RE: Where to start: hardware and reading material

Bignoseduglyguy wrote:

> I'm a Linux beginner.  Have dabbled a little with trying on my eeepc
> 701, I'd like to pick up a cheap laptop so I can delve deeper on a
> larger machine

Hi,

At a risk of being forcefully ejected from the list.. My advice is to get a cheap laptop with lots of ram, Leave it running Windows 7 and run Virtual Box. 

No, truly - I've got a $699 HP DV6 on special from Dick Smith, with 500GB disk and 4GB RAM. I plonked in another 4GB RAM that I got wholesale for $40, and I'm happy.

I run Linux in Virtual Box for both work and hobbies (which include non-trivial tasks like hardware and software builds for running uClinux on FPGAs).

Good points:
- The Wifi networking works

- VPN clients work

- I can move my VMs to different boxes. just pick them up and move them. No messing around with drivers.

- I have no hardware support issues at all (3D, web cam power management...)

- I can take snapshots of VMs if I need to before upgrades

- You can have different OS installs in different VMs
  - One for Xilinx ISE FPGA tools
  - One for Altera Quartus FPGA tools
  - One for remote connectivity on customer's LANs.
  - One for Oracle 9iR2 running a very old RedHat 4.x
  - ...
  All of these have different and conflicting distro and dependency requirements


The bad points:
- I have to use funky USB stuff like using USB JTAG or ICP adapters) under Windows - I copy files out into a VBox shared folder and use Windows-based programming tools.

- Windows Update and needing AV - I use Microsoft Security Essentials so no cost involved.

- I get a hard time from Linux purists

- You can't play graphics intensive Linux games - but when you buy a Humble Bundle you get Windows binaries too.... :-)

Mike


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