EvilZone
General Tech => Hardware => : lucid February 28, 2012, 07:13:11 AM
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I've been doing my best to do the things I do on someone elses laptop. Its an acer. OS windows 7. Its crap. Unimportant. Anyway I'm finally going to be getting my own laptop. Im not sure what to look for exactly I just know that I want a linux OS. Although dual booting sounds extremely appealing.
Oh and no macs
i figured theres no one better to ask then the people on this forum.
Input please? Thanks
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Need more details such as: price range, capabilities, size, etc.
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Price range: 3 to 5 hundred
preferably ubuntu
(i imagine 16gb of DDR3 is a bit unneccesary)
quad core processor(neccesary?)
2.4ghz
storage at least 250gb
although I guess Im also looking for what specs the people here recommend
As I've said im not experienced in hardware.....and unlike probably every member here Im sure, Ive never actually owned my own computer. Its sad. Also unimportant.
Does this help?
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You seem a bit overly optimistic for the price that you stated but here is an example: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834215257 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834215257)
Edit: I am going on the assumption that you mean US dollars by the way
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Or there is this if you can would rather have less cores and faster processor speed per core: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834101256 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834101256) I just looked these up in a couple minutes as starting points for you to go by.
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The second one looks good.
Are most linux based laptops more expensive? I suppose I could get a windows and dual boot yeah?
I guess I don't need four cores.
Also thanks for the head start. :D
EDIT: I guess 2.4ghz is a little much to ask for
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I understand that one laptop may be better than another if my interests are programming/security as opposed to say gaming.
I hear many good things about ubuntu.
Perhaps I'd be better with a desktop?
At least that way I'd pass Kulver's gay test lol.
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I understand that one laptop may be better than another if my interests are programming/security as opposed to say gaming.
I hear many good things about ubuntu.
Perhaps I'd be better with a desktop?
At least that way I'd pass Kulver's gay test lol.
Not really necessary to be a desktop. I've work for about three years in an Acer laptop. During that time I've always used Ubuntu. I tried other, but I like Ubuntu. I have done a lot of different project for college and other things with this laptop. It cost me about 500 EUR at the time and it never had any problems.
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I am a Ubuntu user, and as much as I like Linux - I must warn you that you will suffer with Linux only. Dual-booting is a must for a home user and it isn't rocket science. You just have to select which OS you want to boot at the start...
There are many things that you just can't do with Ubuntu that you can do with Windows and WINE doesn't always help - think about video editing. Programs available for Linux sucks dick compared to windows.
Anyway, I have an Acer eMachines Zsomething - 3GB ram, 2.13 or something GHz processor, 256 integrated video card.
Not very fancy but is very nice and does the job for me - I don't play games or watch HD movies at all, so it's fine for video editing, coding etc.
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I am a Ubuntu user, and as much as I like Linux - I must warn you that you will suffer with Linux only. Dual-booting is a must for a home user and it isn't rocket science. You just have to select which OS you want to boot at the start...
There are many things that you just can't do with Ubuntu that you can do with Windows and WINE doesn't always help - think about video editing. Programs available for Linux sucks dick compared to windows.
Anyway, I have an Acer eMachines Zsomething - 3GB ram, 2.13 or something GHz processor, 256 integrated video card.
Not very fancy but is very nice and does the job for me - I don't play games or watch HD movies at all, so it's fine for video editing, coding etc.
I agree. I have a laptop for work and desktop for entertainment and other stuff. On my laptop I only have Ubuntu. I don't play games or watch movies there. About WINE. I have never used it that must, but the little experience I have with it isn't all that great. I can say that if one needs serious work done with a windows program, he should use windows and not WINE.
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The second one looks good.
Are most linux based laptops more expensive? I suppose I could get a windows and dual boot yeah?
I guess I don't need four cores.
Also thanks for the head start. :D
EDIT: I guess 2.4ghz is a little much to ask for
There is almost no such thing as high performance linux based laptops, all mainline laptops get shipped with windows 7/mac, or you need a netbook, those are almost all unix based.
Just get an average laptop, and install ubuntu next to windows, get a known brand with known devices so you are less likely to get driver problems on linux. goodluck :D
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Look out for laptops with a broadcom wifi chip.
Broadcom is very good, but it also gives major problems when installing it's drivers - you have to have specific ones. Also you will have lots of damn work trying to make it work on Linux.
My laptop has a broadcom and I probably wasted a week until I got it working on Ubuntu by a miracle...
If anyone will need then I'll write how I got it working.
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Personally I think only having a linux computer severely limits you. I run Windows on my desktop and I put Ubuntu on my Asus Eee Pc to replace the crappy Windows 7 Starter that came on it.
