Re: gEDA-user: OT: Recommendations for laptop?
Larry Doolittle wrote: On Fri, Jan 02, 2009 at 09:40:08PM -0700, Eric Brombaugh wrote: I've been glancing over some of the inexpensive Linux-based netbooks lately - a tad underpowered, but potentially useful and cheap enough to take a flyer on. I'm curious how useful a 1024x800 screen would be for gEDA/PCB. 1024x800? Where? They're all widescreen now. The lightweight, inexpensive ones are 1024*600 or so. The larger, heavier, cheap and modern notebooks get up all the way to 1280x800. The lack of height would hurt me, at least. I now use a 1024x768 Thinkpad X40 (which I have promoted here before: US$400 on eBay). I couldn't stand going any smaller in screen size. Dredging up this old thread again... I found an ASUS EEE PC 900A at a local big-box last week for $200. After a few false starts with the pre-installed Xandros distro, I loaded up Ubuntu eee which seems to be working well. gEDA/PCB were easily added with apt-get (although the Ubuntu repositories are still on 20080202 unfortunately) and gschem + PCB work fine. Surprisingly usable, even on the small screen. I do wonder if there is any way to get a newer package though. Fedora 9's yum repository is pretty much up-to-date. I guess compiling from source is the only way for now. Overall not bad though. It would work in a pinch. Eric ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: OT: Recommendations for laptop?
- Closed source OS rubs some folks the wrong way - even when they provide free development tools documentation for coding on top of the OS, not having access to the guts is annoying. It actually can be anywhere from irrelevant to intolerable, depending on what you're trying to do. For me, crippling is usually about the right level. NetBSD does run on many of the Apple laptops, but then, as I put it before, most of the Apple benefits go away (if they haven't already - as I remarked, Apple's UI is not a benefit for me, for example). So given you don't like Apple, what do you recommend for a good laptop? It depends fairly heavily on what you want to do with it. Perhaps, for you, Apple _is_ a good choice - for example, if you don't mind spending money on the OS, and you just want to run (say) geda--pcb, it may well be a reasonable choice. For me, it isn't; the closed-source OS is pretty crippling on pragmatic grounds and intolerable on philosophical grounds. I haven't found anything I really like. The best two laptops I have so far are an IBM WorkPad z50 and a Tadpole SPARCbook whose model number I forget. Each has a non-Intel-architecture CPU (MIPS and SPARC), which I consider a benefit. Neither one has tremendous screen resolution (800x600 maybe? I forget), and their colour capabilities aren't flashy. Each one has difficulty with disks (the z50 has no interface designed for disk - I use a CF-interface microdrive - and the SPARCbook takes SCSI laptop drives, which are thin on the ground and usually small (~1G) when you can find them, and the OBP doesn't play nice with the IDE-to-SCSI laptop disk adapter I have handy, though another just the same works fine with my Voyager). The z50 has good battery life, something like six hours, mostly because I got a new battery for it; the SPARCbook has just about no battery life, but I haven't replaced its battery. Each has good keyboard feel and tolerable (but not especially good) keyboard layout - I'm picky about keyboard layout. The z50 has a fairly low RAM limit, and my add-on RAM for it died, so I haven't turned it on in quite a while - I don't recall what the SPARCbook has for RAM, but I think it's plenty. If I found myself needing a working laptop, I'd probably try to get each in working order, which means getting a new battery for the SPARCbook and looking harder for a RAM module for the z50. Oh, and look for multi-gig mass storage with a PCMCIA interface, for the SPARCbook. I know just about nothing about what's available new. I _really_ don't want to spend money on an Intel-architecture machine, and I don't know of anyone making laptops with anything else - though it hasn't mattered enough for me to put serious effort into looking. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTMLmo...@rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: OT: Recommendations for laptop?
On Sat, 2009-01-03 at 02:48 -0500, der Mouse wrote: - Closed source OS rubs some folks the wrong way - even when they provide free development tools documentation for coding on top of the OS, not having access to the guts is annoying. It actually can be anywhere from irrelevant to intolerable, depending on what you're trying to do. For me, crippling is usually about the right level. Seen in other people's quote files, to my immense pleasure and amusement: Life is too short to run proprietary software. -- Bdale Garbee I've taken to calling it 'secret source software' in recent years. To help keep this on topic for the list, details of my current gEDA project are at altusmetrum.org Bdale ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: OT: Recommendations for laptop?
