I have several low powered cheap Dell i3s that I upgraded to SSD drives and it really made a difference.  This is my recommend SSD  :  https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147676&cm_re=SAMSUNG_860_EVO_Series_2.5%22_250GB_SATA_III_3D-_-20-147-676-_-Product

Monitor your memory usage.  If compiling uses all your memory, add some more.  It has been my experience over the years that two things make a big difference, 1) faster drives, more RAM.

I assume you are running some distro of Linux.  That helps as well.  

On 2018-05-11 23:05, trent shipley wrote:

I'm thinking about getting a new laptop. Mine is several years old, and while it's quite serviceable, it boots really slowly, and it doesn't like to run a guest Ubuntu OS under Oracle VirtualBox. Also, I foresee more compiling in my future, even though of late I've been rather truant about working on my own through my Haskell book. I will say no more about the R book. I don't game, because it is addicting, and therefore bad for me.

 

I tend to try to get as much life as possible out of a computer, because I am poor. I have heard good things about ASUS. I see more Linux in my future, but I have to have Windows and since Windows tends to come preinstalled, I expect it would be my native, host OS.

 

I'd like to spend $500, but could (and probably will) stretch to $700.

 

What could I expect to get for that, and what would you suggest.

 

Trent.

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