OT: notebook shopping

[Ted Gould]

On Sun, 2008-04-20 at 13:05 -0700, Vaughn Treude wrote:
> The goal:
> As high-performance as possible for $2000 or less. In particular, I want 
> to be able to boot as fast as possible. (I will of course install Linux 
> and tweak it to start only the most essential services.)

+1 on the suspend comment.  I almost never boot my laptop anymore.
(kernel upgrades)

> I plan to make it dual-boot, because it would be useful to have Windoze 
> available so I can run Visual Studio. I detest Vista, so this means the 
> notebook should have XP as an available option. (If it's super-cheap, it 
> _might_ be worth buying an XP CD and blasting away Vista, but I'd like 
> to avoid this if possible.)

With the new Ubuntu Hardy it is including the KVM virtualization
manager; I've been using it to run all kinds of OSes on top of Linux.
I'd recommend this over dual booting today.  It is very, very slick.  No
accelerated video, but it doesn't sound like that's what you need.
(definitely not what I need)

> Mac Book Pro - the 2.4GHz 15" version, with the high-speed drive option, 
> is $2100, a bit out of my range. I _could_ set it up triple-boot with XP 
> (and Linux, of course) which would bring it up to $2200. But I've always 
> admired the Mac's design, the fact that OS X is based on Unix, and the 
> Mac's excellent video-editing software. (I've been unhappy with the 
> hassle of setting up this kind of stuff on Linux.) So I'm still 
> considering it, but don't know if it would be worthwhile.

I have a Mac Book Pro and I really like it.  I think it is one of the
best laptops around, and worth the extra money.  I don't run Mac OS X,
so I can't really comment on that.  It runs Linux like a champ.  It's
amazing to me that other manufactures haven't stolen most of the simple
features that make this computer worth using.  Back lit keyboard,
ability to detect battery life without booting the laptop, no flashing
lights (I guess you need the to see if Vista's crashed), etc, etc.

I realize your computer is dying, but there is a rumor that they're
going to refresh the Macbook Pro line this summer.  That means either
two things: you can get all the greatest features; or you can pick up
one of the old ones cheap :)

		--Ted