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Author
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Topic: Adventures in buying a laptop
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Frank Cox
Film God
Posts: 2234
From: Melville Saskatchewan Canada
Registered: Apr 2011
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posted 10-02-2014 12:49 AM
Today I found myself in need of a laptop to run Centos on. And that simple statement led to an all-day odyssey.
My original plan was to purchase a laptop and install Centos 6 on it. I went to Staples and tried booting it on every model of laptop that they had in the store. They all come with Windows 8 installed, and for the edification of anyone who doesn't know this (I didn't until today) you have to conduct a real song and dance to get to the bios settings on one of those things:
boot windows
move mouse pointer to the top right corner of the screen
move down to setting menu (gear) that shows up
click on power off icon
Hold shift key and left-click on "restart"
it goes to the troubleshooting screen
click on advanced troubleshooting
click on "change uefi settings"
now we get to the bios
set secure boot off
set legacy boot priority
And then you can boot from a USB flash drive. *whew* (It's easy to put it back afterward, just go into the bios and tell it set to defaults, save and exit.)
Anyway, I tried booting a Centos 6 Live CD image on a usb flash drive on every single model of laptop they had in stock and no joy on any of them -- they either hung altogether, started booting and hung at some point along the way, started a continuous cycle of start booting, reset, start booting again, or kernel panicked. Every last one.
I then tried a Centos 7 Live CD image on another usb flash drive and then the third machine that I tried it on (Lenovo Ideapad S400 Touch) worked. So I bought that one and have now wiped Windows off of its hard drive and installed Centos 7 so it now looks and acts like a real computer.
I never would have thought that it would take all bloody day to purchase one laptop. (And I'm going to be having nightmares about that Windows Boot Manager thing.)
Since it has now become amazingly difficult to get a laptop if you're not planning to use Windows, at least around here, I'm wondering what the rest of you fine folks do when it comes to purchasing a laptop (assuming that you're not using Windows, that is)? Next time this comes up, I'd rather not have to spend all day on something that used to take fifteen minutes.
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Marcel Birgelen
Film God
Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 10-02-2014 03:28 AM
Yeah, that secure boot UEFI thing really makes me angry. First off all, why did we actually have to replace the BIOS? Answer: Vendor lock in. Although practically all vendors still allow you to disable this "Secure Boot", the time where this won't be a possibility and you need some "unsupported hacks" is on the horizon.
It's not that BIOS is actually good for anything nowadays, other than doing the most basic of Power On Self Tests and loading the first few bytes of whatever you're going to boot into memory.
But this UEFI thing... well, let's engineer a new system that's sooo complex, we could put a whole operating system into it if we wanted... And why? The only thing I want the BIOS to do is to boot the OS and not very much else. Maybe I want some halfway smart, independent power management on the side, but isn't this what ACPI is supposed to do? So, UEFI: Just another vendor lock in, layer of frustration and possible location for viruses and other crapware to hide.
Furthermore, I've practically given up on "Desktop Linux", since it's one big fragmented bombshell. Linux is fine for servers and embedded devices (in highly customized forms) and I heavily use it. But for desktops? No, sorry... I've got more stuff to do than just worry about configuring devices and all this stuff that doesn't work out of the box, or being frustrated by the latest fancy-ass Window manager some distro wants to shove down my throat (Hi there, Canonical). Also, people keep sending me Office documents, I need Outlook to connect to the corporate Exchange stuff and the Open Source alternatives (e.g. Open- and LibreOffice) just don't cut it. Maybe it works for the basic stuff, but not for anything complicated, Micosoft has a strong lock-in there. Then there's Adobe... Yeah people keep pushing The Gimp, but the Gimp is asleep and doesn't want to be waked up, it's by no means a fully functional replacement for Photoshop. Also, what about a decent vector graphics program? One that can open files without compatibility issues? Something that does PDFs without problems? Video editing that comes anywhere close to Premiere, After Effects, etc? And 3D or CAD apps besides Blender (which unfortunately requires a totally different workflow)? And well... Flash (just the player alone) on Linux, don't get me started ![[Wink]](wink.gif) .
