When I sit down with a new computer, I enter the Configuration Zone. Not a distant cousin of the Twilight Zone, it can be a joy or a nightmare. My expectations are generally well-defined, and I tend to get upset when they are difficult to fulfil.

My expectations for a laptop and the OS on it:

• My productivity. This means

  • Web
  • Console
  • ssh
  • IM/IRC
  • Keyboard acceleration

  In Linux, that means Firefox, xterm, ssh (duh), gaim, and currently FVWM. In Windows, it's Firefox, putty, cygwin if I'll be suffering for a prolonged period, gaim, and enough patience to endure the lack of useful keyboard acceleration.

  In OS X:

  • Safari is OK, but there's no tabs so Firefox was one of the first downloads.
  • The terminal is good enough for most of what I use a terminal for. It needs a little tweaking, though. Namely, I need to figure out how to get it to pass the pgup/pgdn keys to the application and not steal them for scrollback, and I need to figure out how to get mutt in screen on falcon to display properly. The font needs serious work, too (I wonder if I can get Terminus to work in OS X).
  • ssh, check.
  • IM: iChat is neat in some ways, but the conversation UI is a terrible waste of space and it doesn't support Jabber. Adium X seems to be what I'll stick with, unless I gravitate to gaim later on, but I was intentionally steering clear of X apps in X11 to try the "OS X" way of doing things.
  • IRC: I usually do this in screen over ssh with irssi, but I did check out irssix and Colluquy. They both look worthy of use as a native IRC client, should I change my habits.
  • Keyboard: I have been quite pleased with the keyboard usage in OS X. I was afraid OS X might be too mousy for me, but the accelerators are consistent and very useful if you take a moment to learn them. I just need to find a quick reference card now. The funky key (command key) is my friend. Thayne tried to tell Jayce^ and I once that you couldn't remap CAPS to ctrl in the Apple laptops, but you can indeed do it with a nifty tool called uControl. One of the most important keystrokes to learn is ctrl-f2, which brings the menu bar into focus.You probably want to switch things so that the function keys are function keys first and nifty laptop feature keys second—the opposite is the default. I also remapped enter to fn, to make the fn versions of the arrow keys easier to access.

• Configurable but usable in default configuration. OS X is very usable, and quite configurable in the important ways. I had fun going through the system preferences, but didn't really change a lot. One thing I wish I could figure out is how to go back to the Show All view with the keyboard.

• Sleep. This has eluded so many laptops I've used it's not even funny—both in Linux and even in Windows. Works great in OS X on this iBook, we'll see about Linux in a week.

• Wireless. This is where I will be disappointed in Linux until I get a usb wireless thingy, but I went into that with my eyes wide open. Works great in OS X, except on boot it doesn't seem to join my network automatically. I'll have to tinker with that.

I ought to mention also that I think a laptop should be light and portable, but that was part of the decision going in and has nothing to do with setup. I am happy with the size of my iBook. Oh, by the way, his name is Gandalf.