Request for comments: Laptop improvements

David Timms dtimms at
Wed Jun 14 22:31:26 UTC 2006

Phil Knirsch wrote:
> Now, what i would like to ask of you is to give me some input on what 
> you think might be something where we could do better on laptops. So if 
> you could spare a few minutes and write me a short email with the 
> thoughts you have that would be greately appreciated.
1. Better install time detection of inbuilt screen resolution, even if 
the laptop bios/vga bios gives false info - perhaps by combination of 
returned pci ids / ddc => manufacturer + model + screen ?)

2. Able to boot or instigate boot from external usb / firewire hdd. 
Reason is employer does not like employees screwing with work provided 
notebooks. This would allow more home usage of linux (even when you are 
not allowed to), whether it be a live distros or complete installs.

3. Temperature monitoring made available in the GUI; obviously dependent 
on hw capabilities.

4. Already noted, but a generic way to read special keys (eg start web 
browser, email client, get manufacturer help etc). Perhaps a known-keys 
list for each detectable laptop type, so these keys "just work", but can 
be reassigned by the user.

5. Generally useful feature (especially when you cant be sure that 
suspend-resume etc will work eg hp nx9000 notebook) would be a way where 
every application can be externally instructed to save any modified 
documents. Initital thought is to auto saveAs with the existing name 
having the date-time (iso format) appended before the final extension. 
This would also make it into the MRU of the app and the desktop. The 
idea is to not stop the shutdown or suspend functionality, but to 
guarantee that it is safe to shutdown by saving all modified application 
documents as part of the process.

6. Possible exists: a way to create a desktop grouping / layout for 
example for "task X" which requires two gnome-terms, at position Y and Z 
with sizes A and B, email browser open at pos T size G, etc. People have 
favoured layouts that they endlessly recreate each time they start up. 
{Of course other people always use only a single app or have each 
application full desktop all the time}.

7. Video and or s-video out detection/activation/setup on notebooks like 
hp.nx_9000 that have this capability.

8. Support for RS232 based com port apps under wine. win32 only apps by 
Audio Visual product manufacturers means you cant remove wondows 
entirely from your notebook PC, for people who work in this industry.


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