I'm also not going to try to get it to work with Wine or even run a separate VM for it, as I don't want to spend the time and resources on this additional overhead and lost time due to more complex interactions between applications.
So, I'll just stick to Windows 7 for now. And if you aim for the somewhat higher end of the market (the business segment), you'll still get it and it usually also comes with less spy-, ad- and other ratware installed than a low-end consumer device. Let's hope that this Windows 9 or 10 (as they seemingly want to call it now) will bring the Windows back into Windows and we can bury this Windows 8.x concoction together with other ill conceived versions like Windows ME and Vista.
Furthermore, if you really want to run Linux, you might want to stick to Lenovo, as they're quite well supported by the community and some of their notebook lines are certified to work with at least Ubuntu, so chances any other somewhat recent distro will eventually work are very good.
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Frank Cox
Film God
Posts: 2234
From: Melville Saskatchewan Canada
Registered: Apr 2011
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posted 10-02-2014 03:06 PM
No spyware/malware to worry about, and it can be locked down so the end user can't bugger it up. End users can't (usually) install software, so all of the issues arising from that are avoided.
Set 'er up, lock 'er down. And you're pretty much good for several years of use after that. In this case, I'll even lock down the desktop so nothing can be moved around, changed or removed.
In this particular case, the person who I'm setting this up for requires a secure machine for online banking and investment portfolio management. And they don't want to take any chances on having their data tampered with or shipped off to the Russian mob.
The end user (the computer's owner) doesn't get the root password, but I will install my private key on it so I can remotely log into it to do any upgrades or troubleshooting that may be required in the future. I'm actually shipping this thing over 9000 miles (yes, three zeros) to its owner as soon as I finish setting it up. The DHL freight bill will equal or exceed the price of the laptop, but she needs it next week so that's what it takes.
Fast emergency job, I guess. I just found out about it yesterday morning, in fact. I don't think I'll have it ready to go tomorrow since I have other things to take care of as well, including tomorrow night's movie, but it will definitely be on its way out of here on Monday and DHL offers 3-day delivery to the destination, so that will work.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 10-02-2014 03:54 PM
quote: Marcel Birgelen
Yeah, that secure boot UEFI thing really makes me angry. First off all, why did we actually have to replace the BIOS? Answer: Vendor lock in. Although practically all vendors still allow you to disable this "Secure Boot", the time where this won't be a possibility and you need some "unsupported hacks" is on the horizon.
Apple can be thanked for starting that trend. When Apple started making computers with Intel-based CPUs they installed a vendor-specific boot strap on the motherboard rather than a traditional BIOS. That's because, I mean, God forbid anyone get a copy of Mac OSX and install it on a damned Dell box! Can't have any of that. Microsoft and various PC vendors thought it would be a good idea to copy.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
Furthermore, I've practically given up on "Desktop Linux", since it's one big fragmented bombshell.
The Linux community could never agree on any single standard. Even after over 20 years of development it's still fragmented as hell. All sorts of "distros" have come and gone. Now we have Ubuntu, Mint Cinnamon, CentOS, Mentos, blah blah blah.
Linux' user base share of desktop and notebook personal computers is currently only 1.64% (Net Applications' stat, Sept. 2014). All those different distros of Linux divide that very small share even further. Windows 7 is the leader with 51.71%, followed by Win XP (23.87%), Win 8/8.1 (12.26%), Mac OSX (6.38%), Windows Vista (3.07%).
