OT: Advise me - shoping for new laptop.

[Doug]

On 12/28/2014 10:31 PM, Robert Heller wrote:
> At Mon, 29 Dec 2014 02:41:43 +0000 (UTC) "Ubuntu user technical support,  not for general discussions" <ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi folks,
>>
>> My new laptop most likely will be Dell Precision M4800 Workstation.
>> After looking through forums and googling I still need more input to make
>> final decision (the damn thing IS expensive) on the components bellow.
>>
>> Please, share with me your personal experiences and opinions: which is
>> better supported, will will give me less grief from offset and in the
>> foreseeable future?
>>
>> Wireless card:
>> -------------
>>
>> Intel® Dual Band Wireless-AC 7260
>> 802.11ac/a/b/g/n 2x2 Half Mini Card
>>   vs.
>> Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 802.11n 3x3 Half Mini Card
> The Intel wireless are the *best* supported under Linux: the drivers are open
> source AND supported by Intel (actually ditto for Intel wired NICs -- Intel's
> decision to provide *supported* open source drivers for their NICs is said to
> have pissed off Bill Gates). I don't believe *any* of the other wireless chips
> have vendor support open source drivers. They either are reverse engineered or
> communitly written. Or else closed source or are wrapped MS-Windows drivers.
> The only issue with Intel drivers would be the firmware, but I believe Ubuntu
> distributes the firmware as a separate package.
>
>>   vs.
>> Dell Wireless 1550 2X2 802.11ac + Bluetooth 4.0
>>   vs.
>> Dell Wireless 1601 2x2 802.11n+BT+60GHz (WiGig)
>>
>> Graphic card (it's going to be 15.6" QHD+ (3200x1800) Panel):
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Nvidia® Quadro® K1100M w/2GB GDDR5
>>   vs.
>> NvidiaQuadro K2100Mw/2GB GDDR5
> Nvidia graphics cards are something of bitch in terms of support.  Yes, Nvidia
> provides semi-closed source drivers, but you need to re-build them when you
> upgrade/update your kernel.  OTOH, if you can live with hardware accel, the
> open source (XOrg) drivers work well enough.  In terms of driver support,
> Intel video is better supported (see above).
>
>> Thanks.
>>
>>
>
>

I'm writing from a Dell, a few years old. You'll notice it has NVidia 
video, and it works fine. I just upgraded from a 14.4 kernel to an 18.1 
and there
was no problem with the video--I was watching a Youtube performance a 
few minutes ago.
The Dells have a pretty good keyboard, but I'm using an IBM model M 
while I'm at home. No problem with the external k/b or external pointing 
device--
a Kensington track-ball here.  I have also plugged in an extra external 
optical drive, with LightScribe capability--that works OK too.
I bought the machine from a refurbisher, and it came with Windows 7. If 
you get one like that and want to keep Windows, you should use Windows
to modify the partition scheme.  I used Linux, and I wound up with a 
small extra partition that I couldn't get rid of and have Linux work. I 
live with it--
it doesn't eat much! (OTOH, I don't know how to manipulate partitions 
with Windows, I just know it can be done.)

This is my second Dell--the other was quite a bit older, and Win7 was 
kind of slow on it. So you see I kinda like the brand. I have no 
financial interest in
them, tho.

Here are a few excerpts from lshw:


dell2
     description: Laptop
     product: Latitude E6510 ()

  *-cpu
           description: CPU
           product: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU       M 620  @ 2.67GHz
           vendor: Intel Corp.

*-display
                 description: VGA compatible controller
                 product: GT218M [NVS 3100M]
                 vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
                 physical id: 0
                 bus info: pci at 0000:01:00.0
                 version: a2
                 width: 64 bits
                 clock: 33MHz
                 capabilities: pm msi pciexpress vga_controller 
bus_master cap_list rom
                 configuration: driver=nvidia latency=0
                 resources: irq:28 memory:e2000000-e2ffffff 
memory:d0000000-dfffffff memory:e0000000-e1ffffff ioport:7000(size=128) 
memory:e3000000-e307ffff
            *-multimedia
                 description: Audio device
                 product: High Definition Audio Controller
                 vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
                 physical id: 0.1
                 bus info: pci at 0000:01:00.1
                 version: a1
                 width: 32 bits
                 clock: 33MHz
                 capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list
                 configuration: driver=snd_hda_intel latency=0
                 resources: irq:16 memory:e3080000-e3083fff

--doug




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