I am very much an open-source proponent. As I mentioned in my previous post, I run Gentoo Linux on my Apple MacBook Pro. Linux runs very fast and problem free on it, and the graphic programs like gEDA are especially awesome on its 1920 x 1200 screen resolution. Its true that when you buy a MacBook you are buying a hardware component and a software component, and in that sense supporting a closed OS, but I can overlook that fact if my ultimate goal is to run Linux on the best hardware platform I can find for it. Also it is extremely satisfying when a Mac user spies me working on his platform of choice and then discovers I am not using the stock software. (Cool! where did you get that application?) It gives me a great opening to evangelize my favorite OS. I think it is actually a strong way to support Linux. --ken On Sat, 2009-01-03 at 02:48 -0500, der Mouse wrote: - Closed source OS rubs some folks the wrong way - even when they provide free development tools documentation for coding on top of the OS, not having access to the guts is annoying. It actually can be anywhere from irrelevant to intolerable, depending on what you're trying to do. For me, crippling is usually about the right level. NetBSD does run on many of the Apple laptops, but then, as I put it before, most of the Apple benefits go away (if they haven't already - as I remarked, Apple's UI is not a benefit for me, for example). So given you don't like Apple, what do you recommend for a good laptop? It depends fairly heavily on what you want to do with it. Perhaps, for you, Apple _is_ a good choice - for example, if you don't mind spending money on the OS, and you just want to run (say) geda--pcb, it may well be a reasonable choice. For me, it isn't; the closed-source OS is pretty crippling on pragmatic grounds and intolerable on philosophical grounds. I haven't found anything I really like. The best two laptops I have so far are an IBM WorkPad z50 and a Tadpole SPARCbook whose model number I forget. Each has a non-Intel-architecture CPU (MIPS and SPARC), which I consider a benefit. Neither one has tremendous screen resolution (800x600 maybe? I forget), and their colour capabilities aren't flashy. Each one has difficulty with disks (the z50 has no interface designed for disk - I use a CF-interface microdrive - and the SPARCbook takes SCSI laptop drives, which are thin on the ground and usually small (~1G) when you can find them, and the OBP doesn't play nice with the IDE-to-SCSI laptop disk adapter I have handy, though another just the same works fine with my Voyager). The z50 has good battery life, something like six hours, mostly because I got a new battery for it; the SPARCbook has just about no battery life, but I haven't replaced its battery. Each has good keyboard feel and tolerable (but not especially good) keyboard layout - I'm picky about keyboard layout. The z50 has a fairly low RAM limit, and my add-on RAM for it died, so I haven't turned it on in quite a while - I don't recall what the SPARCbook has for RAM, but I think it's plenty. If I found myself needing a working laptop, I'd probably try to get each in working order, which means getting a new battery for the SPARCbook and looking harder for a RAM module for the z50. Oh, and look for multi-gig mass storage with a PCMCIA interface, for the SPARCbook. I know just about nothing about what's available new. I _really_ don't want to spend money on an Intel-architecture machine, and I don't know of anyone making laptops with anything else - though it hasn't mattered enough for me to put serious effort into looking. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML[1]mo...@rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B ___ geda-user mailing list [2]geda-u...@moria.seul.org [3]http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user References 1. mailto:mo...@rodents-montreal.org 2. mailto:geda-user@moria.seul.org 3. http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: OT: Recommendations for laptop?
