Latest Laptop Recommendations
It's been over a year since my last request for comments on a new laptop. I had a scare using my almost 7-year-old Thinkpad a20p today while teaching a private class. I wanted to run VMware Server using a VM configured to need 192 MB RAM. The laptop has 512 MB of physical RAM. When I started the VM, VMware Server complained it didn't have sufficient free RAM. Puzzled, I checked my Windows hardware properties and saw only 256 MB RAM reported! Oh oh.
I guessed that maybe one of the two 256 MB RAM sticks in my laptop had been loosened on the trip to the class site. Using a grounding wrist band thoughtfully provided by my class, I removed my laptop's RAM and reseated it. After booting, I saw all 512 MB again. Whew.< This experience made me again consider buying a new laptop. I am going to buy a Thinkpad, probably something in the T series like a T60p. However, I'm considering a new OS strategy. Currently I dual boot Windows 2000 Professional and FreeBSD 6.x. For my next laptop, I'm thinking of installing an OS fully supported by VMware Server, like Ubuntu, with VMware Server over it. I won't install anything else in Ubuntu. I'll do all my work inside VMware, with one VM running FreeBSD for daily work and another running some version of Windows for Office-like tasks.
I've avoided relying on VMware in the past as a primary work environment because I thought I would regularly need hardware-level access to run wireless assessment tools. This hasn't turned out to be a real need, and I think I would just turn to a live CD like BackTrack that has figured out all the Linux kernel voodoo needed for the cooler wireless tools.
Is anyone else doing this? What has been your experience?
I guessed that maybe one of the two 256 MB RAM sticks in my laptop had been loosened on the trip to the class site. Using a grounding wrist band thoughtfully provided by my class, I removed my laptop's RAM and reseated it. After booting, I saw all 512 MB again. Whew.< This experience made me again consider buying a new laptop. I am going to buy a Thinkpad, probably something in the T series like a T60p. However, I'm considering a new OS strategy. Currently I dual boot Windows 2000 Professional and FreeBSD 6.x. For my next laptop, I'm thinking of installing an OS fully supported by VMware Server, like Ubuntu, with VMware Server over it. I won't install anything else in Ubuntu. I'll do all my work inside VMware, with one VM running FreeBSD for daily work and another running some version of Windows for Office-like tasks.
I've avoided relying on VMware in the past as a primary work environment because I thought I would regularly need hardware-level access to run wireless assessment tools. This hasn't turned out to be a real need, and I think I would just turn to a live CD like BackTrack that has figured out all the Linux kernel voodoo needed for the cooler wireless tools.
Is anyone else doing this? What has been your experience?
Comments
I don't know why you would want to run everything in virtual machines... Ubuntu has a vast repository of office applications you can use. Not to mention, running two VMs at once and doing office work in one will be slower than usual.
having gone through a fair bit of research work last month (yes it was time for me too to change my laptop) I have gone for a Samsung Q35 which in my opinion is best value for money laptop one could buy at the moment. It's very very high-spec to run vmware (I use vmware server), light, small and with a long battery life, and cheaper than the lot. It's a good operational laptop but it also looks good. I run Fedora 5, which required a little bit of work from me but there are a couple of howtos online to get everything working. I would seriously consider it against the Thinkpad
Ciao
Al
As for the IBMs, we currently use them for our work and they have been great. They have been very rugged and have for the most part withstood various disaassemblies and reassemblies for the purpose of inserting or removing various mini-PCI cards. The hardware, though 3 years old, still "feels" fast enough to do everything we need to do. All in all, a well-built machine. I am sure you'll be happy with an IBM (as long as Lenovo adheres to the same QC standards).
Be sure and let us know what you decide and how it works out. Cheers!
Wipe your current system and run Ubuntu native. It'll run faster, I bet. You can still find RAM, I am sure.
It works great. Best setup ever. (for me of course)
Ubuntu won't disappoint you. It's the EASIEST linux based distribution to patch IMO. Everything just works.
As far as running Ubuntu, see my earlier post http://digiassn.blogspot.com/2006/08/linux-vmware-server-under-ubuntu.html
I loved running this, worked great, even on my older Toshiba P3 laptop. It was a shame to part with it when my new Dell Latitude D820 arrived since I now am forced to be primarily a WinXP user for work, but I still keep Ubuntu around under VMWare. Be sure to get Easy Ubuntu for loading some of the non-provided software, and check with some of my other posts about issues I cam across (Running Eclipse, loading Sun Java instead of the outdated GNU Java, etc).
Not sure if this would work for you (haven't tried it on a laptop) but if you wanted to virtualize everything, you could try VMWare's ESX server for your laptop. It obviates the need for a Host OS, which improves the speed and interactivity of the guest VMs. Not sure what the dollar amount is, but we've used it for virtualizing servers to great effect.
http://www.securityexplained.net/topics/virtEnv/index.html
if you want to install BackTrack as a
virtual appliance.
I use it to track FreeBSD 6-STABLE and 7-CURRENT on a bi-weekly basis. I haven't had ocasion to /need/ suspend (either RAM or disk) yet. FreeBSD doesn't (currently) support suspend on any SMP systems that I'm aware of.
I also have the ThinkPad wireless (Atheros), although I understand there has been some recent work done with regards to supporting the Intel 3945 chips as well.
Xorg (from ports) doesn't currently support any non-svga driver for the FireGL, but since it can still pump out 32+fps for glgears @1600x1200 32bit, I'm having a hard time feeling negatively about it.
Bluetooth is supported with the ng_ubt(4) and I've used it for a PPP connection to a Treo650 in DUN mode.
I have the 9 cell battery, which gets about 4.5-5hrs of life, doing non-CPU intensive tasks, about 2.5 of compiling, although it completes a buildworld in about 20min.
I ocasionally notice that the em0 interface doesn't showup (using ifconfig(8) ) unless it could probe during the boot (there are various discussions on -current about em(4) issues).
The fingerprint scanner shows up as a usb device, although I can't imagine a better way to open up security, since laptops are usually covered in their owners fingerprints.
All IBM laptops have this problem except the T60p (which ships with VT-x support) and the X60t (which has a BIOS upgrade that fixes the issue). It literally took me hours to glean this information, and I had been looking for a resource on this for over a year.
Since the T60p also has a TPM and obviously NX, it makes an ideal candidate to run:
Linux+Xen in ring(-1) along with XenAccess. Richard, you will be really interested in XenAccess since it is the future of IDS. Linux can also then run grsecurity and have PaX in hardware-mode with no overhead using the NX bit.
Speaking of no overhead, Windows XP and Vista are also gonna run great in guest ring0's with hardware virtualization under Xen. I don't know why you bother with VMWare. The TPM should work for both Linux (Enforcer) and Vista (BitLocker).
I have always been a fan of yours, and I'm a long-time FreeBSD (since 2.2.2) and BSD fan (since early-early SunOS and 386bsd). But VT-x + TPM + NX on a laptop is just too cool to pass up. You can show off every new security feature to everyone.
Now what I'm looking for is a UMPC with VT-x + TPM + NX. Help anyone?
Thanks for your comments. If I can get FreeBSD and some version of Windows running on Xen on Ubuntu then I would be happy to avoid VMware! I guess I would still have VMware available so I could try VMs built by others. I haven't tried Xen yet, so I need to do that. XenAccess looks very cool too.
I had a similar configuration on a laptop last year as I prefer to run Linux, but needed a Windows VM for my company computer image. The main difficulty I had was with USB in my VM's as VMWare does not yet support USB 2.0 (not last time I checked, that is). Not a fatal issue, but certainly something to consider when going this route. Good luck and keep me posted.
toddmichael