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Think I FINALLY decided on a laptop
Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2006 7:46 pm
by Wally Balljacker
I was seriously considering getting a new MacBook Pro, but after finding this Acer Aspire on CompUSA, I think I'm gonna take a ride to the store tommorow and see if it's in stock. 1,500 bucks.
Intel Core Duo Processor T2300, 1.66GHz
2GB RAM
120GB SATA Hard Drive
15 inch screen
8X DVD+/-RW Drive
ATi Mobility RADEON X1400
http://global.acer.com/products/notebook/as5670.htm
http://www.compusa.com/products/product ... i#moreinfo
Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2006 8:02 pm
by Patrick
Now that's out of the way what distro are you going to run?
Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2006 8:07 pm
by Wally Balljacker
Patrick wrote:Now that's out of the way what distro are you going to run?
Thinking maybe Gentoo, Arch, or Debian. I've already got Debian on my desktop, so I'm leaning towards either Gentoo or Arch. How well do you think Arch would run on the new Intel Core Duo?
Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2006 8:08 pm
by CptnObvious999
Im jealous
My desktop doesn't even have 2GB of RAM (only 1.25GB) and I don't have a laptop yet. Seems like a pretty good deal though.
Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2006 8:10 pm
by Patrick
Wally Balljacker wrote:How well do you think Arch would run on the new Intel Core Duo?
I think it would smoke based on the specs you listed. Gentoo takes forever to compile IMHO especially if you like upgrading fairly often.
Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2006 8:12 pm
by Wally Balljacker
CptnObvious999 wrote:Im jealous
My desktop doesn't even have 2GB of RAM (only 1.25GB) and I don't have a laptop yet. Seems like a pretty good deal though.
If CompUSA actually has it in stock with that configuration I'm definitely getting it! Seems like a steal. 2GB of freakin' RAM, and my desktop only has 512mb. A ThinkPad with those specs would be way over $2,000.
Patrick wrote:Wally Balljacker wrote:How well do you think Arch would run on the new Intel Core Duo?
I think it would smoke based on the specs you listed. Gentoo takes forever to compile IMHO especially if you like upgrading fairly often.
Will Arch take advantage of both cores?
Posted: Fri Jan 27, 2006 7:14 am
by Patrick
Wally Balljacker wrote:Will Arch take advantage of both cores?
Good question. I guess that depends if the latest kernel supports it. Don't the new Intel Macs use a similiar processor? Is this a fairly new chipset. If so I wouldn't think the kernel is fully utilizing it yet.
Posted: Fri Jan 27, 2006 9:38 am
by Gomer_X
CptnObvious999 wrote:Im jealous
My desktop doesn't even have 2GB of RAM (only 1.25GB) and I don't have a laptop yet. Seems like a pretty good deal though.
My laptop has a 500 Mhz Celeron and 192 megs of RAM, and it works just fine. I do web development and other things on it.
Posted: Fri Jan 27, 2006 9:40 am
by Tsuroerusu
Patrick wrote:Wally Balljacker wrote:Will Arch take advantage of both cores?
Good question. I guess that depends if the latest kernel supports it. Don't the new Intel Macs use a similiar processor? Is this a fairly new chipset. If so I wouldn't think the kernel is fully utilizing it yet.
Actually, if you can recompile the Arch kernel and tell it you've got two CPUs in there through the SMP implementation, it will use both cores, also, you need to instruct GCC in doing more threads at the same time if you're going to use Gentoo.
Posted: Fri Jan 27, 2006 10:09 am
by snarkout
The vanilla arch kernel supports SMP.
Posted: Fri Jan 27, 2006 10:19 am
by Tsuroerusu
Snarkout wrote:The vanilla arch kernel supports SMP.
Yeah that's what I was gonna say, if the Arch kernel aren't set up to look for more than one CPU, just go to kernel.org and get the vanilla kernel, set it to use two CPUs and do the compile and it should fly smoothly
Posted: Fri Jan 27, 2006 10:29 am
by Wally Balljacker
Tsuroerusu wrote:Yeah that's what I was gonna say, if the Arch kernel aren't set up to look for more than one CPU, just go to kernel.org and get the vanilla kernel, set it to use two CPUs and do the compile and it should fly smoothly
So basically all I have to do is use a i686 SMP kernel, and that will work?
Posted: Fri Jan 27, 2006 11:51 am
by Tsuroerusu
Wally Balljacker wrote:So basically all I have to do is use a i686 SMP kernel, and that will work?
Yep, very simple stuff!
And oh by the way, did I mention SUSE is good for laptops?
Posted: Fri Jan 27, 2006 12:12 pm
by Wally Balljacker
Tsuroerusu wrote:And oh by the way, did I mention SUSE is good for laptops?
I don't believe so.
Posted: Fri Jan 27, 2006 2:54 pm
by Tsuroerusu
Wally Balljacker wrote:Tsuroerusu wrote:And oh by the way, did I mention SUSE is good for laptops?
I don't believe so.
Well, then I'll do it
By the way, that MacBook won't run Linux just yet, because we don't have an x86 bootloader for the EFI firmware thing that it uses. If you decide to get a standard Centrino laptop, check out SUSE 10.0 (10.1 should be out in the middle of March), very good for laptops, it includes the firmware for the Intel wireless card and sets it up automatically and good stuff like that....