Stuart Brorson wrote: My old laptop has gotten old and is starting to act like it should be retired. I use it for hacking (including working on gEDA stuff on those now rare occasions when I get to it), writing, accessing the net, and as the primary computer when I travel. Its replacement (if I go that route) would be heavily used on a sporadic basis. It should be reasonably fast have a large RAM. My main tasks involve using OpenOffice and the various gcc tools (and gEDA related stuff). I'd have to say I'm terribly spoiled by my Macbook Pro. It cost me a pretty penny, but I simply will not buy anything else for myself or my family, period. (For desktops and servers, I still go Linux.) I'm going to sound like a commercial, so forgive me in advance. It is BSD-ish UNIX with most of the familiar Linux/UNIX/etc stuff built in, so you'll feel right at home. There are also package repositories (I use fink) for the traditional open source software packages, so installing the usual cast of Linux-universe tools is pretty debian-like. Even geda! The Pointy-Clicky interface is very nice, simple, clear and artfully elegant. Even sysadmin is elegant, and Just Works. (Apple has pretty much defines It Just Works.) When you start getting into advanced trickery (for example, I have TimeMachine backing up to my LInux server!) your Linux skills will serve you. OpenOffice, FireFox, gimp, and many other familiar monsters have native Mac binaries/installers. QT supports Mac, so many of the KDE tools port trivially to the mac. Development tools for the Mac, including all the SDKs, compilers and documentation, are *free*, and are gcc based. (Xcode includes gcc C/C++/Objective-C.) I just can't say enough good things about my Mackbook Pro. The only glaring issue, is the price. -- Steve WilliamsThe woods are lovely, dark and deep. steve at icarus.com But I have promises to keep, http://www.icarus.com and lines to code before I sleep, http://www.picturel.com And lines to code before I sleep. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: OT: Recommendations for laptop?
Stephen Williams wrote: I'd have to say I'm terribly spoiled by my Macbook Pro. As an original Macbook owner, I can definitely recommend the Macbooks. Put simply, they're as close as you can get to a Linux laptop and have stuff still work. :) Definitely load up on the RAM, though. The base configurations aren't too bad, but the machines perform much better when you give them more memory. I maxed mine out because I planned to run VMWare Fusion, and that decision has served me well even on days that I don't. b.g. -- Bill Gatliff b...@billgatliff.com ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: OT: Recommendations for laptop?
Stephen Williams wrote: I just can't say enough good things about my Mackbook Pro. The only glaring issue, is the price. I've been happy with Apple laptops for a few years now. I got an iBook back in '03 which is still in daily use and a newer Macbook about a year ago which is working well. *NIX compatibility and the fink package system make it great for development. gEDA/PCB work well and the packages seem to stay current. Agree that extra memory is helpful, but 3rd-party chips from a reputable vendor are easy to install and more reasonably priced than Apple's. Apple hardware is a bit more expensive, but the polish in hardware software is worth it to me. Eric ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: OT: Recommendations for laptop?
I just can't say enough good things about my Mackbook Pro. [...] I've been happy with Apple laptops for a few years now. [...] To offer a slight counterweight to the Apple gushiness...I wouldn't. I once had an Apple laptop for a week or so, and I wouldn't recommend them unless you find closed-source system acceptable - I don't, and I found that most of the Apple benefits go away then (for example, that means dumping Aqua, the Apple UI - it's not a UI I could stand for extended use, but it's usually cited as one of Apple's advantages), and the ones that remain don't outweigh the price. Even if you _do_ find closed-source acceptable (most people seem to), prepare yourself for having to relearn most of your sysadmin skills. I've worked as a Unix sysadmin for most of my career, and the Apple OS (some flavour of OS X, I believe it was) was at least as different from other Unix flavours as the more unusual of my experience - think AIX, only more so and in a different direction. For example, it took something like half an hour (and some lucky guesses - with twenty years' experience guiding them) before I figured out how to boot the machine single-user, and probably another half-hour or so before I figured out what I needed to poke to get the result I wanted. (Times approximate; this was quite a while ago and I no longer recall details.) /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTMLmo...@rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: OT: Recommendations for laptop?
On Jan 2, 2009, at 9:02 PM, der Mouse wrote: I just can't say enough good things about my Mackbook Pro. [...] I've been happy with Apple laptops for a few years now. [...] To offer a slight counterweight to the Apple gushiness...I wouldn't. Despite being one of the earlier 'gushy' folks, I'll grant you've got some valid criticisms: - their dialect of *NIX is different. I liked your comparison to AIX - I remember that! - Closed source OS rubs some folks the wrong way - even when they provide free development tools documentation for coding on top of the OS, not having access to the guts is annoying. - Hardware is more expensive than commodity PCs. - Apple's sales support has a certain attitude that can be grating. So given you don't like Apple, what do you recommend for a good laptop? I've been glancing over some of the inexpensive Linux-based netbooks lately - a tad underpowered, but potentially useful and cheap enough to take a flyer on. I'm curious how useful a 1024x800 screen would be for gEDA/PCB. Eric ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: OT: Recommendations for laptop?
