I'm shopping...

[bluesdog]

.. for a notebook, and looking seriously at this one (http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3789)

Comments? Warnings? Alternatives? Beer?

btw, I'm not into gaming, but I need something portable, rugged, and which can replace my desktop's functionality..

:)

[fos]

It looks very nice. The 17" screen would even suit my needs. It has more horse power than both of my desktops put together. It mentions that it comes pre-loaded with Vista. That would be a negative for me. I would overwrite it with some version of Linux. Hopefully, that wouldn't void the warranty.

The reviewer mentioned that he got better than 90 minutes for battery life. That has been my experience with laptops since my first back in the 80s. I guess the manufacturers figure that is the best compromise.

My daughters Compag laptop is almost four years old and now out of warranty. I put PCLinuxOS on it for her a few months ago. She is using it this weekend to develop a java based calculator for one of her classes. We were discussing a replacement OS. I think she would be better off with Centos or Debian. That may be a good project for a Sunday afternoon. Other than a hard drive replaced under warranty it has been rock solid. It cost less than $1000 including the 3 year warranty. I had hoped it would last through college and it looks like it will.

BTW, she interviewed for an internship with a programming company that writes software for car dealerships. Each programmer has their own office and you have to tiptoe down the hallways and whisper. She is used to a house with four brothers, she didn't think that kind of working conditions would be tolerable. :)

fos

[bluesdog]

The 17" screen would even suit my needs. It has more horse power than both of my desktops put together. It mentions that it comes pre-loaded with Vista. That would be a negative for me. I would overwrite it with some version of Linux. Hopefully, that wouldn't void the warranty.Yeah, I really like the larger screens, and the cpu speed, ram etc., but what impressed me is the build quality, and the 2 year warranty.

I've searched the 'net for comparable models, including HP/compaq, but anything close is either more expensive, or lacks features. As I said, I'm looking at this to basically replace my desktop, because I'll be on the move for the next 6 - 8 months.

Getting rid of Vista, which is number one on the list, apparently will not void that warranty. The retailer just finished replacing Vista with XP on a similar notebook -- seems a lot of customers are choosing to 'downgrade'. Gee, I wonder why ;)

I plan to not even boot Vista!
I'll test the machine using a Linux live-cd, and then install Debian, (probably Sid), immediately, and possibly run XP 'virtually' with Xen. I may try to run Vista virtually, but since the machine comes only with an OEM Vista disk set, I'm not optimistic...

Each programmer has their own office and you have to tiptoe down the hallways and whisper.
Sounds a bit too sanctimonious... :biggrin:

[bluesdog]

I think Vista is even more annoying than XP

Anyway, the g2s is very nice, and I'll probably configure it to dual-boot Debian/Vista, since apparently the XP drivers are quite difficult.

I have a couple of winderz programs which require direct access to hardware.

If anyone knows how to run a virtualized or emulated XP/Vista, which can access things like USB, please let me know. I hate dual booting!

I'll post details of dual-boot setup once it's complete

[danieldk]

My daughters Compag laptop is almost four years old and now out of warranty. I put PCLinuxOS on it for her a few months ago. She is using it this weekend to develop a java based calculator for one of her classes. We were discussing a replacement OS. I think she would be better off with Centos or Debian.

It's really nice that Debian has the Sun JDK in the non-free repo these days. The repositories also provide many class libraries and useful tools like Eclipse (correctly set JAVA_HOME for Eclipse though, it's much faster with Sun's JDK than gcj).

BTW, she interviewed for an internship with a programming company that writes software for car dealerships. Each programmer has their own office and you have to tiptoe down the hallways and whisper. She is used to a house with four brothers, she didn't think that kind of working conditions would be tolerable. :)

Hehe :). Serious work going on :).