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Ultralight Convertibles Approaching Desktop Performance
MojoKid writes Laptops with fully articulating hinges are starting to show up from more vendors than just Lenovo, though the company certainly got some mileage out of their Yoga brand of machines. Now it appears HP is getting in on the action as well, with the new HP Spectre X360 that's powered by Intel's new Core i5-5200U Broadwell-based processor with integrated Intel HD 5500 series graphics, along with 8GB of DDR3-1600 memory, a 256GB Solid State Drive (a Samsung M.2 PCIe SSD), 802.11ac WiFi, and a 13.3" Full HD (1920x1080) multi-touch screen. The Spectre X360 has a geared and spring-assisted hinges. The hinges swing open easily, and then offer more resistance as the screen is moved into an upright position, or swung around into tent, stand, or tablet modes. What's also interesting about this new breed of convertibles, beyond just its ability to contort into tablet mode and various other angles, is that performance for these ultralight platforms is scaling up nicely, with faster, low-power processors and M.2 PCIe Solid State Drives offering up a very responsive experience and under 10 second boot times. It has gotten to the point that 3 pound and under notebooks feel every bit as nimble as desktop machines, at least for mainstream productivity and media consumption usage models.
Just like snydeq always posts links to InfoWorld, MojoKid always posts links to Hot Hardware.
You need to go into the BIOS and disable secure boot.
You don't even need to do that if you pick your linux version properly. I just finished installing Sabayon/Linux on my Lenovo U430p laptop after I decided I was going to reformat it anyway because of the recent Superfish fiasco. We've had a working secure boot shim for over 2 years now. No need to disable secure boot. Red Hat and Ubuntu both support it as well if you're looking for something a little more mainstream. At worst you may need to register a key with the BIOS (I did for Sabayon), but I'm not sure you even need to do that with Red Hat since their shim is actually signed by MS.
So while approaching DT performance might be a proper analysis, i dont think laptops can replace desktops
Not to be mean, but it already did. Far more people have a laptop and no desktop than the other way around. If you add tablets too they together have 80% of the market, desktops 20%. Apart from the performance, you can always hook up a laptop to a keyboard, mouse and external screen. And as for performance, it's probably equal to a 2005 desktop which is plenty for most people. Sure it won't replace my gaming rig or anyone else doing "serious" computing at home, but we're in a very tiny minority. Heck, I think that apart from the interface a smartphone has enough computing power for a lot of people. If you look at the Steam Hardware Survey 19% now use Intel, even among gamers it's not all hardcore.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Speaking of Slashvertisements, I'm running Linux on a Dell 11" 3147 two-in-one. I can use it as a small laptop machine and I can also use it for watching Netflix in the tablet configuration. Although the two-in-one is thicker and heavier than a tablet, it can be better than a tablet for watching videos because there are several configurations where the keyboard acts like a stand so you don't have to constantly hold it.
For me, it was $260 well spent (via the Dell outlet store). I'm pleased with the device even though the Linux support is merely adequate. No multi-touch for the touchscreen and I can't access the accelerometer. AFAIK, everything else works. I wrote little scripts to rotate the display and disable the keyboard and touchpad. I get over 5 hours of battery life while mostly watching videos. I like that the Linux desktop and/or virtual consoles are only a click or two away because I like to tinker. There are a bunch of hardware improvements that would be nice, starting with a lighted keyboard, but for the price, I'm not complaining.
IMO, if the price is decent you might as well buy a laptop with a touchscreen that folds all the way back. I think it is a good use of resources and it makes the device much more versatile. For me personally it is better than a separate tablet and laptop. I may never buy another laptop that doesn't convert to tablet mode.
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
Seriously?! Which part of that doesn't take a month to understand for someone that just wants to zip down to staples and grab a laptop with the expectation the install media will "just work" like it always has done for the last decade?
To use it, rename shim.efi to bootx64.efi and put it in /EFI/BOOT on your UEFI install media. Drop MokManager.efi in there as well. Finally, make sure your bootloader binary is called grubx64.efi and put it in the same directory.
Now generate a certificate and put the public half as a binary DER file somewhere on your install media. On boot, the end-user will be prompted with a 10-second countdown and a menu. Choose "Enroll key from disk" and then browse the filesystem to select the key and follow the enrolment prompts. Any bootloader signed with that key will then be trusted by shim, so you probably want to make sure that your grubx64.efi image is signed with it.
This part:
Secure Boot bootloader for distributions available now
Nov. 30th, 2012 07:51 pm
That link, as the text following the hyperlink says, is an announcement from 2 years ago. I referenced it to show how long this software has been available for use in other distributions. /boot partition manually? Zero. The hard part of those instructions are for the distribution maintainers. The second part is a one-time procedure of selecting "enroll-me.cer" from a list and then never doing it again. If you can select which partition you want to install your linux distro on, you can select which certificate to enroll.
Also, how many people who fit into your "just works" category are going to be making their own boot media? or managing their