On Fri, Jan 02, 2009 at 09:40:08PM -0700, Eric Brombaugh wrote: I've been glancing over some of the inexpensive Linux-based netbooks lately - a tad underpowered, but potentially useful and cheap enough to take a flyer on. I'm curious how useful a 1024x800 screen would be for gEDA/PCB. 1024x800? Where? They're all widescreen now. The lightweight, inexpensive ones are 1024*600 or so. The larger, heavier, cheap and modern notebooks get up all the way to 1280x800. The lack of height would hurt me, at least. I now use a 1024x768 Thinkpad X40 (which I have promoted here before: US$400 on eBay). I couldn't stand going any smaller in screen size. - Larry ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: OT: Recommendations for laptop?
On Fri, Dec 26, 2008 at 02:01:12PM -0800, Dave N6NZ wrote: One thing I've always liked about the Thinkpad's/Lenovo's is the excellent feel and behavior of the pressure stick. Works great. My new Lenovo has both a stick (which I like and use) and also a scratcher, which keeps getting in the way because I keep accidentally dragging a finger over it and losing my cursor... Seconded. I have had laptops with all combinations. I quickly adapt to the pressure stick (http://xkcd.com/243/), but to the track-pad, not so much. One more plus for the X40 with pressure stick only: three mouse buttons. - Larry ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
gEDA-user: OT: Recommendations for laptop?
Hi -- Please accept my apologies for this off-topic post. However, I figured that folks on this list are knowledgable about this type of thing. My old laptop has gotten old and is starting to act like it should be retired. I use it for hacking (including working on gEDA stuff on those now rare occasions when I get to it), writing, accessing the net, and as the primary computer when I travel. Its replacement (if I go that route) would be heavily used on a sporadic basis. It should be reasonably fast have a large RAM. My main tasks involve using OpenOffice and the various gcc tools (and gEDA related stuff). Ordinarily I'd buy a reconditioned IBM Stink Pad from IBM, and then stick Fedora on it. Stink Pads are mechanically robust, and they play with Linux easily. However, IBM has sold the Stink Pad division to China, and I am reluctant to get a Levano because of quality concerns. So, does anybody in here have recommendations for a good laptop? Or do you have any laptops to avoid? Thanks, Stuart ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: OT: Recommendations for laptop?
Stuart - On Fri, Dec 26, 2008 at 07:33:13AM -0500, Stuart Brorson wrote: Ordinarily I'd buy a reconditioned IBM Stink Pad from IBM, and then stick Fedora on it. Stink Pads are mechanically robust, and they play with Linux easily. However, IBM has sold the Stink Pad division to China, and I am reluctant to get a Levano because of quality concerns. I have no regrets getting a ThinkPad X40 from eBay for US$400, a few months ago. Maybe a little larger, slower, and less glitzy than a similiarly priced netbook. But a good clear 1024x768 screen, and mechanically robust as you say. The X40 was the last true IBM model, before Lenovo took over. You can find them at 1.2, 1.4, and 1.5 GHz, and with a variety of wireless cards. - Larry ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: OT: Recommendations for laptop?
So, does anybody in here have recommendations for a good laptop? Mine is a Dell Inspiron 6400 and it works just fine with Fedora. You can try it out at the code sprint if you like. AFAIK the Dell Vostro line is also based on this same platform - I got one for my mom but it runs Windows so I don't know how Linux compatible it is. Of course, linux compatibility might be sensitive to which peripherals you choose, too. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: OT: Recommendations for laptop?
