Help me pick a CPU/Mobo

[gaf at blu.org (Jerry Feldman)]

On Sat, 24 Mar 2007 22:26:15 -0400
"Kristian Hermansen" <kristian.hermansen at gmail.com> wrote:

> owned an AMD64 laptop for a few years now.  I have an HP
> Pavilion ZV5270US wide-screen desktop replacement.  I can say that,
> IMHO, you will pay the price for wanting a "desktop-replacement"
> laptop.  It's heavy, bulky, hot, inefficient, and loud.  I get *maybe*
> an hour of battery life under most normal operating conditions. 
I believe that model is more of a media center type system. In
contrast, my NX6125 battery lasts well over 2 hours. 

The graphics card is an ATI Mobile express. It does not support 3D
meaning it is a rather low end graphic card, which makes sense for a
business class laptop. 

I've really had a lot of good luck with the wireless. Under SuSE 10.1
it ran ndiswrapper and under 10.2 it is running the native Linux
driver (bcm43xx.ko). The only issue I had with it was at BLU meetings
when JABR turned on his wireless, and that was solved by setting MIT as
the SSID. 

The issue is really the tradeoff between features. Wide screen is going
to cost more, and use more power. My requirements were:
1. It had to run Linux with no hassles (mine was certified by RH and
SUSE).
2. It had to have a 15" screen or better. 
3. It had to have 64-bits for development reasons. I do a lot of 64-bit
work, and I wanted to be able to use the laptop for that. 
4. It had to be in my price range (eg. my salary as a part time
instructor at Northeastern justified the cost).


-- 
Jerry Feldman <gaf at blu.org>
Boston Linux and Unix user group
http://www.blu.org PGP key id:C5061EA9
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