I would like to throw recommendations towards vendors like zareason system76 and frost byte systems
All are vendors who sell laptops with Linux installed
On Jul 27, 2010 12:04 PM, "Steven Black" <yam655@gmail.com> wrote:
> 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.
>>
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