On Fri, 2008-12-26 at 07:33 -0500, Stuart Brorson wrote: So, does anybody in here have recommendations for a good laptop? Or do you have any laptops to avoid? I'm a gEDA user who happens to work for HP in a relevant role. See www.gag.com/~bdale for details if you wish. All of the notebook computers in the business series from HP are tested for use with a couple commercial Linux distributions. If you pick one of the units with Intel graphics and wireless, which means you'll also be getting an Intel CPU, then you're likely to be very happy with the resulting experience using Linux. For example, I'm typing this in Debian on a 2510p. It's possible to have a good experience with many of the consumer HP notebook models too, but it's much harder for me to provide simple guidelines like the above since there's so much hardware variation in the consumer series. My best advice, regardless of which vendor you choose, is to troll interesting looking models, then do some web searching to see if people have reported good or bad experiences loading and using Linux on that model. And if you end up buying something retail, take a live-boot CD along and see if the sales people will let you try it on a demo unit first. Bdale ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: OT: Recommendations for laptop?
I have used sony, toshiba, dell, think pads etc. they all seem about equal quality. So have you decided what is important to you such as is light weight and small more or less important then screen size? minimum number of usb ports do you need an rs232 jack? (these are getting harder to find) do you need to support non-usb flash memory (like from your digital camera) other then that get it loaded with dram and disk space. have fun, Steve Meier On Fri, 2008-12-26 at 04:54 -0800, Larry Doolittle wrote: Stuart - On Fri, Dec 26, 2008 at 07:33:13AM -0500, Stuart Brorson wrote: Ordinarily I'd buy a reconditioned IBM Stink Pad from IBM, and then stick Fedora on it. Stink Pads are mechanically robust, and they play with Linux easily. However, IBM has sold the Stink Pad division to China, and I am reluctant to get a Levano because of quality concerns. I have no regrets getting a ThinkPad X40 from eBay for US$400, a few months ago. Maybe a little larger, slower, and less glitzy than a similiarly priced netbook. But a good clear 1024x768 screen, and mechanically robust as you say. The X40 was the last true IBM model, before Lenovo took over. You can find them at 1.2, 1.4, and 1.5 GHz, and with a variety of wireless cards. - Larry ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: OT: Recommendations for laptop?
On Fri, 2008-12-26 at 09:13 -0700, Bdale Garbee wrote: On Fri, 2008-12-26 at 07:33 -0500, Stuart Brorson wrote: So, does anybody in here have recommendations for a good laptop? Or do you have any laptops to avoid? I'm a gEDA user who happens to work for HP in a relevant role. See www.gag.com/~bdale for details if you wish. Cool. My HP Compaq nc6320 works nicely with recent kernels, suspends, resumes and everything! +points: well built - has survived multiple strip-down / repairs - I managed to blow a chip in its PSU due to one of the -ve points below. I did notice on last dis-assembly that one of the screen hinges had partly broken though. Spare parts are easily (and for items like KBD, fan etc., _cheaply_) available, identifiable, and supplied without fuss through a number of distributors. -ve points: I've got through 3x power adaptors now due to wiggle faults, and managed to spike the data / feedback line on the feed during a quick bodge type repair, and ended up having to rework the mother board. ACPI support was a little crufty, but that ought to be better now Vista is out, and demanding better ACPI implementations for full compliance. Screen died :(.. Don't think we can blame HP for that one.. blame LG +Philips. All of the notebook computers in the business series from HP are tested for use with a couple commercial Linux distributions. If you pick one of the units with Intel graphics and wireless, which means you'll also be getting an Intel CPU, then you're likely to be very happy with the resulting experience using Linux. Mine is from the commercial series. Much of the consumer range I saw at shops sadly followed a growing trend to be _hideously_ ugly, and adorned with pointless stickers (advertising features) over every square inch of spare chassis. My best advice, regardless of which vendor you choose, is to troll interesting looking models, then do some web searching to see if people have reported good or bad experiences loading and using Linux on that model. And if you end up buying something retail, take a live-boot CD along and see if the sales people will let you try it on a demo unit first. You might like to download the bootable test-suite from http://linuxfirmwarekit.org/ and confirm how well the firmware does. -- Peter Clifton Electrical Engineering Division, Engineering Department, University of Cambridge, 9, JJ Thomson Avenue, Cambridge CB3 0FA Tel: +44 (0)7729 980173 - (No signal in the lab!) ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: OT: Recommendations for laptop?
