| Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption |
| JB |
Linux laptops?Does anyone out there use linux on a laptop and have any recommendations for cheap linux laptops? |
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| orangepippin |
I don't use Linux much, but have a look at www.dell.co.uk/ubuntu - I have various Dell PCs and laptops and the prices are reasonable and I assume you can be fairly sure that all the Linux drivers and stuff will be pre-installed and working. | ||||||
| jema |
The prices are pretty steep compared to other Dells, I tend to buy the Dell I want and then install Linux. | ||||||
| JB |
Any particular reason for Dell? A colleague here has just suggested Novatech's budget range, which look like they would do the job but are a bit restictive for expansion (1Gb ram maximum, for example).
Do dell sell OSless laptops? I have a cheap Dell laptop already but Mrs JB might object if I start tinkering with that and remove windows. |
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| vegplot |
If you contact Dell you can get OS-less PC's it reduces the price a little although we never bother as we don't have a Linux need. They're good machines, keen prices and quick delivery. Warranty services is very good as well. I keep saying we'll use another provider but never do. | ||||||
| orangepippin |
Dell are one of the few volume manufacturers to provide a version of Linux pre-installed. Having used Dell equipment for many years (but I admit not having used their Linux installation) I would expect them to have thoroughly tested all the drivers - so everything should just work. You also get pretty good kit, good prices, and good warranties. As others have noted, you could of course buy any old laptop (Dell included) and install Linux yourself, but if you are buying a new laptop then you might as well get someone else to do the legwork for you! |
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| JB |
Fair point but one reason for doing this is I want a Linux / XP Pro dual boot system. So I'm going to have to do some of the work myself but I'm not averse to doing that. I just need the cheapest possible laptop which will do that. |
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| orangepippin |
You might also want to consider running one of them in a virtual machine within the other. In the case of Windows, try the MS Virtual PC 2007 (free download from the MS website). It is not totally straightforward but when you get it working it is pretty good, and basically means you have both Windows and Linux running at the same time. Obviously you need more RAM than you would with a dual-boot scenario. A friend of mine reckons the best multi-OS system is a Mac, because that can run both Windows and Linux alongside Mac OS, but Macs are not exactly cheap. | ||||||
| Chez |
I've just installed Ubuntu as dual boot on my Dell XPS M1210 and am in the process of sticking it on Arvo's Precision. No problems so far. Didn't buy them because they were compatible, just because we could pay on the drip via a 'business lease'  .
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| oldish chris |
I've recently installed Ubuntu on a 2 year old Hewlet Packard lappy (but I increased the memory from 256 to 758mb.) No problems, even have wireless internet connection.
Question: what do you call "cheap"? Bigger question: how technical do you want to be? One option is to get a "bottom of the range" lappy and install any version of linux. A more complex, but cheaper, option is to get a second-hand lappy and install a "lightweight" version of linux. (Google "lightweight linux" for more information). Until it died I ran Xubuntu on a 800MHz, 250Mbyte PC, it was OK. |
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| happytechie |
I'm running ubuntu on a 2 year old £200 PC-World special, about £30 - £50 of this cost is the windows install. I added a gig of memory to the existing 256Mb and it flies now. Be wary of second hand laptops as the battery will probably be nackered. It will take you 30 - 40 mins to get used to linux coming from windows but it's not a huge leap.
Dell, acer and lenovo are the brands that I'd look at if I was buying a new laptop now. You basically get what you pay for with laptops. I think dell will refund you to microsoft tax (about £50 iirc) if you don't need it but thinkpads seem to have about the best build quality out there from what I've seen and last a long time. |
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| JB |
£400 ish
I'm quite happy installing OSes and even quite happy to tinker with GRUB and boot loaders. Not so sure when it comes to X configuration if I need to do that to get the display working correctly although from what I've seen of the more recent Ubuntu releases they are now quite happy to sort that out themselves. Also I'm not so sure how to get the wireless working under linux although reading some forums (fora? fori?) recently it seems that linux is perfectly happy with most wireless hardware now. I'd prefer to get an OSless laptop so that I can use the real install media I have from the office rather than rely on reformatting and repartitioning when I only have a windows recovery disk to rely on to restore the XP part of the laptop.
