What Linux laptops do you use for development?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17112

by Prrometheus • 19 years ago

11 52 19 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Prrometheus4• 19 years ago

I've been looking at a Dell and at http://www.linuxcertified.com/

ecuzzillo• 19 years ago

I've had terrible, terrible experiences with Linuxcertified.

The stuff they put together themselves is totally shoddy. Things come apart and rattle around inside, the monitor connection starts to get fatigued and the screen develops snow, and it's heavier and thicker for less functionality than other laptops.

Much better to get a Dell preinstalled with Linux if they start doing that, or look at Emperor Linux: http://www.emperorlinux.com

Much better experiences with them. I even got one for my girlfriend, who doesn't know anything at all about computers; they put Ubuntu on it and she adores it.

I'm currently on a Dell M70, which works fine; if I were to buy a new one, it'd be from Emperor.

cwilbur2• 19 years ago

I don't. I use a MacBook Pro.

jmcantrell6• 19 years ago

then why did you even respond? the question was "what Linux laptops do you use for development?", not "how many of you are mac fanboys?"

pg• 19 years ago

keep it civil please

jward• 19 years ago

My guess is the same reason I felt compelled to click on the link. OS X is the best desktop Unix experience I have ever had. It has all the tools I use, all the power underneath, and it comes wrapped in a pretty pretty wrapper.

Linux to me has become a loose term for any Unix. I've heard it used to refer to any of the BSD's, Solaris, and even OS X.

cwilbur2• 19 years ago

Because of the false assumption inherent in the question.

ryantmulligan• 19 years ago

I use Emperor Linux. They are expensive but very responsive to customers.

wammin• 19 years ago

Ubuntu 7.04 on a HP Pavilion laptop (dual-boot with XP ... but I rarely boot into windows anymore). Ubuntu is great.

natrius2• 19 years ago

I run Ubuntu on a MacBook, but as long as the laptop you buy has Intel graphics and wireless, you'll usually be fine. My last laptop was one of Dell's 12" widescreen models, and it worked fine for me.

jmcantrell6• 19 years ago

have you run into any problems with the built-in wireless? i know the older powerpc based models did not have a linux driver available for the wireless, but i'm not familiar with the intels.

natrius2• 19 years ago

The wireless works fine for me. I think I've come across a post or two on forums about the newest MacBooks having issues with the wireless that force people to use ndiswrapper, but mine works fine. I wouldn't suggest getting a Mac if you know you're going to be running Linux all the time. I got mine because I got a pretty nice discount. I never touch the OS X partition.

nostrademons2• 19 years ago

Debian on VMWare on an Acer Travelmate 4501.

I had trouble getting any Linux to work (well) on it, because of the wireless card. This was a couple years ago, and driver support for the Centrino's built-in wireless was pretty spotty for Linux. Rather than beat my head against it, I shelled out a couple hundred bucks for VMWare and mooch off the Windows wireless support.

VMWare gives a lot of other nifty benefits too, like I can burn my whole computer to DVD, swap it out, back it up, run multiple OSes, etc. Free imaging too; I have a VMWare image with a base Debian install, all preconfigured with my favorite settings, and when I start a new project I just pop that in and copy it.

jmcantrell6• 19 years ago

Ubuntu Feisty on an IBM T42

brlewis• 19 years ago

Ditto, except mine is T43.

Caution: PostgreSQL 7.4 disappeared in Feisty. I'd been wanting to move to 8.1 anyway; this just accelerated it.

admp• 19 years ago

Ubuntu feisty, IBM T43P

dpapathanasiou• 19 years ago

Linux Mint -- http://linuxmint.com/ -- is a great distribution for laptops, particularly since they do a terrific job of supporting media and wifi cards "out of the box".

jey3• 19 years ago

Consider MacOS on a MacBook. I realize it's not Linux, but you avoid the trouble of installing and maintaining Linux.

Prrometheus4• 19 years ago

Do you have to pay for all your software, or is there good free software to use for a Mac?

jey3• 19 years ago

I use almost all free software. I do all of my work under the MacOS unix environment with vim, gcc, python, etc etc. You can use the MacPorts ( http://www.macports.org ) package manager to install and manage your usual unix utilities. (MacPorts is analogous to portage/emerge on Gentoo, apt-get on Debian, yum on RedHat/Fedora, and FreeBSD's ports). I also use Firefox for web and Adium X for IM.

The only thing I can recall paying for is Parallels, a virtualizer similar to VMWare, to run MS Windows under MacOS. I hardly ever use it.

damien5• 19 years ago

If you haven't tried Linux recently, it's actually gotten pretty good on both of those fronts, especially if you compare it to Windows. Also, many PC manufacturers are starting to pre-install Linux, which should make it even easier for people who don't want to worry about installation.

jey3• 19 years ago

I have no trouble installing, customizing, and maintaining a Linux machine. I simply don't want to. I'd rather spend the time coding! :)

Plus the Mac OS X desktop environment is nice. This is exactly what I need: native UNIX and a good desktop environment.

busy_beaver• 19 years ago

MacOS is a nice Unix in its own right, and if you really need to have Linux, it runs fine under Parallels. I've got Windows XP, Ubuntu, and the One Laptop Per Child project images on my MacBook, and can boot any of them depending on what I want to check out.

ashu• 19 years ago

Ubuntu Edgy on IBM T41P. Yes I know, I need an upgrade!

dss• 19 years ago

I have a T41p, I think its quite adequate.

amichail• 19 years ago

You don't need to use Linux on your laptop for development.