Stuart Brorson wrote: So, does anybody in here have recommendations for a good laptop? Or do you have any laptops to avoid? Well, when I was looking for a *nix laptop that was minimum hassle to maintain, I went with a Macbook, and it was a good decision. gEDA and all of my other *nix tools work fine on OS X, and keeping the system up to date and working isn't a research project. It plays very well with my Linux-based home network -- I keep a git repo of all my projects on the home file server and sync up that way. As to Lenovo laptops, I have one of those for those times when I am forced to use Windows (like my current contract... Windows *and* PICs... a pain in each of *both* butt cheeks...). Anyway, my Lenovo machine has been good, no complaints. -dave Thanks, Stuart ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: OT: Recommendations for laptop?
I've also been using a MacBook (Pro). Very solid, easy to use GUI with lots of point and click support for different file formats (handy when viewing/porting graphics files), and it's *nix. People have ported lots of open source tools to the Mac (See Fink, MacPorts). I have 4GB of RAM and run Fusion (VMWare), so I can also run stock x86 Linuxes (for testing), and I even have an XP image for the occasional tool that has to run under Windows (still a few out there). I think owning both the HW and the OS gives Apple a more stable system than most others, since they only have to test for a few HW configurations (not for 1000s of PCs). I've had less trouble running VMWare Linux images on the Mac than I have running them on bare PC hardware - they just work. I tend to run MacOS all the time and run all my delopment tools and OSs on top of it. Stays up for weeks (usually power cycle only for updates). Base units aren't too expensive (probably some used ones out there for $500 - $750). The memory is easy and cheap to upgrade (uses standard DIMMs). The hard drive is also replaceable (I just put in a 500GB drive in mine - $115 from NewEgg). Hard drive replacement isn't as easy as the RAM, but it only takes an hour or two. Steve I've owned some Dells in the past, but Dave N6NZ wrote: Stuart Brorson wrote: So, does anybody in here have recommendations for a good laptop? Or do you have any laptops to avoid? Well, when I was looking for a *nix laptop that was minimum hassle to maintain, I went with a Macbook, and it was a good decision. gEDA and all of my other *nix tools work fine on OS X, and keeping the system up to date and working isn't a research project. It plays very well with my Linux-based home network -- I keep a git repo of all my projects on the home file server and sync up that way. As to Lenovo laptops, I have one of those for those times when I am forced to use Windows (like my current contract... Windows *and* PICs... a pain in each of *both* butt cheeks...). Anyway, my Lenovo machine has been good, no complaints. -dave Thanks, Stuart ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: OT: Recommendations for laptop?
On Fri, Dec 26, 2008 at 2:16 PM, Ken Lauffenburger k...@aavatech.com wrote: One more recommendation for MacBook Pro. I bought this unit (17 version maxed out) a year ago and I love it. No hardware or software problems so far and screaming fast. I use VMware Fusion to run Gentoo Linux on it and I am in that context at least 90% of the time. So far I have developed 5 PCBs using gEDA on Linux/VMware on this unit. Originally I had planned on installing Linux natively on the MacBook using a separate partition (I have heard it works great) but I have found that I like the ability to switch between OSX and Linux quickly without a reboot. --ken I use a similar, but lower-end, setup, with Ubuntu under virtualbox on a 1st-gen macbook. It works, but I much prefer CAD work on a real desktop with a multi-button mouse. It's hard for me to even function in gEDA with the one-button mouse. How to you guys cope? Regards, Mark markra...@gmail -- Mark Rages, Engineer Midwest Telecine LLC markra...@midwesttelecine.com ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: OT: Recommendations for laptop?