What I'm looking at now is this. 2Gb RAM, dual core 2Ghz (well 1.83 but lets not quibble) processor, 160Gb harddrive and no OS, which makes it better value. Their spec says it will do XP and their forums seem to imply that Ubuntu 7.10 will work, so 8.04 should do an even better job. (but I'd still welcome suggestions) |
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| orangepippin |
I could not see the screen resolution in those specs. It says 15.4" size, but not what the resolution is ... IMHO the screen res is very important on a laptop, higher the better (gives you a "bigger" desktop, although the fonts will be proportionally smaller). So I would check whether it is perhaps 1280 pixels width or 1440 pixels or whatever and take that into account in your decision making. | ||||||
| JB |
1280 x 800 (it is there under the specification tab). Wide enough to be useful but not so high that the screen might have display issues under linux or encourage teeny tiny illegible text, OTOH it will support an external screen if I want something larger |
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| orangepippin |
Oh yes. It looks good, including built-in webcam - a useful feature on a laptop. I guess I would still buy a Dell with the linux pre-installed, but it sounds like part of the fun for you will be installing it all yourself. | ||||||
| JB |
True, plus the fact that Dell charge too much with Linux preinstalled. |
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| James |
I've got a toshiba satellite L30 with 1Gb RAM running ubuntu & it works well. | ||||||
| happytechie |
if you are aiming for a dual boot system make sure you get a proper copy of windows on a CD and not just a disk image of the orig config of your laptop. £400 is plenty for a decent laptop from one of the big OEMs.
What do you need windows for? Outside of pro CAD work, hardcore photoshop users, games and .NET development I don't know of much that you can't do with open source software on a linux machine. The best way to check that ubuntu will work out of the box is to run it from the live CD. Take one with you down to the shop, ask the salesman to boot from it for you and check that the display and wireless will work. Configuring X is no longer the pain that it was a few years ago. I found the ubuntu install alot less pain than an XP or vista install and the ubuntu package deployment method is a joy, choose your software package and install it from the menu. http://www.linuxemporium.co.uk/products/laptops/#pidR26828 for some pre-installed linux laptops. |
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| orangepippin |
I don't think JB does need Windows ... but you could equally ask that question the other way round - what do you need Linux for when most things will run on Windows? And of course most open source software runs on Windows anyway - Firefox being an obvious example. With readily available virtual machine software, or dual-boot, you can easily run both on the same PC and have the best of both worlds ... |
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| JB |
Most of my work nowadays is web and database development. For most of that php, Apache, MySQL (or oracle if I'm feeling brave) is my preferred platform. However for some of it, including my salaried work, it's .net, c#, MS SQL, access. Without that yes I could get away with linux only and could probably spend even less on a laptop. Yes I could do all that from inside windows but I'd prefer to try more native linux work than I do at present. (and I don't want to give MS any more control over my machine than I absolutely need to) |
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| orangepippin |
I agree, for development work there is definitely no point in using a non-native platform. Even though you *could* develop in PHP on Windows, and use Apache and MySQL ... why would you.
I only do .Net work, but one of my friends is a confirmed LAMP developer ... so you can imagine the conversations down the pub! We did actually try a joint project once, which was to be his PHP front-end working against my MS SQL database. It did not really work out, but it was interesting trying, and for both of us it meant finding out a bit about the "other side". It sounds like you are already fully bi-lingual! |
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| JB |
Usually that should be easy enough. At the simplest level it's just changing the data connectors or accessing the database via some network protocol as though it's on a different machine (ie don't even try to use the MS data access layers). At a slightly more complex level it just means running the php on a windows box and using a php data layer that understands MS SQL. (of course when I try this this is the point at which I discover that my colleague has written all his SQL in the presentation layer 
I'm not sure inf being confused in both platforms counts as bilingual 
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| happytechie |
I've been playing around with .NET dev using mono and eclipse here but it's like going back to the dark ages compared to the joy that is using Visual Studio.
The only cash that you can save by going for a linux laptop over a windows one is the cost of the software. VS 2008 is about £1000 a copy of office is another £300 or so, add photoshop and flash along with a SQL Server instance and you've got alot of money down the drain. BUT if you need them to do your work you've got to have them Price for a copy of Eclipse, OOo, the gimp and mySQL nothing at all. How do you install them? Just press the button on the taskbar, select the aps you need and wait 20 mins Now don't get me wrong, if I was doing .NET development full time I would want nothing less than VS2008 but if you're doing serious development and testing I wouldn't want to be doing it on a cheep laptop no matter what the OS.
