OT: Recommended Linux Laptops, suppliers?

[Cliff Wells]

On Tue, 2003-03-18 at 11:15, Brian Quinlan wrote:
> > In the PC world, firewire is more of a convenience than a necessity.
> > Especially with USB 2.0. 
> 
> I guess USB 2.0 is equivalent to 1394b, with a few minor exceptions:
> 1. USB 2.0 is 40% slower

Where do you get this info?  USB 2.0 is actually rated higher (480Mb)
than firewire (400Mb).  The benchmarks I've seen vary, with each winning
by a slight margin on different tests and different devices, but I've
yet to see one that puts either of them 40% away from the other.

> 2. USB 2.0 carries 5% of the power

This is certainly a shortcoming, although most of the devices I've used
provide their own power anyway.

> 3. USB 2.0 can only be organized into simple topographies

Not really seeing a problem with that.  But there may be applications
where this is a shortcoming.

> 4. USB 2.0 cables can only be 5% as long

If I want my USB HDD to sit in a different room than my PC, I'll start
questioning my sanity <wink>.

> blah, blah, blah

Agreed.

> > My Gf's Dell has firewire and it collects dust bunnys.
> 
> 90% of the time, so do the USB ports of my PC :-)

Ditto, which is why I don't think the presence, or lack of firewire/USB
is a real issue.  One or the other is fine.

> > > It seems that, using the motherboard, a 2GHz Celeron is about 20%
> slower
> > > than a 2GHz P4.
> > 
> > But still pretty fast <wink>.
> 
> Did you look at Skip's numbers?

Certainly.  I still haven't seen the G4 numbers though.

> > > I can't really do the same comparison between a PIII and a P4 since
> they
> > > never appeared on the same motherboards, but I thought that P4 was
> > > slower than PIII, clock for clock, because to allow for higher clock
> > > speeds, the P4 needed a very deep pipeline. Anybody know?
> > 
> > The early P4's were.  The new ones (Hyperthreading) aren't.
> 
> Actually, when executing single threaded applications, they are even
> slower than regular P4s (they also aren't available in laptops so I
> don't see why this matters). See Tom's Hardware for details.

It matters because we are flaming over Apple vs Intel.  Every number
counts at this point <wink>.  Besides, you can be certain it's only a
matter of time (probably weeks or months) until we see 3GHz HT
processors in laptops.  My boss is running a Toshiba 2.53GHz laptop with
a 16" display ($2300).  I don't see the new P4's as being that big of a
jump.

> > Ah.  Excellent.  Does it require another Apple to do the remote
> display
> > or special software on the client?
> 
> I would guess that writing a non-Apple client would be very difficult. 

And this is why using X11 would have been a benefit (at least to some of
us).

-- 
Cliff Wells, Software Engineer
Logiplex Corporation (www.logiplex.net)
(503) 978-6726 x308  (800) 735-0555 x308