I use a wireless Logitech lazer 3-button mouse (actually two buttons and a center wheel). I don't think I would be able to do it with a one-button mouse either, or the touch pad for that matter. One issue with the mouse that I can't seem to get around is that the center button doesn't work in Linux context for some reason. The scrolling works, but clicking doesn't. Instead, the mouse functions as if three-button emulation is enabled--meaning that I get the effect of the center button click by clicking on the left and right buttons simultaneously--even though three-button emulation is not configured in my xorg.conf file. I think this is a side-effect of VMware Fusion. Its annoying but I have gotten used to it. I have heard that the Apple MightyMouse appears to be a single-button mouse but actually functions like a two or three button mouse in the sense that it can discriminate between clicks on the left and right sides of the button. I'm not sure if this could improve the user experience in gEDA or not. --ken On Fri, 2008-12-26 at 14:48 -0600, Mark Rages wrote: On Fri, Dec 26, 2008 at 2:16 PM, Ken Lauffenburger [1]k...@aavatech.com wrote : One more recommendation for MacBook Pro. I bought this unit (17 version maxed out) a year ago and I love it. No hardware or software problems so far and screaming fast. I use VMware Fusion to run Gentoo Linux on it and I am in that context at least 90% of the time. So far I have developed 5 PCBs using gEDA on Linux/VMware on this unit. Originally I had planned on installing Linux natively on the MacBook using a separate partition (I have heard it works great) but I have found that I like the ability to switch between OSX and Linux quickly without a reboot. --ken I use a similar, but lower-end, setup, with Ubuntu under virtualbox on a 1st-gen macbook. It works, but I much prefer CAD work on a real desktop with a multi-button mouse. It's hard for me to even function in gEDA with the one-button mouse. How to you guys cope? Regards, Mark markra...@gmail References 1. mailto:k...@aavatech.com ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: OT: Recommendations for laptop?
Mark Rages wrote: I use a similar, but lower-end, setup, with Ubuntu under virtualbox on a 1st-gen macbook. It works, but I much prefer CAD work on a real desktop with a multi-button mouse. It's hard for me to even function in gEDA with the one-button mouse. How to you guys cope? Ahhh... well, I've hated scratch-n-sniff pads since day one. I prefer trackballs, so I carry around a Logitech trackball everywhere, which gives me trackball, scroll wheel, and three buttons. I basically don't use the scratcher at all. With a trackball, the Macbook is great for Geda running in the X-windows subsystem. The screen size is an issue, but that is only a problem when I am away from home; at home I plug into an external monitor. The biggest problem with that is the dialog windows pop up on the first screen (which is the laptop screen) instead of the external monitor where I have the application window. That is a misfeature, but I can't say if that is a misfeature of gschem/pcb or a misfeature of the window manager. One thing I've always liked about the Thinkpad's/Lenovo's is the excellent feel and behavior of the pressure stick. Works great. My new Lenovo has both a stick (which I like and use) and also a scratcher, which keeps getting in the way because I keep accidentally dragging a finger over it and losing my cursor... -dave Regards, Mark markra...@gmail ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: OT: Recommendations for laptop?
On Fri, Dec 26, 2008 at 3:16 PM, Ken Lauffenburger k...@aavatech.com wrote: One more recommendation for MacBook Pro. I bought this unit (17 version maxed out) a year ago and I love it. No hardware or software problems so far and screaming fast. I use VMware Fusion to run Gentoo Linux on it and I am in that context at least 90% of the time. So far I have developed 5 PCBs using gEDA on Linux/VMware on this unit. Originally I had planned on installing Linux natively on the MacBook using a separate partition (I have heard it works great) but I have found that I like the ability to switch between OSX and Linux quickly without a reboot. --ken I'll add my two cents on this since I use a MacBook Pro for all of my desktop stuff. (For compute-intensive apps, I have a server at home running Linux.) Apple's hardware is very good (although be careful with first production runs of brand new models). You can find similar-spec'd machines from other manufacturers for less, but they often skimp on something hard to find in the catalog description (FSB speed, memory speed, SATA speed), so similar specs doesn't mean the same performance. You get what you pay for. I don't know of anyone with a cheapo $600 notebook that's really happy with it. AppleCare is excellent. For things that you can DIY, they'll cross ship you a replacement that usually arrives the next day (although they'll tell you it should take three, it always just takes one). I did have a problem with my wireless that required shipping it back: The day after I called, the empty box arrived. I shipped it out that day. It arrived at apple the next day, they fixed it and shipped it out that same day, returning to my house the next. I was without my computer for roughly 48 hours. Also, if you're reasonably technical and have done due