On 09/30/2012 07:49 AM, Jerry Feldman wrote: > On 09/29/2012 10:38 PM, David Kramer wrote: >> Either the backlight or the inverter died in my 5-year-old Dell D820 >> laptop. Fixing it doesn't make financial sense, though I may throw it >> on my rack and hook it up to my KVM for "something", as I've figured out >> how to tell X to disable the internal monitor and use the external >> monitor as the primary. >> >> I've decided I want to go with a desktop machine for my main computer, >> so I can use a better keyboard and bigger monitor, but I still need >> something portable, too. I'm looking for a laptop that doesn't have to >> be a desk-melting screamer, but it also doesn't make sense to put money >> in anything *too* wimpy. I plan on splitting the hard drive to >> Windows/Kubuntu 12.04LTS, so I need a supported video card. >> >> Really the only reason I want to get a laptop NOW is that I don't want >> Windows 8, otherwise I would put it off. I find Windows 7 relatively >> stable and inoffensive. >> >> Through work I can get significant discounts on Lenovo and HP laptops, >> so I'm focusing on them. I just priced out a ThinkPad T530, and >> it was over $900 with the discount, and I picked the slowest i5 >> processor they have and 4GB RAM (though the better video card). That >> seems a bit much. Maybe I should look at i3 processors. Many of the >> models had ~14" screens, and I want at least 15". >> >> Any comparisons of HP vs Lenovo, or specific models that have worked or >> not worked with Linux would be great. >> > I have a Lenovo T420 for work. It is an Intel I5. Works find. I > sometimes load Red Hat Enterprise in VirtualBox and have no performance > issues. However, a number of coworkers have the smaller laptops for > portability, and they complain about the performance, so stick with at > least an I5. I think I have 8GB. I have had a number of HP/Compaq > laptops in the past and all were good and supported Linux. My ancient > HP/Compaq NX6125 laptop that I bring to the installfest is still going > strong after either 6 or 7 years. I reported a while back that Ubuntu > 12.04LTS would not install on it, but Ubuntu 12.04.1 installed fine.
Yup. I think they solved a lot of compatibility problems in 12.04.1. But they came out with it pretty fast, so I'm OK with that. > IMHO, netbooks are really portable, and I used to use it at work to > reprogram the old Linksys routers. It is also great for trips, but > useless for real computing. Yes, I already have a Dell Mini10 that I'm VERY happy with. I bring it to meetings all the time. And a hacked tablet for when even that's too big. But sometimes you need more. > You might check prices at eCost. I bought my HP laptop while I was > either at HP, and it was cheaper than I could get with an employee > discount. I also can get an employee discount at IBM where they have a > number of refurbs including Macs and iPads. Definitely worth considering. > My desktop computer is a Penguin with and AMD Opteron quad core that I > bought in 2008. The only issue is that I replaced the power supply. The > one really nice thing about this is its servicability. It comes with a > lot of extra screws, and almost everything slides out. It has 4 hot swap > eSATA slots. When I go on vacation, I pull all the drives and lock them > up. The thing that started me down the path to moving to a desktop is that I started doing some casual gaming with people at work once a month, and managed to put together a pretty decent box. But why do that then use it just a few times a month? Now I have a huge (22" vs 15.4") monitor, a real keyboard that doesn't get hotter the longer I use it, plenty of hard drive space. and the fan noise is somewhere else. I need to buy better furniture for it, but so far I'm happy with the decision. _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
