Fedora Queries for Laptop

[Kevin J. Cummings]

Jigar Sutaria wrote:
> I have Dell Inspiron with all latest configuration. I want to know

In the Linux world, the phrase "all latest configuration" is a 
meaningless one.  See below.

> following work with Fedora or not
> If they are working any configuration required or not (Any document 
> reference that can help me knowing this)
>  
> 1. Bluetooth data/voice
> 2. USB Flash Drive
> 3. USB Hard Drive
> 4. Playing Movies VCD/DVD
> 5. Playing Music
> 6. Telephony Tools
> 7. Microphone
> 8. Webcam
> 9  Scanner/Cameras

And the answer is ...   *maybe*

You need to provide more details of the particular devices.
Bluetooth tends to work, but, not being a bluetooth user (other than my 
laptop supports it), I can't give you any details.

USB Flash drives tend to work fairly well.  The USB Storage device 
interface seems to be well solved on Linux.  You will probably have more 
problems with the filesystem type on the USB stick than with the stick 
itself.

Ditto for USB hard drives, though, there was a USB Hard Drive that had 
problems on Linux because the manufacturers ignored the USB storage 
standard and implemented an ms only shortcut which caused the drives to 
fail to work properly on Linux.  There were solutions published for how 
to get around this, but ultimately, the manufacturers were at fault.

Movies (multimedia in general) is problematic.  Some solutions may not 
be "legal" in some locations.  Getting around DRM is illegal in some 
countries.  Solutions exist.  You will need to find them.
Read as much as you can in the Fedora Release Notes about multimedia, 
and the supporting documents (like FedoraGuide.info).

The same with Music, but, in general, there are enough tools out there 
that can either play or convert odd codecs into something that *is* 
playable.

There are a number of Telephony tools out there.  It depends on your 
exact requirements.  Skype, MythPhone, Ekiga, and others exist.

If you are having problems with your microphone, post about them here. 
Most microphones are a simple device and should work with the Linux 
sound systems.  Note, Pulseaudio in F9 is new and different from 
previous versions of Fedora.  There are still a few rough spots with it 
on some hardware.

Webcams are a different matter.  Not all webcams work.  You *will* need 
to know the chipset it uses and arrange to use the appropriate driver 
for it (if one exists).  Many of the drivers out there are still ALPHA 
quality, a few are BETA quality, and others work well enough for general 
use.  YMMV, and you need to be aware.  Laptop Manufacturers change the 
underlying hardware at a whim because of supply/demand issues and 
versioning without thinking of us poor Linux users.

Most cameras work as USB (or Firewire) storage devices, and can be 
mounted directly into your files system.  Of course, then you have to 
navigate to the proper subdirectory to actually find your pics/vids. 
Others can use tools like gphoto2 to access your camera memory directly. 
  Again, YMMV, and it depends on which camera you have.  Older cameras 
are more likely to be problematic than newer ones.

Scanners need to be twain compatible in order to work correctly.  What 
bus does it use?  USB is common today, SCSI and Parallel was common a 
few years ago.  Parallel port scanners have the worst support.  They are 
also the least common today.

IHTH!

-- 
Kevin J. Cummings
kjchome at rcn.com
cummings at kjchome.homeip.net
cummings at kjc386.framingham.ma.us
Registered Linux User #1232 (http://counter.li.org)