Linux on Bicycle (recommend me a notebook)

[spinsane]

I want the AK-47 of notebooks.

I'm thinking 11-13.1 inches, I can handle 14. I need it to be light and incredibly durable (and has a good warranty). I'll be biking with it on a single-speed with no suspension on occasionally rough roads religiously for upwards of 10 miles a day. Of course, I'll be considering a good case for it as well.

I need to have the option of programming OpenGL 3+ on it, so the proper video card is necessary (definitely don't want intel). Something that can handle editing fairly complex scenes in blender would also be ideal.

Aside from that, I don't have any specifications. I'm currently looking into barebones, but with such a huge option of vendors and oem product I'm thinking it may be best to go with a prefab.

[droidhacker]

Definitely go with an SSD disk.

[movieman]

Definitely go with an SSD disk.

Agreed: sounds like you'd kill a hard drive pretty fast, at least if you plan to run it while cycling... even with the heads parked I'd be reluctant to subject it to that kind of treatment.

What's the budget? If money is no object, then one of the ruggedised laptops designed for this kind of rough-and-tumble application is probably the best choice.

[spinsane]

$700ish. I'm looking for a supplementary machine that will give me some mobility. I don't intend on riding with it powered-up. I believe a good carrying case will be fine, assuming I don't crash. So I'm not really into SSD.


A dedicated gpu with 512 MB vram and a dual-core processor isn't hard to find for around $700- I'm just having trouble finding a decent one under 14".

[movieman]

A dedicated gpu with 512 MB vram and a dual-core processor isn't hard to find for around $700- I'm just having trouble finding a decent one under 14".

You may have trouble because most people wanting a dedicated GPU probably also want a large screen to display the output; the only small screen PCs with dedicated GPU I can think of are the Nvidia Ions, and while they're better than an Intel-based netbook they're probably too low powered for what you need.

[Zhick]

The new Acer TimelineX modells are available in 13.3 and 14 inch and come with quite powerfull dedicated graphics (up to ATi Radeon Mobility 5650), but there are several drawbacks with them as well:
1) switchable graphics. While in theory great, it seems like it'll be awhile before it'll actually be working decently with linux (and especially with fglrx, if ever).
2) ATi drivers. Since you want OpenGl 3.0 there's no option besides using the proprietary drivers for now. I've not used them in a while now, but I'm pretty sure they're still far from perfect.
3) glossy screen. Not exactly what you're looking for when you want to use you notebook outdoors.

[droidhacker]

$700ish. I'm looking for a supplementary machine that will give me some mobility. I don't intend on riding with it powered-up. I believe a good carrying case will be fine, assuming I don't crash. So I'm not really into SSD.


A dedicated gpu with 512 MB vram and a dual-core processor isn't hard to find for around $700- I'm just having trouble finding a decent one under 14".

Whether you're riding with it on or not, you don't want to be bashing a hard disk around. Unless you absolutely need huge space, smaller SSD's are not all that expensive.

[spinsane]

Hmm... I might consider an SSD- but in all honesty, I've had an iPod (I didn't buy it, I found it in the snow) for 6 years that has suffered greatly (more than 2 meter drops while HDD was running and all the biking I've done), so I think a powered down HDD should be fine. If it breaks, replacing it with a SSD isn't a big problem (I'll be syncing important project files with my desktop).

The new Acer TimelineX modells are available in 13.3 and 14 inch and come with quite powerfull dedicated graphics (up to ATi Radeon Mobility 5650), but there are several drawbacks with them as well:
1) switchable graphics. While in theory great, it seems like it'll be awhile before it'll actually be working decently with linux (and especially with fglrx, if ever).
2) ATi drivers. Since you want OpenGl 3.0 there's no option besides using the proprietary drivers for now. I've not used them in a while now, but I'm pretty sure they're still far from perfect.
3) glossy screen. Not exactly what you're looking for when you want to use you notebook outdoors.

I don't mind an ATI.

I wont actually be using it outdoors, I'll just be traveling a lot with it so it needs to be able to handle a fair amount of vibration. That said, I'd prefer 100% matte everything.

Where can these configurations be found? Browsing the acer website they're only offered with intel integrated.

[Zhick]

Wow, the TimelineX modells seem to be almost impossible to find on us-online-shops. Here's a german price-comparison-service that lists the modells I was referring to: http://geizhals.at/eu/a519806.html

[droidhacker]

It is REALLY difficult to get what you really want in very small form factors. You almost always have to compromise on something.

One of the major weaknesses of the AMD lineup is that they really don't have much in the way of super-low-power parts, you know, the ones that make sense for things like netbooks and the smallest of laptops, which means that if you want something fairly small, you're either stuck with intel parts, or you possibly have the option of having virtually zero battery life. Either way, being weak/crap in the GPU area is *almost* a given. My experience in hunting down mobile devices is that you either severely compromise on something <=13" or end up with something fairly large.