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Personally I think only having a linux computer severely limits you. I run Windows on my desktop and I put Ubuntu on my Asus Eee Pc to replace the crappy Windows 7 Starter that came on it.
There are no limits, limits is something you create for your self, but i prefer a dual boot on a laptop, because there are some great applications on windows only, like adobe etc.
I partitioned my hdd in 3 parts, windows. data and linux, as you can see, 2 os partitions and 1 for data exchange between those two.
Works like a charm :D
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Considering dual booting is what I was excited about doing anyway, and thats what the majority of people here have recommended then I'll definitely be doing that.
Windows 7 next to Ubuntu is sounding like a good choice. Thanks to everyone.
EDIT: Its sounding like the specs of a laptop aren't so important then as one can do almost anything they want on a dual boot laptop even if its 300 dollars and has only one or two cores.
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I am a Ubuntu user, and as much as I like Linux - I must warn you that you will suffer with Linux only. Dual-booting is a must for a home user and it isn't rocket science. You just have to select which OS you want to boot at the start...
There are many things that you just can't do with Ubuntu that you can do with Windows and WINE doesn't always help - think about video editing. Programs available for Linux sucks dick compared to windows.
Anyway, I have an Acer eMachines Zsomething - 3GB ram, 2.13 or something GHz processor, 256 integrated video card.
Not very fancy but is very nice and does the job for me - I don't play games or watch HD movies at all, so it's fine for video editing, coding etc.
Sounds like good advice. Im not too worried about having trouble dual booting, although one time awhile back I tried to dual boot alongside a windows vista and for some reason windows vista wasn't having it.
Can't remember exactly what the problem was now but I know I won't be using vista ever again
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What do you guys think about this laptop?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230354
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Not bad. But you didn't say what you will use it for.
Playing light games would be enough. I'd say would suit for video/photo editing even in HD... I'm just saying from my point of view whereas I don't play games on my laptop at all.
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What do you guys think about this laptop?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230354
Got the same one, only i got the i7.
It works very great, stable, also on dual boot,
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What about have a Linux only system, and installing Windows in a VM for when you need it? I did this on my office desktop. I made a back-up of my Win7 OS, then reformatted to Ubuntu, installed VM and Windows 7, then ran recovery to get all my data back.
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Not bad. But you didn't say what you will use it for.
Playing light games would be enough. I'd say would suit for video/photo editing even in HD... I'm just saying from my point of view whereas I don't play games on my laptop at all.
Is there a spec thats better for programming/secure surfing? I wouldnt think so I figure a decent laptop with a fast processor would be fine. I'm not planning on doing much video/photo editing. Mostly programming and related topics
I'm not so much into gaming. Its my only computer so I'd really be using it for everything. I mostly do alot of coding practice right now so I'd set it up for a PHP and Python environment. Its got a windows 7 OS and I'd be dual booting it with ubuntu....preferably 12.04 when it comes out.
EDIT: I was considering using it stealth patch and burn video games.....although Im not sure that it has the right optical drive. I would need to burn the games onto DVD+DL disks. Anyone know if a DVD+RW drive is capable of this? Im kinda thinking not.
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Isn't burning DVD-DL (Double Layer?) disks is the same as normal DVD's but it's like 2 disks on one platter?
Anyway, if you say you will only be using it for coding and surfing or something, no gaming or hardcore video editing, then you really don't need an i5 or a quad-core or any hardcore CPU with massive speeds.
I am doing the same thing as you described with a 3GB ram, 2.13GHz CPU, 256MB video, DVD burner, nice touchpad, very comfy keyboard and a nice design.
I am very much satisfied and I got it relatively cheap - it was on sale when I bought it.
Not being able to play awesome games makes me focus on coding and other work... for games I have a PS2 and a PSP :P
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Isn't burning DVD-DL (Double Layer?) disks is the same as normal DVD's but it's like 2 disks on one platter?
Anyway, if you say you will only be using it for coding and surfing or something, no gaming or hardcore video editing, then you really don't need an i5 or a quad-core or any hardcore CPU with massive speeds.
I am doing the same thing as you described with a 3GB ram, 2.13GHz CPU, 256MB video, DVD burner, nice touchpad, very comfy keyboard and a nice design.
I am very much satisfied and I got it relatively cheap - it was on sale when I bought it.
Not being able to play awesome games makes me focus on coding and other work... for games I have a PS2 and a PSP :P
Yeah I think so. I don't play games on the computer but I have an Xbox that I rarely use anymore and kind of despise since its microsoft and it advertises to me. So I was considering ripping games to spite them(and to get free shit) and I hope my drive will be good enough for it. Or do i need a super-multi or whatever?
But yeah games distract from important things.