[OLPC-Chicago] Comfortable portable development machine

[Atul Varma]

When it comes to laptops, Linux can be a big hassle due to the
variance in APM/ACPI implementations.  I believe that Ian Bicking once
told me that he uses Windows on his laptop as a sort of "hardware
abstraction layer": Windows plays nicely with his laptop's power
management, allowing him to suspend and hibernate very easily, and he
simply runs VMWare with a Linux VM image inside it to do all his
actual work.  The fact that the Linux VM can be easily transported,
backed-up, etc. is an added bonus.  (If you're reading this, Ian,
please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.)

Hope this helps.

- Atul

On 5/30/07, DeanG <goodmansond at gmail.com> wrote:
> My linux boxes are all desktops and I realized that in considering a
> laptop for this kind of development,
> I 'm unaware of the sweet spot for the specs on a good laptop/portable
> for this kind of development.
>
> Would you trust a $600 14/15''  (1200x800) laptop with 1gig (or 512?)
> of RAM, or suggest not spending less than $1000?  Would you rather lug
> an iMac or LCD and mini?
>
> Which brands are the least headache (proprietary drivers alright,
> rebuilding the kernel is pushing it.)  for getting a comfortable (not
> necessarily ideal) Linux development box?
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