you want a keyboard in English, you may want to look on
Tottenham Court Road in London -- that's where you'll find the
greatest concentration of computer stores in all of the UK, and
perhaps all of Europe. I would encourage you to contact the members
of SAGE-WISE (who have their monthly meetings near that area), and
they will be able to give you better directions.
Alternatively, order the thing online.
--
Brad Knowles, <brad.knowles@skynet.be>
/* efdtt.c Author: Charles M. Hannum <root@ihack.net> */
/* Represented as 1045 digit prime number by Phil Carmody */
/* Prime as DNS cname chain by Roy Arends and Walter Belgers */
/* */
/* Usage is: cat title-key scrambled.vob | efdtt >clear.vob */
/* where title-key = "153 2 8 105 225" or other similar 5-byte key */
dig decss.friet.org|perl -ne'if(/^x/){s/[x.]//g;print pack(H124,$_)}'
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