
What Linux laptops do you use for development? - Prrometheus

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nostrademons
Debian on VMWare on an Acer Travelmate 4501.

I had trouble getting any Linux to work (well) on it, because of the wireless
card. This was a couple years ago, and driver support for the Centrino's
built-in wireless was pretty spotty for Linux. Rather than beat my head
against it, I shelled out a couple hundred bucks for VMWare and mooch off the
Windows wireless support.

VMWare gives a lot of other nifty benefits too, like I can burn my whole
computer to DVD, swap it out, back it up, run multiple OSes, etc. Free imaging
too; I have a VMWare image with a base Debian install, all preconfigured with
my favorite settings, and when I start a new project I just pop that in and
copy it.

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Tichy
Dell Latitude X1, but they don't sell it anymore. It is actually a Samsung
notebook, and it's successor apparently is the Q40
(<http://www.dynamism.com/q40/main.shtml).>

Now I love this nb, actually it is the only acceptable notebook that I know
of:

#1 FANLESS - no annoying noises whatsoever!!! #2 really, really lightweight,
less than 2,2lb if you remove the battery (2,4lb with battery) - external dvd
drive, though

I have tried a MacBook, but it was too noisy for my taste. Hoping that Apple
will produce a fanless subnotebook one day...

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vikram
Macbook Pro with Ubuntu 6 on Parallels. Best of both worlds. As you are
probably not going to be running Macosx on your servers. This way you have an
excellent dev env, and a vm which you can mess about with for your code.

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bls
I use a Lenovo T60 running Windows XP, with Ubuntu 6.10 running in a VMWare
virtual machine. VMWare Workstation is really cheap and VMWare Player is free.
You can find many preconfigured Linux virtual machines on VMWare's website.

Power management and battery life in particular suck on Linux. Even if you can
get it to actually work (lots of Googling + configuring) you will get at best
2/3 of the Windows battery life. Plus, I don't have a lot of faith in the
quality of the suspend-to-disk functionality in any flavor of Linux.

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mascarenhas
What about sleep support and battery use? That is a big selling point for the
Mac, my MacBook uses more or less 1% of battery per hour and fully wakes up
(wifi included) in a matter of seconds. Is there any PC notebook with similar
sleep performance under Linux? This is not a troll, I actually prefer Linux
for most things, and would gladly use a 12", <3lbs notebook running Linux if
it had fast and reliable sleep.

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jey
Consider MacOS on a MacBook. I realize it's not Linux, but you avoid the
trouble of installing and maintaining Linux.

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damien
If you haven't tried Linux recently, it's actually gotten pretty good on both
of those fronts, especially if you compare it to Windows. Also, many PC
manufacturers are starting to pre-install Linux, which should make it even
easier for people who don't want to worry about installation.

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jey
I have no trouble installing, customizing, and maintaining a Linux machine. I
simply don't _want_ to. I'd rather spend the time coding! :)

Plus the Mac OS X desktop environment is nice. This is exactly what I need:
native UNIX and a good desktop environment.

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damien
I'm just saying... the whole "Linux is too hard" argument doesn't hold much
water with me anymore, since both my wife and 8 year old have been using it
with no problems for a while. =)

But yea, OS X does seem pretty nice, I'd probably give it a try if I didn't
care about things like openness [1] and vendor lock-in [2].

[1] <http://diveintomark.org/archives/2006/06/02/when-the-bough-breaks>

[2] <http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2005/09/18/Apple-XML>

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Prrometheus
It seems that Linux-philes use IBM/Lenovos and Dells. I have seen this
elsewhere, too.

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dpapathanasiou
Linux Mint -- <http://linuxmint.com/> \-- is a great distribution for laptops,
particularly since they do a terrific job of supporting media and wifi cards
"out of the box".

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natrius
I run Ubuntu on a MacBook, but as long as the laptop you buy has Intel
graphics and wireless, you'll usually be fine. My last laptop was one of
Dell's 12" widescreen models, and it worked fine for me.

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jmcantrell
have you run into any problems with the built-in wireless? i know the older
powerpc based models did not have a linux driver available for the wireless,
but i'm not familiar with the intels.

