cellio: (avatar)
[personal profile] cellio
Dear LJ brain trust,

I'd like to get an inexpensive laptop. It won't be my main machine; it's for travel and other situations where portability is useful. So it doesn't need to be studly; it just needs to be reliable and support basic tools like Firefox, emacs, SSH, FTP, and that sort of thing.

This would be a prime opportunity to explore the Macintosh, which some of my friends rave about, except for one little thing: I can get a (new) Dell laptop for around $400, but Macs start at $1100. Is there some less-expensive option I'm missing?

Re: Tangentially ...

Date: 2006-10-16 05:23 pm (UTC)
dsrtao: dsr as a LEGO minifig (Default)
From: [personal profile] dsrtao
If you're running a GNOME desktop and FireFox and Thunderbird and OpenOffice and an IM program and GIMP all at once, the way most random desktop users might? You want 512MB, at least. If you've got a 400MHz processor or so, you want a gig so that the combined slowdown of processor and swap isn't unbearable.

If you're running XFCE desktop and FireFox and a bunch of xterms, and you fire up OpenOffice and GIMP and such when you need them, you can manage on 256MB.

If you're running no X, you may be fine on 128MB. Ubuntu's memory requirements are solely a function of the desktop orientation.

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