PHP/Apache/Ruby based web development is completely platform independent though. The OS you develop in is almost completely irrelavent. |
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| JB |
though I have those by virtue of my salaried employment so I install them on my laptop under the MSDN / Open licenses that the company buys from MS so the software cost to me is zero whether it's MS or linux. If I was paying for that myself then MS wouldn't even get a look in. |
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| orangepippin |
It probably does! We had decided that the PHP stuff would run on Apache on his network, just pointing to my MSSQL over the Internet. That way we could both work on our native platforms and yet collaborate on the joint system. However we never really found the right open source ODBC drivers, there are some Sybase ones that seemed to work up to a point ... this was about 18 months ago so things may have changed. It was a good idea because we had jointly ageed (after endless debate) that Apache was better than IIS, MSSQL was better than MySQL and PHP / ASP were about the same, so in theory it should have been a beautiful thing, but it did not quite work out! |
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| orangepippin |
There is a bit of a myth that .Net development is expensive. We use the cut-down Visual Studio Express - cost: free, and IMHO a far better product than the full thing - and a pleasure to work with. We also use the various free development editions of MSSQL, such as MSDE and SQL 2005 Express which again are effectively the full product. So, apart from the obvious cost of buying a copy of Windows (and the PC to run it on) full-blown .Net development need cost you no more than the equivalent open source tools - i.e. free. |
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| JB |
The problem you will get there is that if someone has ever touched one of your projects with one of the non free versions you can find that you have no way back. For example studio enterprise includes extra components, if you use one of them not realising that it is enterprise specific then when you try the project in express everything fails. |
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| orangepippin |
We tend to work the other way around - the master development tree is based on Web Developer Express code, and any other subcontractors who may be using the full VS will not be using any of the extra stuff. Obviously most proper development shops will be using the full VS via MSDN licences like you.
For anyone wanting to try Windows programming, the Express editions of VS are superb products - and free. Incidentally, we also use the open source subversion for version control - a very good combo with Tortoise SVN and great for synchronising files between home and work. |
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| happytechie |
I've never actually used the free versions of VS (I use a customised team edition to help manage developers in india and singapore and run our SCURM and TDD processes), it's well worth the £1000 a seat cost imo. As development teams get bigger the extra features are invaluable and really save alot of the project managers time. Burndown charts and integration with MS project server make task management easy, we also use a great tool to link bug reports and anlysis with new tests and tasks for the developers. I run nightly builds with full unit tests and automatically deploy the new code onto the dev web servers for automated site testing. It's these things that are not available to you with the express editions but for building stuff on your own or in a small team they should be fine.
All that said I do none of these things on my own laptop,so linux is fine for me
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| JB |
That sounds interesting - we've not really found an adequate solution for version control in our environment. Partly due to developers who bend the rules when it comes to telecommuting and work on files without checking them out. We're not large enough to ignore the work they do when they do that but that just encourages them to do it again next time. |
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| orangepippin |
Just to put this in context, we live in apparently the most surveyed state on the planet, with a government that has demonstrated on many occasions its utter contempt for the privacy of its citizens, including laws to allow it to force your ISP or phone company to hand over your usage logs ... whilst understanding that many people don't like to use MS, it seems to me the the real problem is much nearer to home. |
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| JB |
Oh I trust the government even less but avoiding MS is down to a general dislike of corporations which is something I can avoid. (There's not much one can do about the government short of revolution and by their nature revolutions usually put broken governments in place.) |
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| JB |
Well my new toy has turned up and I have to say I'm impressed. Put an ubuntu boot disk in and it found everything; correct screen resolution, mousepad, audio, network cards and even the wireless (which is usually where windows fails).
Now I just need to make this dual boot (wonder if I could get it to triple boot?) |
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| oldish chris |
My version of Ubuntu has triple boot: when i installed 8.04 I added an old hard drive to provide more storage. Ubuntu spotted the fact that the second drive was once a dual boot and (without a by-your-leave) gave me triple boot.
