@larand
Then I decided to see how suspend worked. Bad move.
Still is to this day with certain hardware. Suspend/Resume has always been a crap shoot to some degree.
Networking problems began. Kernel panics. Freezes that would only respond to a forced shutdown.
sniff I smell wireless networking in 2008.
Sometimes it remembered my WPA2 password, sometimes it didn't.
Called it.
Usual steps a vendor talks a user through when bad things happen
This is why we never sold Linux laptops. Boss insisted we do it. I put Linux on his laptop. Never heard another word about it.
When I tried to restart, it hung at "shuttting down ALSA".
Here's a brief history of sound under Linux.
Note, I am omitting a few things so don't get wadded panties, Linux people.
- Linux sound was sickly, thin and named OSS. Like most earlier Linux bits, it worked and had a lot of room for improvement.
- OSS was killed by FSF because "NOT FREE ENOUGH"
- Linux sound developed a slight sniffle as it came down with something called ESD
- Linux sound's condition mutated into ARTSD which meant it could sniffle multiple times at once.
- Linux sound's condition mutated once again into Pulseaudio which was like leprosy but with sound (or, frequently, silence)
You get the idea. Sound has been a mess under Linux for years because of all those "mutations" and all the associated compatibility layers that entailed.
But first, I went to the Apple Store online and ordered a nice refurbished 2.4-GHz MacBook Pro with a 200 GB hard drive, 2 GB of RAM, an LED-backlit screen and AppleCare, the only extended warranty on the planet that's worth the money
This ending isn't restricted to non-geeks. It's roughly how my quest for "a *nix laptop that doesn't suck rocks" ended.