[ale] Good Laptop for Linux these days

[Jon "maddog" Hall]

>Now, is that an 8", 5.25" or 3.5" floppy reader? ;-P
3.5" floppy

I used it to recover some DOS files that an 84 YO friend had.   The files
were to create needlepoint.   I also recovered some music that she had on
the disks.

md

On Fri, Aug 4, 2023 at 2:18 PM Scott Plante <splante at insightsys.com> wrote:

> MD wrote:
> > external floppy disk reader
> Now, is that an 8", 5.25" or 3.5" floppy reader? ;-P
>
> I've always used Linux on desktops as my main development box. Some years
> ago I got a Macbook because one big client began requiring either Mac or
> Windows to access their VPN. I knew it had a GNU shell and I knew a bunch
> of developers who'd switched. I ended up using Synergy and left just the
> actual coding on Linux, and just used the Mac for other stuff. Lately I've
> been thinking about getting a Linux laptop, too (they ended up cutting off
> VPN access altogether a couple of years later). I was thinking about maybe
> System76 or Framework.
>
> I've heard one issue with Laptops and Linux is around sleep and battery
> usage--specifically when you close the lid it drains the battery pretty
> quickly unless you do a full shutdown first. This was maybe a year ago--is
> that still true, or is it something you can work around with config files,
> etc.?
>
> I also heard fingerprint readers were tricky and that for some you *can*
> make it work with Linux OR Windows, but not both on the same machine (like
> dual-boot). I think it was all tied into Trusted Compute and not just a
> reader that the OS can query, but it's been a while since I was reading up
> on that so it's a bit fuzzy.
>
> Scott
>
> On Thu, Aug 3, 2023 at 7:18 PM Jon "maddog" Hall via Ale <ale at ale.org>
> wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I probably use laptops in a really weird way, since I travel so much and
>> I have been stuck without good (or any) Internet connections, etc.
>> Therefore I always had a laptop that I could keep all of my relevant data
>> on it to create presentations, videos, etc.   I have three TB of storage on
>> my laptop.
>>
>> Of course you have to back this up, and with a 3.0 USB port it takes over
>> 18 hours to do that.   So my next laptop will have USB 4.0, waiting for
>> devices to catch up, or doing parallel backups of different datasets to
>> different devices.   USB 4.x will be a driver.
>>
>> Of course I am also have NAS set up and can do backups almost continually
>> over the network, but when I do not have that network (or a poor one) I
>> will still have my data with me.   3 TB or 4TB on my laptop?  Nah.  One
>> Western Digital M.2 SSD will hold 4 TB for 269 dollars.
>>
>> Networking would be the next issue, but if the built in networking is not
>> good enough, a docking station or dongle going out through the USB 4.x will
>> provide that.
>>
>> All of the other issues mentioned here (Screen size, CPU power, etc.) are
>> good and depends on how much you want to pay.   Replace a battery in a
>> laptop?   Something you do every three or four years, let the pros do it.
>>
>> I usually buy "top of the line", then let the line get a little crufty.
>> My current Lenovo W510 "workstation" laptop is a heavy, powerhungry beast
>> that started out with 16GB of RAM (and still has that) with 500 GB of HDD
>> (now 1 TB of Hybrid SSD/HDD and 2 TB of HDD) but had an option added of two
>> 3.0 USB Type A sockets that made it "last longer.   It has four cores with
>> eight Virtual cores that does much of what I want it to do.  I have
>> replaced the keyboard three times myself (the oils in my fingers eat
>> through the keycaps for a total of 100 USD for all three.   I have replaced
>> the batteries a couple of times (of course they are external).
>>
>> I have an external DVD, external floppy disk reader, portable scanner all
>> of which would work fine with the next system.
>>
>> I also have a Lenovo X1 fifth gen laptop that is light, with two cores
>> and four hypercores, but "only" 1TB and "Thuderbolt 3" connector.   I have
>> ordered that 4TB M.2 connector.  This may replace my W510 simply because
>> the X1 is so light and so much easier on battery.  I will probably be using
>> that on my trips this year, and leave the beast behind.
>>
>> On the other hand I was looking at the Lenovo web site and configured a
>> new, thin laptop with 64 GB of RAM, two USB 4.0 ports, 4TB of NVMe storage a
>> 15" screen and the latest in WiFi, Bluetooth, HDMI, etc.and a kick-butt CPU
>> which I swear had 20 real cores running at some insane frequency.   Fully
>> configured as a monster laptop it came in at less than 5K USD and would
>> probably last me for the rest of my life, or at least until I was senile
>> (if I am not already there).
>>
>> Of course YMMV.
>>
>> md
>>
>>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://mail.ale.org/pipermail/ale/attachments/20230804/cfa54c5e/attachment.htm>