New Laptop - Likely Ubuntu or Mint

[Danoni]

Hi all,

thank you in advance for viewing my post.

I am looking to buy a new laptop as my desktop is 7 years old and has recently had a key component fail. That coupled with the fact I can no longer justify reasons to my fiancé for why I need a desk all to myself!

After toying with Linux in the past couple of years I think now is the time to throw myself into it whole hog and really start using it for my main machine. Although I will likely run a Windows 7 VM in VirtualBox for those things that just have to be Windows.

That brings me on to the purpose of the laptop. I am a Systems Support Engineer and need to start practising with new and current technologies so I am looking for something beefy enough to run several VMs at a fast rate. This will be using VirtualBox by Oracle - I have not used this on Linux before but I am sure it will work just as well as it does in Windows. I will likely support the below specs with a large external hard drive, or a few mid sized ones (this line was written before I added the 750 GB secondary drive). Other uses will be general surfing, office document manipulation (either web based or Libre Office), VPN and remote desktop for business reasons, and hopefully a bit of gaming now Steam are really getting on board with the Linux world. Now that's over the way, let's look at the specs.

I am considering either starting with the 15.6" Vortex IV LE (Spec A) or the 15.6" Optimus V (Spec B). Opinions welcome on those two. Out of those two I'm leaning more towards the Vortex IV LE.

Matte Full HD Widescreen. (Both)

Both with Intel Core i7 Dual Core Mobile Processor i7-4600M (2.90GHz) 4MB (Both)

Spec A with 16GB Kingston Hyper-X Genesis 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3, Spec B with 24GB Samsung 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 (couldn't justify the extra expenditure to take Spec A to 32GB as there's no 24GB jump)

NVidia GeForce GTX 765M 2GB DDR5 graphics card (Both)

240GB Kingston Hyper-X 3K SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (I'm aware there is extra work here when installing the OS) (Both)

750GB WD Scorpio Black WD7500BPKX, SATA 6 Gb/s 16MB Cache

(EDIT: Removed this from config when I realised I needed to swap it out for the second HDD I added) 8x SATA DVD drive (Both)

9-in-1 Card Reader (Both)

Arctic thermal paste (Both)

Standard sound card (Both)

Standard gigabit ethernet and wireless N (Both)

No OS, office, or AV (Both)

So, are there any known issues with the above setup? Any driver issues anyone would anticipate? Do we think it'll be suitable for the tasks I have said I would like to perform?

Any opinions, thoughts, etc., most appreciated.

Thanks very much.

Kind regards,

-- Danoni

 

[Danoni]

Hi all,

just an update after an email I had with PCS.

Leaning even more so towards the Vortex due to some apparent issues with driver compatibility for the Optimus with Linux due to the dual GPU.

Also likely to change the i7-4600M 2.9GHz with the i7-4800MQ 2.7GHz.

Still can't justify the extra £150 to double the RAM though so will leave that at 16GB for now.

Few other things I want to check, but getting close.

Any thoughts on the above spec with use with Ubuntu or Linux Mint would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

-- Danoni

 

[CEUOTC]

Having used both Linux Mint and Ubuntu, l found Ubuntu a good first go to Distro, atm l am dual booting Linux Lite 1.0.6 with windows on my P170EM, it works very well and Optimus (Bumblebee/Primus) so Steam games work flawlessly (Once you install Bumblebee and Primus).

 

[Danoni]

Hi, thanks for your response.

I've used Ubuntu, Mint, RedHat, CentOS, and some Debian, but quite like Mint Cinnamon at the moment, with Ubuntu as an alternative because it's quite straight forward and popular so a fair bit of support on the net.

Which Optimus do you have? I was advised the Optimus can be a problem with Linux due to drivers for the dual GPU, have you found this? What it Bumblebee and Primus?

I was intrigued by Steam on Linux, but it appears a lot of games available on Steam aren't supported, like the Baldurs Gate 2 Enhanced Edition they've just released. Are the Windows/Linux/Mac markers just for reference, or can you only use games that are marked for Linux use on the Steam client/pages?

Thank you again for your response.

-- Danoni

 

[Stephen M]

Some Linux Distors come with WINE, Zorin is one, although it is easy enough to add WINE and that should let you run almost any Windows program on the Linux Distro. The down side is that it can open up the system to some Windows specific malware and viruses.

 

[Danoni]

Hi,

Thanks for the response.

I've used wine previously for attempting to get RunUO working but struggled a fair bit when it came to the .net stuff it required.

I plan to use my current Windows 7 Ultimate license in a VirtualBox VM for any software I can't find a suitable open source alternative for but not sure yet how games will run out of it. Hopefully Steam will start porting more games for use on the Linux Steam client.

Cheers,

-- Danoni

 

[Danoni]

And it is done.

Decided to go for it and have just processed my order.

I went for:

Chassis & Display Vortex Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-4800MQ (2.70GHz) 6MB
Memory (RAM) 32GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 (4 x 8GB)
Graphics Card NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 765M - 2.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
Memory - 1st Hard Disk 240GB KINGSTON HYPERX 3K SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 555MB/sR | 510MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk 750GB WD SCORPIO BLACK WD7500BPKX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 16MB CACHE (7200 rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive 2nd/3rd HDD HARD DRIVE OPTICAL BAY CADDY
Memory Card Reader Internal 9 in 1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD: Mini, XC & HC/MS: Pro & Duo)
Thermal Paste ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Sound Card Intel 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
Wireless/Wired Networking GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® N-7260 (300Mbps, 802.11BGN) + BLUETOOTH
USB Options 3 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT AS STANDARD
Firewire 1 X 1394a FIREWIRE PORT
Battery Vortex Series 8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (5,200 mAh/76.96WH)
Power Cable 2 x UK Power Lead & 120W AC Adaptor
Operating System NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
DVD Recovery Media NO DVD RECOVERY MEDIA REQUIRED
Office Software NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Keyboard Language INTEGRATED UK KEYBOARD WITH NUMBER PAD
Mouse INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam INTEGRATED 2.0 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Warranty 3 Year Gold Warranty (2 Year Collect & Return, 2 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Dead Pixel Guarantee 1 Year Dead Pixel Guarantee Inc. Labour & Carriage Costs
Delivery STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time FAST TRACK 5 WORKING DAY DISPATCH

Decided to plump for the extra RAM, hopefully will get over 3 years out of the machine and plan to get into testing stuff for training purposes so running 4 VMs each with 4GB RAM and having plenty spare for other tasks was handy.

Going to start with Ubuntu 13.10 as there'll be a lot of support out there for any problems I come across, although I do currently prefer Mint.

Hopefully I'll have it by the back end of next week if everything goes to plan!

I've ordered a cooling tray for it (http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B002Q8X3L2/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 if you're interested) and will now order an external DVD writer drive. Hopefully that being plug and play won't cause any issues.

I'll try to keep as much information as I can as I go and hopefully will be able to help out anyone else interested in a PCS laptop for Linux, although I am still quite entry-level myself when it comes to the Linux stuff.

Cheers,

-- Danoni

 

[Stephen M]

Hi Danoni, just spotted you mentioned VPN on your first post, have you used TOR (https://www.torproject.org/) as a browser or on the TAILS (https://tails.boum.org/) live system. I know both are very popular with human rights groups as they provide a great help to those in countries not as free as other. They are also both used by GCHQ and the CIA, so I guess they must be pretty secure.

 

[Danoni]

Hi Stephen,

I've not used TOR, Tails, Onion, etc., but I've read some interesting things about them.

The use of VPN was to connect to my workplace in the evenings when necessary and then RDP into a machine at the office.

Cheers,

-- Danoni