Reply to: Question for the Experts: Which 64bit laptop to by to run SUSE SLES 11 SP1/2

[bobspud]

Screams of laughter here. UEFI is a complete nightmare to use. And yes, I did go through the tomes of documentation involved when it was first announced.

P.S. the general consensus of opinion is that Apple have done a Good Job of hiding UEFI from users.

Yes apple keep the bios well and truly out of sight.

Millanbenes :- setting up software will be no different between a laptop and a vm. If you want the proper experience then you should buy a sencondhand server and small San on eBay.

[Sysman]

I run Ubuntu inside VirtualBox - works brill really. And there are openSUSE 64bit images for virtual box at openSUSE | VirtualBoxImages.com.

openSUSE also provide a build service: openSUSE:Build Service

I haven't used it on a laptop, but have successfully run it as a VM under VirtualBox on Windows. I am currently using it to host various VirtualBox VMs (Windows 7 and Windows Server included) on a desktop.

[Sysman]

Couldn't disagree more. I have one of these: ASUS - Motherboards- ASUS P8Z77-V PRO

Stunning mobo with a stunning BIOS. Web reviews of the board and it's BIOS from all the leading tech. sites have been outstanding.

I absolutely love it. Best BIOS on any mobo I've ever owned. Even supports recovering the BIOS direct from USB if you've completely trashed the existing one and neither the CPU or RAM can be detected (has an onboard microcontroller for this feature.) BIOS is very feature rich and easy to work with.

EDIT: For those interested in just how good the BIOS and the software suite that complements it is: AnandTech - Intel Z77 Motherboard Review with Ivy Bridge - ASRock, ASUS, Gigabyte, and MSI

Thanks for the links. They have clearly put a lot of effort into that; it's a lot easier than the cryptic interface I had to battle with some years ago.

[Sysman]

Chaps you need to take into account the fact that windows 8 has moved all compatible hardware to this new trusted bios thingy-ma-mob...

Windows 8: How to Use Linux on a Windows 8 PC

This is going to catch a lot of peeps out. I would do as others have suggested and stick to a VM...

From what I have read you can disable the secure boot thingy if you have physical access to the machine, and MS put that into the specs.

But that's for Intel hardware only. You can't do that with the Windows RT on ARM combination.

[nomadd]

Screams of laughter here. UEFI is a complete nightmare to use. And yes, I did go through the tomes of documentation involved when it was first announced.

Couldn't disagree more. I have one of these: http://uk.asus.com/Motherboards/Inte...155/P8Z77V_PRO

Stunning mobo with a stunning BIOS. Web reviews of the board and it's BIOS from all the leading tech. sites have been outstanding.

I absolutely love it. Best BIOS on any mobo I've ever owned. Even supports recovering the BIOS direct from USB if you've completely trashed the existing one and neither the CPU or RAM can be detected (has an onboard microcontroller for this feature.) BIOS is very feature rich and easy to work with.

EDIT: For those interested in just how good the BIOS and the software suite that complements it is: http://www.anandtech.com/show/5793/i...byte-and-msi/5

[Addanc]

Got to ask why SUSE?? Wouldn't touch SUSE with a bargepole nowadays, Novell really cocked it up

Don't think Novell own it any more? openSUSE 12.2 works fine with the default KDE desktop; been using SUSE/openSUSE for 10 years plus, the only time it has been broken was with the initial 4.x KDE desktop.

Intel chipset; nvidia or ati graphics and pretty much any Linux distro should work out of the box; the only thing hardware/software compatibility wise that needs to be checked out with laptops is some of the functions with no standardised implementation (e.g. back-light control).

[Sysman]

This is going to catch a lot of peeps out. I would do as others have suggested and stick to a VM...

UEFI is a miniature, lightweight operating system that a computer loads at boot time

Screams of laughter here. UEFI is a complete nightmare to use. And yes, I did go through the tomes of documentation involved when it was first announced.

P.S. the general consensus of opinion is that Apple have done a Good Job of hiding UEFI from users.

[Sysman]

Got to ask why SUSE?? Wouldn't touch SUSE with a bargepole nowadays, Novell really cocked it up

That was true a few years ago, but it's quite good now. Pretty rock solid for what I am using it for.

The one I haven't touched with a bargepole for a couple of years is Ubuntu, because it really had problems if you shoved a lot of I/O at it.

