On Thursday 24 July 2003 12:11 pm, Alex wrote: > Does anyone know of a good laptop to run linux on (preferably gentoo)? > > The only graphical program I intend to run is Mozilla, otherwise I will > use text based programs. I guess I just want a dumb terminal that can do > X.
On all of my systems, both laptop and desktop, Gentoo is the only Linux that I run anymore. All of my systems are at home, not work. My laptop is usually my "main" system because I can take it with me. I use OpenOffice, kmail, mozilla, konqueror, gramps, and nearly anything else that I want. I did find, however, that netbeans uses way too much CPU and memory and that it is better just to wait until I am at home to actually program anything; running an app is fine, just not programming. I am using fvwm as the window manager, which *does* seem to make a difference when using applications. I do compile all of KDE, and parts on gnome, but I don't use the default window manager. On a slower computer, fvwm seems to provide better performance - fewer things to load. > > I was wondering, since gentoo is a source-based distrobution, how *slow* > of a computer can be useful? > I have gentoo running on an IBM Thinkpad 380D laptop (Pentium 150 MMX, 80 MB RAM - maxed out, 20 GB harddrive). It's not the fastest thing in the world, but it runs descently. Once tuned, gentoo has no problems running. Because of the low amount of RAM, it does swap quite a bit with larger applications, such as OpenOffice and mozilla. Do not try to actually program with netbeans (it will take all day to do next to nothing); running an application is fine however. It takes about 2-3 days to install the base system, about 10 days, or so, to compile all of X and KDE. I know this seems to be a long time, but since I am not running in a production environment and they can be unattended during the vast majority of the build process, it does not bother me. I start it, I go to bed, go to work, go do something else; I check on it periodically. When it needs my input, it waits, I give it the input, it continues on. No problem. > Would mozilla run well on a Pentium II-266 Mhz? I realize there are other > browsers like links & lynx, but they don't seem to render most pages > correctly. My main desktop is a Pentium 233 MMX, mozilla seems to run quite well without any problems. Memory availability seems to be the main problem as it does swap a bit; I have 256 MB of RAM on this system. Again, once tuned, gentoo doesn't seem to have any problems. I run fvwm as the window manager on this system also without problems. This system handles netbeans without any problems; it has a lot more memory that the 380D. > > What does X need to run smoothly, say as a dumb terminal? My guess, proper drivers to match your video card and monitor. > > I was also hoping it could last more than 3 hours on battery without > weighing a ton.... (and be able to use a wireless network card). My Thinkpad 380D lasts about 1 hour when running either gentoo or Windows NT 4.0. I think it is more of a hardware problem than software, at least it appears to be on this laptop. > > I suppose this is too much... Never! I always push my systems to the limit. That's why they are there after all. > > -Alex > [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list I hope this helps. Harlan... -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
