Linux, Anyone?

Just in from the fine folks at GW tech support: They explain that I might be able to scrape by with something other than a windoze-based system in some cases, but the here's where the rubber meets the road as far as they're concerned:

The bottom line, however, is that the law school cannot condone any student coming here intending to use anything other than a windows-based machine that meets the minimum specs. Sorry if this message unnecessarily covers familiar ground for you -- I just wanted to be clear about the situation here at GW Law.

Got that? GW cannot condone any intent to use anything other than a windows-based machine. I can't think of a better way to welcome your new students than with rhetoric like that.

So here's the thing: I can maybe make peace with buying a machine that runs Windows, but I'd like a certain kind of machine and I need your help. My requirements would include:

• a non-Intel processor, meaning I suppose something from AMD (Athlon?)
• a machine on which I could run Linux for everything that's not Windoze-only

So I guess what I'm looking for is a small, lightweight laptop with an Athlon processor that ships with a dual OS installed—some wi-fi friendly variant of Linux and Windows XP Pro. Any suggestions?

I'm pretty clueless here, so any help will be appreciated. What's the best (most consumer-friendly) version of Linux, anyway? Thanks.

Posted July 14, 2003 01:55 PM | law school