Well, er yes, I don't like the hype Canonical and its owner shove out... But they seem to headed in a different direction, so good luck to 'em, but bye bye from me.

[nomadd]

Hi Nomadd,

thank you for the feedback.

It's not for client demos, it's for me to practice installing and administering this software, so it's a classical sandbox.

I don't like the idea of dual boot and vmware, I want it as close to the real scenario as possible.

Once it is surplus to requirements it will be retired into service as a pc for Benes Family, but that won't be for a couple of years.

This company should be able to help....

Laptops and netbooks with Ubuntu Linux pre-installed


All the best,

Milan.

Yeah - lots of Lenovo Thinkpads on that list.

One thing I would say is seriously consider second-hand. We had a thread on the forums not so long ago about how quickly laptops depreciate. Looking on that link you posted, you could easily end up spending £1k-£2k plus.

A T500 like mine can be picked up second-hand off eBay for around £100: Lenovo Thinkpad T500 15.4" 320 GB, T9550 2.66 GHz, 4 GB ATI HD 3650 2082-7sg | eBay

Slap in a new M4 ssd in for £50 and you are golden: Crucial 64GB RealSSD M4 SSD - Solid State Drive - CT064M4SSD2 - Scan.co.uk

[milanbenes]

Hi Nomadd,

thank you for the feedback.

It's not for client demos, it's for me to practice installing and administering this software, so it's a classical sandbox.

I don't like the idea of dual boot and vmware, I want it as close to the real scenario as possible.

Once it is surplus to requirements it will be retired into service as a pc for Benes Family, but that won't be for a couple of years.

This company should be able to help....

Laptops and netbooks with Ubuntu Linux pre-installed


All the best,

Milan.

[nomadd]

Morning Morning, Morning All,

Administrator, greetings, Darmstadt et al, greetings long time no see.

Apologies, .Net and children have been keeping me really busy.

So this new shiny .Net component really only runs on suse sles and to keep myself marketable I need to install it and play with it at home and being a contractor, for a sandbox a laptop would be the best, hence I need to buy a 64bit laptop which can run suse sles 11 sp1/2, you see, simples :-)

I will contact Plan B's PC Guru and ask him to provide me a list of 64bit laptops which will run suse sles 11 sp1/2.

Nice weekend all,

and as a new year's resolution I'll try to be on here more and balance out the new wave of blair generation CUK Luvvies with some more of us thatcher generation old skoolies

howzat

Milan.

Lenovo Linux Diagnostics for SUSE Linux (64-bit) - Desktops / Notebooks / Workstations

I have a Thinkpad T500 series. Absolutely love it. Best keyboards on any laptop. Wouldn't buy any other laptop than a Thinkpad if I was thinking of upgrading mine.

In all honesty, any reasonably spec'd modern laptop (i.e. made in the last 5 years) will run SUSE 64 just fine. Only think I would spend extra brass on is ditching the slow laptop hard disks for an SSD. You can pick up the excellent Crucial M4 128GBs for peanuts these days, so no worries.

Having said the above, I'd simply run a VM on my desktop as others have suggested. If you need to "roll the thing out" for client demos, etc., just stick it on a Cloud image: Amazon Public Images - SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP1 64-bit (ami-e4a3578d) on The Cloud Market

[fullyautomatix]

I run Ubuntu inside VirtualBox - works brill really. And there are openSUSE 64bit images for virtual box at openSUSE | VirtualBoxImages.com.

Hard to explain that to someone who has no clue what virtual box means. :

[administrator]

Chaps you need to take into account the fact that windows 8 has moved all compatible hardware to this new trusted bios thingy-ma-mob...

Windows 8: How to Use Linux on a Windows 8 PC

This is going to catch a lot of peeps out. I would do as others have suggested and stick to a VM...

Very good point! Had read something about that a few weeks ago, v cheeky move by MS...

[bobspud]

Chaps you need to take into account the fact that windows 8 has moved all compatible hardware to this new trusted bios thingy-ma-mob...

Windows 8: How to Use Linux on a Windows 8 PC

This is going to catch a lot of peeps out. I would do as others have suggested and stick to a VM...

[OwlHoot]

.. and as a new year's resolution I'll try to be on here more and balance out the new wave of blair generation CUK Luvvies with some more of us thatcher generation old skoolies

Hang on, I thought you were a blair generation CUK luvvie