4 ms·

I had a nice experience last night. I was one of several presenters at a community council meeting, and my netbook - an Acer Aspire One with Ubuntu 9.04 - was t

I had a nice experience last night. I was one of several presenters at a community council meeting, and my netbook - an Acer Aspire One with Ubuntu 9.04 - was the designated AV device. I was worried and showed up early, but getting my display projected onto the big screen was as simple as enabling the projector as a second monitor and mirroring it with my display. (Also, two PowerPoint shows with animations and so on worked seamlessly on the OpenOffice PowerPoint clone.) In contrast, I've seen plenty of Windows XP and Mac OSX laptops totally choke at working with a projector.

tensor 17y ago
Claiming that windows and mac laptops have more trouble working with a projector than Linux is bold indeed, and I think very misleading. Strangely, in all the time I've been to talks, I've never seen a single Windows or Mac laptop have any trouble with a projector. In contrast, I've seen a few Linux machines have trouble to the point where the presenter gave up and used a different computer. Granted that was a few years ago, it's nice to hear that Ubuntu has improved so much in recent times. I remember just three or so years ago getting a second monitor enabled would often require quite a lot of effort on Linux.
- RyanMcGreal 17y ago
  > Claiming that windows and mac laptops have more trouble working with a projector than Linux... But that's not what I claimed. I relayed a happy anecdote about a positive experience with Linux - and I did so a) in the context of a parent comment that argued Linux is getting better, and b) on the assumption that most HN readers understand that the plural of anecdote is not data.
- bad_user 17y ago
  Yes, getting a second monitor would require playing with the "xrandr" command. It's not that hard, but definitely not for normal users. The situation is thankfully improving though, and I'm happy for that. It's nowhere near ready for consumers (as much as some people like to claim), but it is getting there, and it has a really good and steady improvement rate.
  - RyanMcGreal 17y ago
    >Yes, getting a second monitor would require playing with the "xrandr" command. This is what I had to do to set up the projector as a monitor: `System -> Preferences -> Display.` Easy as pie.

tensor 17y ago

Claiming that windows and mac laptops have more trouble working with a projector than Linux is bold indeed, and I think very misleading. Strangely, in all the time I've been to talks, I've never seen a single Windows or Mac laptop have any trouble with a projector. In contrast, I've seen a few Linux machines have trouble to the point where the presenter gave up and used a different computer. Granted that was a few years ago, it's nice to hear that Ubuntu has improved so much in recent times. I remember just three or so years ago getting a second monitor enabled would often require quite a lot of effort on Linux.

RyanMcGreal 17y ago
> Claiming that windows and mac laptops have more trouble working with a projector than Linux... But that's not what I claimed. I relayed a happy anecdote about a positive experience with Linux - and I did so a) in the context of a parent comment that argued Linux is getting better, and b) on the assumption that most HN readers understand that the plural of anecdote is not data.
bad_user 17y ago
Yes, getting a second monitor would require playing with the "xrandr" command. It's not that hard, but definitely not for normal users. The situation is thankfully improving though, and I'm happy for that. It's nowhere near ready for consumers (as much as some people like to claim), but it is getting there, and it has a really good and steady improvement rate.
- RyanMcGreal 17y ago
  >Yes, getting a second monitor would require playing with the "xrandr" command. This is what I had to do to set up the projector as a monitor: `System -> Preferences -> Display.` Easy as pie.