Really - never heard of those companies. I know of computer building companies but no laptop.
I’ll search around. Didn’t know if anyone here had a specific laptop they used / bought because it came with no OS.
off topic
@Rubble
saying that most Linux servers used to come with Imagemagick 6.2.5?
My host has just kindly installed the latest ImageMagick and i had big problems trying to use CodeIgniter’s library which insisted on a path. Eventually gave up and wrote a thumbnail routine in less than half a dozen lines…
You’d think, but that’s not been my experience. For one thing, you’re not paying for an OS you don’t intend to use. And you can tweek the specifications to get the best combination for your particular needs. I don’t need anything particularly high-end - I’m never going to get into online gaming or video editing, for example.
[quote=“RyanReese, post:101, topic:116829”]
I know of computer building companies but no laptop.
[/quote]http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/laptops/ (Not much use to you, I know, but you might find it interesting to look.) Unlike many other companies, they also don’t charge an arm and a leg to deliver to remote areas, which is really important to me.
1 Like
Well, in my experience that’s definitely the case (custom is more expensive - especially with the relatively low cost of Windows OS OEM on stock computers) but I’d be happy to find a place that did them cheap here, don’t get me wrong!
2 Likes
You can usualy find the path with either of these:
<?php
echo "<pre>";
system("type convert");
echo "</pre>";
?>
<?php
echo "<pre>";
system('which convert',$path); print_r($path);
echo "</pre>";
?>
It would probably just mean changing convert to something like /usr/local/bin/convert but I have not tried codeIgniter so can not say for sure.
Many thanks, I will try your suggestions when on the desktop and let you know. I do hope it works OK.
Natively browsing your server through SFTP as an extension of your normal folder structure is a huge bonus point for me. Especially for any personal projects where you kind of play with your test and production environments
Ubuntu has usually been pretty good with hardware. I’ve installed it on a pretty wide variety of hardware setups and never really had a problem with anything other than both AMD and nVidia graphics cards. But even there, the support is better than most distros. I switched away from Mint (which is an Ubuntu fork) because I had a problem with an AMD driver and it worked fine on Ubuntu.
Windows is subsidized so heavily through deals with the manufacturers and other software installed, that when you buy a pre-built PC with it you’re essentially getting it for free.
My main issue was that I would like to not have to spend extra money for memory to boot up Linux.
I suppose I have two options?
- Buy more memory and dual boot
- Nuke Windows and only have Linux installed?
Edit - I guess I could always just download more ram…
Edit2 - I also don’t claim to be knowledgable about hardware / computers. So I might be talking out of my a** here.
Yeah, I guess that’s a difference in workflows, I can’t say that I’d ever care about the server being an extension of my normal folder structure via SFTP 
but I can understand what you mean.
The Ubuntu thing - I had similar issues pretty much every time I used it; they were surpassable, but my point is that the fact that they’re there at all is a negative. If you didn’t, then that’s good, but… I did, so that’s one of the reasons I haven’t gone back to try again for awhile, is all I’m saying.
As for Windows… yeah. I mean, when you can get a laptop for $300 with a name brand, there’s no possible way they’re paying even close to consumer (if much of anything at all) for that license. It’s pretty much a moot point as long as you don’t mind wiping it, which, isn’t much if any harder than starting at blank anyhew.
I don’t see why you would need extra memory to dual boot. Can you explain?
1 Like
How much RAM are you thinking you’ll want for dual boot? And why do you specifically need more to dual boot into Linux? Linux should, in general, not need more than Windows.
Linux has to take up some RAM or something right? I was having this issue on my Chromebook. Only a certain amount of memory could be allocated to Linux.
Enough to have a decent dev environment with no issues or worrying. That and watch Netflix.
Because I wanted Netflix on a non-supported environment? I think that is my own personal problem 
The only hardware issue I had was my network driver in this last round of re-installation. Stupid Broadcom! (again, because I was using Debian Stable, if I went to Debian Testing or Debian Unstable, it would have been fine hardware wise).
Uh, that isn’t how RAM works…
You don’t. You only need more Hard Drive Space. The only; way you need more RAM is if you decide to only boot into Windows and run Linux in a VM. That is where more RAM becomes a necessity.
Chromebook != Laptop
Some Chromebooks have crazy low ram. But in general, Linux requires less. KDE and Gnome are the main and preferred desktop environments and they do eat up a lot of resources, but you can use other desktop environments which are less hungry. Like LXDE or XFCE. You can also install more broken down distros that will take up even less ram and disk space. CrunchBang is a fork of Ubuntu that does this, it even uses a very good looking desktop environment called Open Box.
As far as disk space goes, yes you’ll probably need at least a 256gb hard drive to be comfortable. You will need to allocate space for both OS’s. You don’t need any extra RAM for this.
If you want to run it in a VM, you’ll need more ram for that. But you don’t need a desktop environment if you’re running Linux in a VM. You should probably just be using Vagrant anyway.
It’s a joke. There’s a site out there that “lets you download RAM”. I’d give you a link if I wasn’t at work.
Because I wanted Netflix on a non-supported environment? I think that is my own personal problem wink
I was referring to literally, the quote “was a chore to get setup” - that could be said of a variety of the parts of the Linux experience. And wanting to run Netflix on a home computer and being unable to do so would definitely be on my list of “reasons why this is not a good replacement OS”
Also, there’ve now been more than one instances of “the only issue I had, but here’s why…” - if it was Windows, or OSX, I doubt that issue would’ve occurred - big deal or not, it’s another tally mark.
That all said, I’m still going to set up Ubuntu on a beater sometime in the next few weeks just to catch up on things and give it a try
It works now, but specifically on Chrome and Ubuntu.
I wish I could download a better GPU sometimes.
Also, you could do with less than 256, if you’re going with SSD (HDD I can’t imagine you’d find one) but only if you’re not putting much on it. I’d go higher than that, if it was me, just anticipating at least storing some media and such…
That’s the joke.
2 Likes
Yup, saw that above