diligence to isolate a problem, Apple won't argue with you. I had some instability issues that turned out to be caused by the memories overheating. When I was able to isolate that, they promptly shipped me replacements, no questions asked. My friends with Dells and Toshibas report much less satisfactory customer service experiences, although I have heard good things about HP. Speaking of overheating, my 65nm Core2 Duo gets really hot when running compute-intensive apps (which is why I built the Linux server). I was running some seriously SSE-heavy neural net code on both cores at the same time, and the CPU die approached 90 degrees C (which people on Apple forums said is safe!). I hear the newer models with the 45nm CPUs don't get so hot. As for software, Leopard had some growing pains early on, but it's very stable now. There are still some bugs here and there in 10.5.6. For instance, there's some bug in the handling of collating and duplexing in the Print dialog that they still haven't fixed. But for the most part, hardware just works, most peripherals are just recognized, settings are graphical and intuitive. They do have the usual drawbacks of running a non-Free operating system; for instance, you never know if someone looked at your bug report, and it takes months to get a fix, not to mention that you have no ability to fix problems yourself. Oh, and there's the fact that they keep adding various kinds of DRM support to their hardware and software (I buy all of my music from Amazon or on CD, never from iTunes). Their GUI system, Cocoa, is very nice, but it's kinda goofy in how it basically forces you to use Objective-C if you want to write fully-featured native apps. MacOS isn't quite as 'computer knows best' as is often suggested. The graphical setup gives you 95% of what anyone would need, and when that's enough, just google for how to do stuff for FreeBSD to find out how to hack it under the hood. Also, there's tons of Free Software for MacOS. Plenty native, and using something like Fink, you can have access to all the UNIX/Linux tools you want (mostly using X11 for graphics). You can get one of the white MacBooks for $999. Contrary to what Apple claims, the white MacBook will handle 3GB just fine. Only go to a MacBook Pro if you really need 4GB of RAM, a larger internal hard drive (I have multiple firewire externals here, actually), or graphics with dedicated memory. For compute-intensive stuff, the white MacBook is pretty darn fast, although the MBP is noticeably faster. If you get one of the newer MBPs and run compute-intensive apps for long periods, let me know how it goes with the heat. Otherwise, just get a white MacBook. Don't be tempted to get the highest-end model just because it's cooler. You'll end up spending a lot of extra money on something you won't fully utilize. In fact, I think probably the biggest reason for getting the MBP is the higher display resolution. Finally, if you decide you hate MacOS X, you can install Windows on it using Boot Camp. If you can't stand to use a proprietary OS, you can install Linux or *BSD on it, and it will
Re: gEDA-user: OT: Recommendations for laptop?
I am at the second laptop now. And I had trouble installing Slackware on both. With the first one, a MSI L720, I had problems with sound and wireless but I had them working after a week of net digging and a few hours of kernel hacking. With today's kernels it would probably work out of the box now that RaLink wifi drivers are in the kernel. The last problem I had with it, probably because of RoHS, some solder joints got some tiny cracks. Lucky me - for now just on the power lines. The second one, a HP Pavilion dv6700, all worked fine with Linux except the wireless drivers. It seems that I got a particular Atheros chip that took me more than 2 months of net search to have it working. Only a mysterious combination of drivers and HAL binaries work for it. Keep an eye on madwifi project if you choose HP. On the other side, the reason I write this message from the HP is because it can play Openarena and Nexuiz very very well. And I like to see the CPU down from 2GHz to 800MHz when no serious computation power is needed. Other than these, I miss the 17'' screen and the full keyboard (with numpad) from the old MSI. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: OT: Recommendations for laptop?
[snip] So, does anybody in here have recommendations for a good laptop? Or do you have any laptops to avoid? I am a big fan of IBM Thinkpads. There is no reason why you could not find an older referbished Thinkpad that isn't manufactured by Leveno. A number of people are adovcating Apple hardware on this list. I will not argue that Apple makes nice hardware. But this is after all a a free software oriented mailing list, so a little balance would be nice. I generally avoid Apple hardware, since Apple is as closed/proprietry and single source as a compay can possibly get. We can discuss this in person tomorrow, Stuart and JohnD. But please leave all weapons at home. :-) -Ales ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: OT: Recommendations for laptop?
Stuart Brorson wrote: So, does anybody in here have recommendations for a good laptop? Or do you have any laptops to avoid? ASUS makes laptops that you can get with no OS installed. They run Linux fine. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