For example, I use GWT + Eclipse under Windows XP and deploy to a ubuntu feisty server.

eduardoflores2• 19 years ago

feisty on dell d810

abstractbill• 19 years ago

Ubuntu 6.06 on an IBM T43p.

I'd prefer os x on a macbook, like I have at home, but that's outside of my control here.

rami• 19 years ago

HP Presario and Windows XP :P (am I the only one using Windows... Geez!)

jamongkad• 19 years ago

You're not the only one! haha

gyro_robo• 19 years ago

I hate typing on laptops. Do any have a good keyboard?

damien5• 19 years ago

Buckling spring keyboard from pckeyboard.com modified with Unix layout, or a Sun Type 7 if you prefer a quieter keyboard.

vikram• 19 years ago

Macbook Pro with Ubuntu 6 on Parallels. Best of both worlds. As you are probably not going to be running Macosx on your servers. This way you have an excellent dev env, and a vm which you can mess about with for your code.

Ev• 19 years ago

You don't develop on laptops. This is not what they are built for: they slow, keyboards are not capable of decent typing speed and screens are tiny.

Stop trying to look hip and get yourself a workstation.

nostrademons2• 19 years ago

Some of us like to code in bed. Or on the floor, or outside, or while watching TV.

For me, the convenience of being able to take my computer wherever I want far outweighs the bigger screens and hard disks of a desktop. And I've never found the keyboards to be a problem; I type 90+ WPM on a Dvorak-layout laptop keyboard.

Prrometheus4• 19 years ago

How is Linux at supporting dual monitors?

chris_l2• 19 years ago

That would have been my answer to the parent: I use an external monitor, mouse and keyboard at home.

I've managed to get the ATI Radeon under Ubuntu to display both two desktops or only use one screen or the other. But it was quite a fight. And more fancy things like one large desktop on two screens didn't work out.

eduardoflores2• 19 years ago

For ubuntu & ati check this http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=1773544

damien5• 19 years ago

Having used laptops with both ATI and nVidia chips inside, nvidia support is definitely the way to go between the two, especially for multi-monitor setups. I actually returned my old laptop with ATI graphics because their Linux drivers and support was terrible.

I hear that the new Intel graphic chips are also quite nice, and the fact that they open sourced the drivers should make them the ideal Linux graphics adapters, but I don't have any experience with them.

jmcantrell6• 19 years ago

if you're using nvidia like me, then it's as simple as adding a couple of lines to your xorg congfig

comatose_kid• 19 years ago

Depends. I've been developing our site on a macbook pro. I prefer a workstation for the faster hard drive, but when developing a web app based on an interpreted language, that doesn't really matter.

And I'm using an external keyboard + LCD, so I have the best of both worlds.

jmcantrell6• 19 years ago

I would have to agree. I can deal with a laptop in a pinch, but it slows me down considerably.

damien5• 19 years ago

Ubuntu on a Dell Latitude D620

Prrometheus4• 19 years ago

It seems that Linux-philes use IBM/Lenovos and Dells. I have seen this elsewhere, too.

chris_l2• 19 years ago

Ubuntu 6.10 on Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo Pa

Tichy• 19 years ago

Dell Latitude X1, but they don't sell it anymore. It is actually a Samsung notebook, and it's successor apparently is the Q40 (http://www.dynamism.com/q40/main.shtml).

Now I love this nb, actually it is the only acceptable notebook that I know of:

#1 FANLESS - no annoying noises whatsoever!!! #2 really, really lightweight, less than 2,2lb if you remove the battery (2,4lb with battery) - external dvd drive, though

I have tried a MacBook, but it was too noisy for my taste. Hoping that Apple will produce a fanless subnotebook one day...

bls• 19 years ago

I use a Lenovo T60 running Windows XP, with Ubuntu 6.10 running in a VMWare virtual machine. VMWare Workstation is really cheap and VMWare Player is free. You can find many preconfigured Linux virtual machines on VMWare's website.

Power management and battery life in particular suck on Linux. Even if you can get it to actually work (lots of Googling + configuring) you will get at best 2/3 of the Windows battery life. Plus, I don't have a lot of faith in the quality of the suspend-to-disk functionality in any flavor of Linux.

darose• 19 years ago

Arch Linux on a Dell Inspiron 600M (also not sold anymore, I believe)

mascarenhas• 19 years ago

What about sleep support and battery use? That is a big selling point for the Mac, my MacBook uses more or less 1% of battery per hour and fully wakes up (wifi included) in a matter of seconds. Is there any PC notebook with similar sleep performance under Linux? This is not a troll, I actually prefer Linux for most things, and would gladly use a 12", <3lbs notebook running Linux if it had fast and reliable sleep.

vlad• 19 years ago

Has anybody tried PCLinuxOS? That's what I just installed on my laptop and I love it!

What Linux laptops do you use for development?

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