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Ask HN:Best Development Laptop?

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Re: Ask HN:Best Development Laptop?

#41

Post by jsvaughan »

vgrichina wrote: post #18
exDM69 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Memory requirements vary a lot depending on the task at hand. You may get away with 2 GiB, but I have 12 GiB and it's not quite enough. I compile huge pieces of software that require insane amounts of memory at compile time. 2 GiB is a ridiculously small amount these days, 4 GiB is not a lot on today's standards. A 4 GiB hard limit for max memory is definitely a minus for the computer in question.

To tell the truth it looks to me that if something requires even 1 GB of memory during compilation than you have a bigger problem than lack of RAM on your laptop :) So I'd like to know about some real-world example when you need that much RAM for compiler. For most cases when people claim they need more RAM the actual bottleneck is I/O rate which is kinda improved by having RAM to use as cache, but SSD usually works…

Forget compiling; if (for example) you want to have a couple of meaty java projects open in an IDE plus an appserver plus a db tool you're way over 4Gb before doing any work. And then if you want to run the database as well, or say virtualbox, or use a browser...

Plus RAM is ridiculously cheap; I've just seen 24Gb for £100 plus VAT.

Re: Ask HN:Best Development Laptop?

#42

Post by vgrichina »

jsvaughan wrote: post #41
vgrichina wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To tell the truth it looks to me that if something requires even 1 GB of memory during compilation than you have a bigger problem than lack of RAM on your laptop :) So I'd like to know about some real-world example when you need that much RAM for compiler. For most cases when people claim they need more RAM the actual bottleneck is I/O rate which is kinda improved by having RAM to use as cache, but SSD usually works…

Forget compiling; if (for example) you want to have a couple of meaty java projects open in an IDE plus an appserver plus a db tool you're way over 4Gb before doing any work. And then if you want to run the database as well, or say virtualbox, or use a browser... Plus RAM is ridiculously cheap; I've just seen 24Gb for £100 plus VAT.

Swapping is far more efficient on SSD and so RAM isn't such a problem. At least it works good enough in cases when you have a lot of data in heap which isn't used frequently (your example of multiple projects open).

RAM is cheap, but it still would take additional volume inside of laptop + use more power.

Re: Ask HN:Best Development Laptop?

#43

Post by thejteam »

b14ck wrote: post #11

I recently purchased my first ubuntu-linux laptop from system76 ( http://www.system76.com/ ) --theyre a hardware company that ships exclusively ubuntu-linux laptops. I've been meaning to try them for a while now, but just had the chance to purchase one a few weeks ago. So far, I'm loving it. Among other things, here's what I enjoy presently: * They sell large screen models (17.3", here). * The hardware is completely…

It's not a laptop, but I did buy my wife and kids a small system76 desktop. Good company, decent hardware. I would personally recommend doing a fresh Ubuntu install as well. Mine froze up using their default install. On the other hand, once I did a fresh install everything worked beautifully. No hardware problems and no hunting for extra drivers(which I deplore having to do). What I like best about them is that they charge reasonable prices for upgrades.

If you don't want a pure linux laptop, I concur with many of the other poster's here and recommend a Lenovo Thinkpad.(I have one and dual-boot Windows and Ubuntu.

Re: Ask HN:Best Development Laptop?

#44

Post by smashd »

I got a p151hm from Malibal with the better matte screen, 16gb of RAM and an i7 processor. I went with SSD in the main slot and had the optical drive swapped for a spinning hard drive.

This thing is a great workstation replacement: I run Linux as the host OS, with Windows 7 in a vmplayer VM for work. The VM gets two cores, 8 GB of ram and both sides stay really snappy. It also runs cool.

It's certainly no macbook though: in comparison the battery life is poor, it's heavier and the fans are a little noisier. None of these things have been an issue at all for my usage patterns: I walk to work with it and haven't noticed the weight, I use it plugged in at home and work, and ambient noise generally outweighs any fan considerations.

I couldn't recommend it more at this point. Malibal's customer service has been great, and I got more hardware for my buck than I could find from anyone else.

Re: Ask HN:Best Development Laptop?

#45

Post by exDM69 »

vgrichina wrote: post #18
exDM69 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Memory requirements vary a lot depending on the task at hand. You may get away with 2 GiB, but I have 12 GiB and it's not quite enough. I compile huge pieces of software that require insane amounts of memory at compile time. 2 GiB is a ridiculously small amount these days, 4 GiB is not a lot on today's standards. A 4 GiB hard limit for max memory is definitely a minus for the computer in question.

To tell the truth it looks to me that if something requires even 1 GB of memory during compilation than you have a bigger problem than lack of RAM on your laptop :) So I'd like to know about some real-world example when you need that much RAM for compiler. For most cases when people claim they need more RAM the actual bottleneck is I/O rate which is kinda improved by having RAM to use as cache, but SSD usually works…

Compiling new Android systems requires 16 gigabytes of RAM at compile time. Trying to compile it with 6 gigabytes will end up swapping so much that the system becomes unusable. I have 12 gigabytes and it's a bit slow and painful.

I have no idea why it takes so much memory and I consider it to be somewhat a problem. However, it's not a problem I can do anything about but I still have to live with it daily and get my job done.

Linux has excellent caching for I/O operations, so having more memory makes things faster, so even if something does not explicitly need the RAM, having it there will make thing s go faster.

Re: Ask HN:Best Development Laptop?

#46

Post by vgrichina »

exDM69 wrote: post #45
vgrichina wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To tell the truth it looks to me that if something requires even 1 GB of memory during compilation than you have a bigger problem than lack of RAM on your laptop :) So I'd like to know about some real-world example when you need that much RAM for compiler. For most cases when people claim they need more RAM the actual bottleneck is I/O rate which is kinda improved by having RAM to use as cache, but SSD usually works…

Compiling new Android systems requires 16 gigabytes of RAM at compile time. Trying to compile it with 6 gigabytes will end up swapping so much that the system becomes unusable. I have 12 gigabytes and it's a bit slow and painful. I have no idea why it takes so much memory and I consider it to be somewhat a problem. However, it's not a problem I can do anything about but I still have to live with it daily and get my j…

Sure that having more RAM won't make things slower. But for most uses cases SSD compensates for lack of RAM, as swapping becomes reasonably fast.

You need to swap our more than 200 MB per second to saturate SSD in MacBook Air, it is hard to produce that much of non-garbage data.

Re: Ask HN:Best Development Laptop?

#47

Post by jollyjerry »

What type of development do you do primarily? For web dev, a mac is still the best choice in my opinion b/c you can VM to test all browsers.

I think hardware-wise, most laptops have more than enough power for local development needs. What's more important to me is screen size/quality and keyboard quality. In general, I plug in when I'm at home, so even these qualities aren't a deal breaker.

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