No desk top computer?

[Knapp]

On Fri, Feb 12, 2010 at 8:34 PM, Alvin <info at alvin.be> wrote:
> On 12/02/2010 20:16, Neil Winchurst wrote:
>> We have lived in a fairly small house for over 7 years now. It was quite
>> big enough for us, but we now seem to have acquired three grandchildren.
>>   I use one of the bedrooms as a study where I have my desktop computer.
>> With all the bits and pieces it takes up quite a lot of room so there is
>> a bit of a palaver when we have visitors. Hints have been dropped!!
>>
>> So I am wondering about replacing the desktop with a (good sized) laptop
>> computer. This leads me on to wonder if any list members do not use a
>> desk top at all, and rely on a laptop only. Anyone? Anything to consider
>> if I go down that route?
>
> I sell computers to business users. Mostly servers and it's not my main
> business, so we're not talking about great numbers here.
>
> My personal experience and opinion:
> - Your battery will die quickly
> - Your battery *will die* quickly
> - A battery is expensive. Desktop users don't have to pay that
> - Your notebook will die a lot quicker than your desktop
> - It's hard to find a notebook of decent quality. In fact, my main
> supplier stopped selling notebooks for exactly that reason, despite a
> rising demand.
>
> It's great if you need a /portable computer/. In my house, I rarely need
> that. I have one, but it's packed and ready for it's 5th repair now.
> (I'm trying to get it repaired for 2 weeks now.)
>
> My colleague had more luck in finding a notebook of decent quality and
> uses it at home and abroad. For home use only, notebooks aren't worth
> the trouble.

I have 3 laptops, all running Linux. I have been given all of them
because the were to "old" or "slow". Some of them are very old. One is
a 486, LOL. But they all run fast enough if you put the right type of
software in them. If you are really brave you can even run the whole
show from the command line and use VERY old computers. Given an a 6
year old laptop, you can run anything provided you have the ram on
board. I just pull the old dead batteries and plug the sucker into the
wall.

My software choices go like this (sometimes I have had to test 8 live
cds to find the one that would boot one of my machines.), depending on
the ram and speed of the machine.

Tiny Core command line only (you can do almost everything this way but
naturally movies don't work to well.)
Tiny Core
Xubuntu
Kubuntu



-- 
Douglas E Knapp

Open Source Sci-Fi mmoRPG Game project.
http://sf-journey-creations.wikispot.org/Front_Page
http://code.google.com/p/perspectiveproject/