With 2G datasets you're probably going to want something fairly heavy
on the RAM side.
This brings a problem for 32-bit CPUs. Because Windows only supports
up to 4 gig of RAM for the 32-bit version, it is unlikely to find many
32-bit laptops supporting RAM configurations greater than 4 gig.
Because of this, I recommend a 64-bit CPU. (Even if you only buy the
laptop with 4 gig of RAM. It is nice to be able to get a RAM upgrade
if needed.)
Anytime you're dealing with CPU-intensive tasks dual-core or better is
going to be handy. For some tasks you can use both cores, for others
you can let one core do the heavy work while other allows her to
continue using the laptop instead of walking away from it to let it
finish. At this point I think it would be hard to find something that
isn't at least dual-core, though.
I used to really like IBM Thinkpads. Since Lenovo took the helm,
though, I've been less prone to advocating them. I had a Lenovo start
overheating after I installed a BIOS update. The old BIOS wasn't
available. Future updates didn't help. I found it would mostly
continue to work if I ran the CPUs at "power-save" and never used 3D
apps... and manually monitored the temperature. (It over-heated more
frequently in Windows. -- It wasn't a Linux issue.) Personally, I'm
never going to buy another Lenovo.
If either of you are IU students you should check out the discounts.
There's a KB article about them.
Laptops are pretty universally *not* user-serviceable. That being
said, RAM and hard drive upgrades are not always easy to perform on
some laptops. The prices just keep dropping, though, so even if she
thinks she won't need any more in the future this is still something
to be aware of.
Check http://linux-laptop.net/ before you purchase even if you're
familiar with the brand and have had good luck with them in the past.
It can save you a lot of trouble.
A lot of webcams work in Linux. The problem here is that chipsets
sometimes change even when the name of the product does not. Given the
device in front of you and an 'lsusb' (or 'lspci') and you can find
out whether it works fairly easily. You'll need a Google search of the
product name to see if other folks have general success, some success,
or total failure.
Personally, I'm partial to the built-in webcams if they're available
and have a supported chipset. They're just super convenient.
I think the <$1000 price range is probably realistic. Depending on the
size of the screen she wants and how much RAM she wants you may go
over, but probably not by too much.
Cheers,
Steven Black
On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 11:23 AM, Jose Ignacio Lucas Lledo
<ignasilucas@gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear BLUGers,
>
> My girlfriend is about to buy a new laptop, she asked me for some
> advice, and I thought that I'd better ask you, guys. Her preferences are
> the following:
>
> - First of all, she wants the hardware to be good, so that it can last a
> long time. Her previous laptop (a 3 years old Lenovo of some kind that I
> don't remember) had problems all the time. It performed much better,
> though, once she switched to Linux. Right now keys "T" and "Y" do not
> work, no matter how strong you hit them.
>
> - She'd like the laptop mostly to write, but also to run statistical
> analysis with R, which may involve datasets of <= 2GB, and CPU-intensive
> calculations. She wonders if 64 bit architectures are standard now in
> laptops, or if they are worthy. Also, how many cores? I guess a dual
> core is something good already, right?
>
> - She doesn't need a lot of storage capacity.
>
> In summary: she wants a robust laptop, whose processor she can feel
> proud of, and in which she can run ubuntu. She uses skype with a webcam
> often, and I know that not all webcams are automatically detected and
> configured by ubuntu. Any ideas?
>
> Other considerations: I think some of you work on (or know about) local
> businesses with awesome technical services; feel free to tell me about
> them. About the budget, I don't think she wants to spend more than 1000
> $.
>
> Thank you,
>
> Ignasi.
>
> _______________________________________________
> BLUG mailing list
> BLUG@linuxfan.com
> http://mailman.cs.indiana.edu/mailman/listinfo/blug
>
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