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natrius
The wireless works fine for me. I think I've come across a post or two on
forums about the newest MacBooks having issues with the wireless that force
people to use ndiswrapper, but mine works fine. I wouldn't suggest getting a
Mac if you know you're going to be running Linux all the time. I got mine
because I got a pretty nice discount. I never touch the OS X partition.

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jmcantrell
Ubuntu Feisty on an IBM T42

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brlewis
Ditto, except mine is T43.

Caution: PostgreSQL 7.4 disappeared in Feisty. I'd been wanting to move to 8.1
anyway; this just accelerated it.

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amichail
You don't need to use Linux on your laptop for development.

For example, I use GWT + Eclipse under Windows XP and deploy to a ubuntu
feisty server.

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abstractbill
Ubuntu 6.06 on an IBM T43p.

I'd prefer os x on a macbook, like I have at home, but that's outside of my
control here.

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wammin
Ubuntu 7.04 on a HP Pavilion laptop (dual-boot with XP ... but I rarely boot
into windows anymore). Ubuntu is great.

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Prrometheus
I've been looking at a Dell and at <http://www.linuxcertified.com/>

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ecuzzillo
I've had terrible, terrible experiences with Linuxcertified.

The stuff they put together themselves is totally shoddy. Things come apart
and rattle around inside, the monitor connection starts to get fatigued and
the screen develops snow, and it's heavier and thicker for less functionality
than other laptops.

Much better to get a Dell preinstalled with Linux if they start doing that, or
look at Emperor Linux: <http://www.emperorlinux.com>

Much better experiences with them. I even got one for my girlfriend, who
doesn't know anything at all about computers; they put Ubuntu on it and she
adores it.

I'm currently on a Dell M70, which works fine; if I were to buy a new one,
it'd be from Emperor.

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vlad
Has anybody tried PCLinuxOS? That's what I just installed on my laptop and I
love it!

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rami
HP Presario and Windows XP :P (am I the only one using Windows... Geez!)

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jamongkad
You're not the only one! haha

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ryantmulligan
I use Emperor Linux. They are expensive but very responsive to customers.

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darose
Arch Linux on a Dell Inspiron 600M (also not sold anymore, I believe)

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ashu
Ubuntu Edgy on IBM T41P. Yes I know, I need an upgrade!

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dss
I have a T41p, I think its quite adequate.

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gyro_robo
I hate typing on laptops. Do any have a good keyboard?

~~~
damien
Buckling spring keyboard from pckeyboard.com modified with Unix layout, or a
Sun Type 7 if you prefer a quieter keyboard.

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chris_l
Ubuntu 6.10 on Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo Pa

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damien
Ubuntu on a Dell Latitude D620

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admp
Ubuntu feisty, IBM T43P

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eduardoflores
feisty on dell d810

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cwilbur
I don't. I use a MacBook Pro.

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jmcantrell
then why did you even respond? the question was "what Linux laptops do you use
for development?", not "how many of you are mac fanboys?"

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jward
My guess is the same reason I felt compelled to click on the link. OS X is the
best desktop Unix experience I have ever had. It has all the tools I use, all
the power underneath, and it comes wrapped in a pretty pretty wrapper.

Linux to me has become a loose term for any Unix. I've heard it used to refer
to any of the BSD's, Solaris, and even OS X.

~~~
jmcantrell
I've never heard anyone refer to BSD/Solaris/OSX as Linux

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Ev
You don't develop on laptops. This is not what they are built for: they slow,
keyboards are not capable of decent typing speed and screens are tiny.

Stop trying to look hip and get yourself a workstation.

~~~
Prrometheus
How is Linux at supporting dual monitors?

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damien
Having used laptops with both ATI and nVidia chips inside, nvidia support is
definitely the way to go between the two, especially for multi-monitor setups.
I actually returned my old laptop with ATI graphics because their Linux
drivers and support was terrible.

I hear that the new Intel graphic chips are also quite nice, and the fact that
they open sourced the drivers should make them the ideal Linux graphics
adapters, but I don't have any experience with them.