Sometimes, computer software can be too clever! |
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| James |
yes, you can make it triple boot. Ubuntu installs a Linux (unix?) based program onto the boot sector (master boot region, MBR) of the hard drive called "GRUB" (GRand Unifying Boot). Grub over-writes the windows boot program and will look at every partition that has boot capabilities. It then gives you the option on start-up of which OS you require: windows or ubuntu. On my desktop, I have two versions of ubuntu and one of XP. If you want multiple MS OS's (XP & vista for example) as well as linux, I think you'd need to partition off a chunk of disk, & install the second MS OS onto it. In so doing, this'll trash your existing grub boot loader and re-install the windows boot loader (which will only look for microsoft OS's on NTFS & Fat 32 formatted drives), so you'll need to manually over-right your MBR with a program called "Super-grub disk". I strongly recommend you download a copy of super grub disk. No matter what microsoft does to your boot sector (or, for that matter, other linux systems that dont quite work properly and bugger up your computer), you can take back control and configure your boot how you like. More than 3 OS gets a little tricky, but apparently it can be done using logical partitions. |
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| James |
to sort this problem out, install Gparted: sudo aptitiude install gparted open gparted, either from the console by typing 'sudo gparted' or by going to system>partition editor. In gparted, navigate to your sencond hard-drive via the drop-down box in the top right hand corner of the screen. This'll show you all the partitions that you have on this disk. on the right hand side of the table, there's a collumn thats labelled "Flags". If your second hard disk was once dual-boot, there should be two partitions on this disk that say "boot" in this collumn. First, make sure you know which partition you want to boot from- dont touch this! Un-mount the partition that you want to change (right click on the partition>unmount) Now klick on the partition that you dontwant to be included in you boot sequence. Then, once you've highlighted the partition, right click> manage flags, then un-click 'boot' (you wont be able to do this if this partition is in use, hence you need to first un-mount it). Now you'll need to update Grub, becuase it'll still be trying to look for these bootable partitions, so it'll still give you a triple boot option. Do this via the super-grub disk mentioned in my above post. This'll re-install your grub loader with hopefully just the boot partitions that you want. Alternatively if you dont fancy trying your hand with the super-grub disk, you can edit /boot/grub/menu.lst : sudo nano /boot/grub/menu.lst scroll down until you see this line: ## ## End Default Options ## underneath this will be a list of all the linux operating systems that your computer is trying to boot. If there are any here you dont want, comment it out with a " # " infront, like this : was: title Ubuntu 8.04, kernel 2.6.24-16-generic root (hd0,5) kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-16-generic root=UUID=537d4548-eaeb-4d9a-9a8c-718cf6abe28e ro quiet splash initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-16-generic quiet is now: # title Ubuntu 8.04, kernel 2.6.24-16-generic # root (hd0,5) # kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-16-generic # root=UUID=537d4548-eaeb-4d9a-9a8c-718cf6abe28e ro quiet # splash # initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-16-generic # quiet underneath this section, it'll say "### End Debian automatic kernals list ###", then beneath this, there'll be any windows OS listed. Again, you can comment out with a "#" any systems you dont want grub to look for, thus: was: # This entry automatically added by the Debian installer for a non-linux OS # on /dev/sda1 title Windows NT/2000/XP (loader) root (hd0,0) savedefault makeactive chainloader +1 is now: # This entry automatically added by the Debian installer for a non-linux OS # on /dev/sda1 # title Windows NT/2000/XP (loader) # root (hd0,0) # savedefault # makeactive # chainloader +1 If you only have one OS on your computer, and want to avoid the GRUB boot loader screen, you can do so by reducing the timeout line from 10 to 0. The timeout line sits under "##Timesout sec ", towards the top of the file was: timeout 10 is now: timeout 0 If you do this, you computer will automatically boot into your specified system without hanging on the grub screen waiting for your selection. To save: ctrl-O to exit: ctrl-x, then your done. |
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| skedone |
as for laptop mate the best i can recommend is a asus eeepc 900 they are very kewl look for the 20gig version that comes with linux | ||||||
| JB |
Screens are too small though. £300 will get a eeepc with Linux and 20Gig and a 9" screen or £400 will get a laptop with linux, 200Gig and a 15" screen. OTOH a Linux eee with the 7" screen would be an ideal out ab about piece of kit without compromising on the applications that you run on it (Open office should run in all its glory) and not be too much of a brick to carry about the place. |
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| vegplot |
It's another world. | ||||||
| skedone |
the 9" screen one is the same size package mate just a far better pc also the harddrive is a SSD so it boots in 7 seconds also the intel processor is ATOM is bloody quick mate and there is all ready a third party touch screen add on for it (i have just done mine) | ||||||
| oldish chris |
Thanks James, one miserable wet evening I'll try that. |