Here’s my spill of rants for all things relating to Faith and Freedom. I am a Fedora contributor, a graduate of Taylor University, and a current student at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, CA.
I am an Evangelical Christian who has diverse political views and encourages the use of free, open source software.
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Faith and Freedom 
What did you think of the 76 laptop? Do you have a link to your review of it?
Basically, I want a linux machine for grad work as well. I’ve had enough of windows and the anit-virus game. Would it be easier(straightforward) to protect against “threats” on a linux machine than to pay $4x.yz a year for a subscription to protect a PC?
By: trevor on January 22, 2011
at 4:25 pm
Well, the short answer is yes. I have had no trouble running Linux while going through grad school. My area of study is in ancient Near Eastern languages, so the easy ability to switch keyboard inputs is necessary, which linux handles very well.
If you already have a laptop, I would suggest dual-booting Linux and Windows (most Linux installers will give you that option and set all that up for you during the install. That way you can switch back and forth between Linux and Windows if you need to. But there are no known viruses for modern linux, so you not only save money by not having to buy anti-virus, but also gain performance by not having to run it.
As far as the System 76 laptop goes, I absolutely love it and will likely continue to buy from them in the future. I should note that I don’t run the Ubuntu that comes with it – I run Fedora and FreeBSD instead, but the hardware is excellent for the price.
By: vwbusguy on January 22, 2011
at 4:31 pm
That was a fast response!
I have a laptop, an old one, that’s screen is busted. I’m using an old monitor and it’s effectively a pc now.
Getting a laptop with dual boot is a good idea. I can have the best of both worlds. I would use the Linux Flavor OS for school and internet and windows for whatever I need that WINE doesn’t work well on.
I haven’t used WINE yet, but I’m supposing I have to have BOTH OS’s to do anything. Running pure linux with WINE might be pushing it and just windows won’t do me any good for programming – going for computer science master’s degree.
Even when I played around with Linux flavors a decade ago, I could never decide the “best” one. I suppose it’s the same now. Is there a good site to read up on pros and cons of the OSs. I know there are a lot of bias out there.
Thanks man!
By: trevor on January 22, 2011
at 4:39 pm
Actually, wine works pretty well in many cases. You can always search for the app you want to run at http://appdb.winehq.com . I have had success with games like World of Warcraft and Counter Strike: Source. As far as programming goes, there are a handful of Windows compilers that work in Linux. If you need .NET stuff, there’s Mono for that. It’s not uncommon anymore for devs to do their work and compiling in Linux.
By: vwbusguy on January 22, 2011
at 4:42 pm
Yes, I’ll have to wean myself from windows.
What made you decide to run Fedora and FreeBSD instead of Ub?
By: trevor on January 22, 2011
at 5:45 pm
I’ve been running Fedora since fc4. The short answer is personal preference for how the distro handles things and the community around it. Please don’t read that as a swipe at Ubuntu. As far as FreeBSD goes, see answer above (except it’s not a distro).
By: vwbusguy on January 22, 2011
at 6:33 pm
Thanks for your help, man! Appreciate the advice.
By: trevor on January 22, 2011
at 8:55 pm