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Ask Slashdot: Choosing a Laptop To Support Physics Research?
An anonymous reader writes My daughter is in her third year of college as a physics major. She has an internship in Europe this summer, will graduate next year, and continue with graduate physics studies. Her area of research interest is in gravitational waves and particle physics. She currently has a laptop running Win7 and wants to buy a new laptop. She would like to use Linux on it, and plans to use it for C++ programming, data analysis and simulations (along with the usual email, surfing, music, pictures, etc). For all of the physics-savvy Slashdotters out there: what should she get? PC? Mac? What do you recommend for running Linux? For a C++ development environment? What laptop do you use and how is it configured to support your physics-related activities?
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I wrote a thesis on my Mac Book Pro. It ran R, postgresql, MS Office, Parallels, etc. with no problem. It was also lightweight and reliable. The only software that crashed on it was MS Office. I just bought a new Mac book Pro and I am running R, VMWare, Office, VPN clients, remote desktop clients. etc. It is easy to use which means I spend more time working on my problem domain and less time working as my own IT support. Which is important, you do not want to worry about your computer, just about your problem domain. Every hour waster trying to chase down 'mystery crashes' is an hour of life wasted.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
At the top end:
https://system76.com/cart/conf...
http://www.dell.com/us/busines...
(customizable with Ubuntu 14.04)
What do you recommend for running Linux?
The latest Ubuntu LTS is a good start.
For a C++ development environment?
I really like Code::Blocks, but I'm thinking that wi'll be up to her...
An nVidia GPU helps accelerate the only "gravitational wave" program I've ever run (https://einstein.phys.uwm.edu/). Likely not relevant, but hey you did ask Slashdot.
Thinkpads have always been very Linux-friendly laptops, as well as being well-designed and built, robust, and there are masses of ~3 year old ex-corporate units available via brokers, some in virtually as-new condition, at a small fraction of their original price. I've recently bought two top-condition X220s with 8GB RAM for around £300 each (I'm in UK, I got them from Tier 1 Online) and I expect them to serve me well for at least another 3-4 years. Add an SSD for a welcome performance boost for a modest outlay.
Perhaps the best part is that if you can't figure something out on your mac, you can ask someone. With Linux you have to find someone with a setup just like yours, and if you google it you will find a proliferation of solutions none of which work for your rig.
Devo could easily have been describing linux when they wrote: What you got is freedom of choice [But] what you want is freedom from choice.
Standards are good. Macs don't really box you in they just reduce the proliferation of options of how to do something. It's not unlike how C++ is super poweful but python's simplicity lets you focus on the creative part more.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
The other big thing the Precision line has over the MBP line (and for that matter, over just about any laptop on the market right now) is NOT having that damned chicklet keyboard.
I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.