"Desktop Linux" is stuck in a chicken vs. egg situation. The Linux platform has to attract a lot more users before big commercial software companies will take Linux seriously. Unfortunately all those users aren't going to migrate unless the applications they like to use aren't already supported. Neither side of that chicken vs. egg problem can be attacked while all these competing distros are confusing the situation.
quote:
Then there's Adobe... Yeah people keep pushing The Gimp, but the Gimp is asleep and doesn't want to be waked up, it's by no means a fully functional replacement for Photoshop. Also, what about a decent vector graphics program? One that can open files without compatibility issues? Something that does PDFs without problems? Video editing that comes anywhere close to Premiere, After Effects, etc? And 3D or CAD apps besides Blender (which unfortunately requires a totally different workflow)? And well... Flash (just the player alone) on Linux, don't get me started [Wink] .
Ultimately you get what you pay for.
Open source graphics software is better than nothing. I'll point casual users who don't need professional level commercial software to open source alternatives like The Gimp for pixel-based image editing or Inkscape for vector graphics work. Casual users might not know what they're missing using those applications versus their professional level, commercially sold counterparts. I've been using Photoshop for over 20 years. I'm so used to Photoshop I find it frustrating to use other commercial level image editors, like Corel Painter, never mind putting up with The Gimp.
Recently Adobe announced a beta "streaming" version of Photoshop CC for Chromebook. Adobe may port other Creative Cloud apps to the Chromebook platform as part of this effort. Personally, I'm pretty skeptical. I can't see "streaming" Photoshop's functions from the cloud to a well equipped desktop computer, much less try to do so with a low cost notebook with very limited hardware. Photoshop isn't even Adobe's most performance demanding application. I think it would be a nightmare trying to stream a video authoring project, grabbing both assets and program functions from several applications, all from the cloud.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 10-03-2014 11:57 AM
Modern personal computers can last a whole lot longer than ones that were made 10-20 years ago. Back in the 1990s we were swapping out systems every couple or so years. It's nothing to get half a dozen years or even a decade of life out of a decent desktop PC now.
Hardware longevity is another one of those "you get what you pay for" things. A low cost desktop or notebook PC probably won't be very productive for more than a couple or so years, if it's even productive at all when purchased. Some entry level configurations are painfully bad and the lack of performance is compounded by all the crapware pre-installed to subsidize the low cost of the device.
You'll get more years of life out of a desktop or notebook PC that's properly equipped. I refuse to buy a computer whose graphics system consists of a motherboard embedded graphics chip that sucks on main system memory. At least get some kind of dedicated graphics board. RAM is relatively cheap. I max out what the motherboard can hold, even if the cost of it might mean stepping down a notch or two on CPU speed.
I got 6 years of life out of my previous notebook computer. I've been using my current Win 7 notebook for 3 years and have no plans to replace it any time soon.
quote: Steve Matz
The Image quality is fantastic but hardly any commercial Programing available at present time makes them a bad investment for the Cost IMHO....
4K UHDTV sets are very obviously in the "early adopter" phase. They're doing nothing to make current HDTV sets obsolete. It will be a long time before 4K content becomes a widespread thing for home viewing.
I wouldn't judge 4K on the missteps of electronics store staff. A lot of them don't know what the hell they're doing. Three stores in my town are selling 4K TV sets and none of them have any native 4K content playing on them. That's not the fault of 4K technology. That's a staffing issue.
IMHO, any wise customer should already know about the electronics product he wants to buy and hopefully already have his decision made about the model he wants to buy before entering the store. Sales people have their own agendas and will use spin to steer you into buying some other product they're trying to get off the floor.
Still, I wouldn't recommend anyone but the most hardcore technophile buy a 4K TV set right now. The hard disc based media players, like the one sold by Sony, are expensive and have limited, proprietary media stores. You need a blazing fast Internet connection to have any hope of streaming anything remotely resembling "4K" from Netflix, much less be able to download 4K movies in any practical manner. The Blu-ray format will have 4K movies next year, but it will require a whole new breed of BD players.
On the bright side, 4K has pushed down the prices of big 1080p HDTV sets. I recently bought a pretty good 65" 240Hz LED-based Samsung TV set for just under $2000 (before sales tax). I think it would have cost a lot more if Samsung didn't have curved screen models and 4K models on product levels above it.
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