[linux-elitists] CFD and CAD and USB3 laptops...

[Tony Godshall]

I've been a reasonably happy Core2duo user for a while, a dell with
4GB RAM and a hybrid SSD/HD serving me pretty well. 1920x1200 display
was hard to give up.

Switched to a Chromebook Pixel for a bit but finally got fed up with
the keyboard and touchpad F'ing with my muscle memory, the signed-OS
and Dev-mode hassles (it just proved itself totally unreliable by
switching itself back out of dev-mode to
Google-signed-OS-required-mode - maybe someone turned it on and hit
the space bar, maybe something else, but

So now I have a computational fluid dynamics project to undertake
(openfoam, probably, based on the vespalabs motorbike tutorial,
combined with a longterm interest in evolved algorithms) . I'll run a
little CAD to design the .STL files for this project, and also for the
ultimaker (3-D printer), probably pythonCAD since I'll probably be
doing some parameterized designs.

I do need to run Windows (VMs, not dual-boot) occasionally, and find
hassling through the which Intel cpus have virtualization a pain, so
have been sticking to AMD64 CPUs lately. Have had occasional
videochip hassles with them and haven't needed high-performance video,
just high-rez. At least in the AMD64 family, there aren't as many
models, and they always have virtualization, and when you solve the
video issue for one manufacturer, you generally solve it for all who
use the same CPU, since the videochip is integrated.

So, anyone have any suggestions for what laptop to buy next? I'm
enjoying USB3 memory sticks (esp. the Sansa Extreme) so that's a
requirement, and I want to keep the price down to about $1K or less.
I'm going to keep my models small, so I don't imagine I need tens of
gigs of RAM. Hard drive is not required- I've already got a perfectly
good 1TB SSD hybrid- so whatever is bundled is fine, or none at all.
Small screen is OK if it has DisplayPort or dual-DVI-D. Large screen
with low resolution is not OK. I generally run Debian but can
tolerate Ubuntu or other APT-based distros... what do you guys think?

[Andy Bennett]

Hi,

Post by Tony Godshall
I do need to run Windows (VMs, not dual-boot) occasionally, and find
hassling through the which Intel cpus have virtualization a pain, so
have been sticking to AMD64 CPUs lately.
So, anyone have any suggestions for what laptop to buy next? I'm
enjoying USB3 memory sticks (esp. the Sansa Extreme) so that's a
requirement,

If you can bear an Intel processor then I'd definitely recommend the
Lenovo Thinkpad X230 either tablet or regular. The i5 model is fine: I
looked at the model numbers and compared the specs: the only things I
could find that it doesn't have compared to the i7 that can also ship in
the X230 is some stuff to do with multi-lane PCIe expansion slots.

It's got a yellow USB connector so I think that means USB3. My tablet
has DisplayPort and VGA but I think the non-tablet version has
mini-DisplayPort and VGA.

It's small and the non-tablet version is super light. It's also got an
ace keyboard and the battery life is pretty good.

I thought the keyboard might not be as good as previous Lenovos because
the X230 has the new chicklet type. However, the first time I used it I
was totally sold and I'm super picky about keyboards: Thinkpad has been
the only Laptop model I've ever got on with.

I run Debian Stable on mine.


If you're in the US (I'm not) then there are (were?) some excellent
bargains to be had on the non-tablet version, especially new ones on eBay.


Unfortunately I can't tell you much about virtualisation because I don't
run it on this machine.






Regards,
@ndy

[Matt Palmer]

Post by Andy Bennett
It's got a yellow USB connector so I think that means USB3.

My understanding is that yellow ports are "has power even when the laptop's
asleep" (for USB charging), while blue is USB3. Any reasonably recent
Lenovo should have USB3 (my T420s has it, and I'm pretty sure the L series
work was buying before I told 'em to stop being cheapskates have 'em too,
but CBA to go and perve at someone's laptop to check).

Post by Andy Bennett
I thought the keyboard might not be as good as previous Lenovos because
the X230 has the new chicklet type. However, the first time I used it I
was totally sold and I'm super picky about keyboards: Thinkpad has been
the only Laptop model I've ever got on with.

My wife has a T530 with chicklet style, and it's the key placement that
screws with my head. PgUp/PgDn around the cursor keys, instead of up the
top-right where $DEITY intended? <shudder>

I know, I know, two days with it and I'll learn to cope, but I don't
*wanna*, dammit. I'll say this, though: the day they get rid of the
clitmouse is the day I'll be *totally* stuffed. I loathe trackpads. Moving
my hands from the home row is just so *wrong*.

- Matt

[Andy Bennett]

Hi,

Post by Matt Palmer

Post by Andy Bennett
It's got a yellow USB connector so I think that means USB3.

My understanding is that yellow ports are "has power even when the laptop's
asleep" (for USB charging), while blue is USB3. Any reasonably recent
Lenovo should have USB3 (my T420s has it, and I'm pretty sure the L series
work was buying before I told 'em to stop being cheapskates have 'em too,
but CBA to go and perve at someone's laptop to check).

Ah. OK. I have a yellow one on the left and two blue ones on the right.
The dock has 4 black ones.




Regards,
@ndy

[Andy Bennett]

Hi,

Post by Matt Palmer
My wife has a T530 with chicklet style, and it's the key placement that
screws with my head. PgUp/PgDn around the cursor keys, instead of up the
top-right where $DEITY intended? <shudder>
I know, I know, two days with it and I'll learn to cope, but I don't
*wanna*, dammit. I'll say this, though: the day they get rid of the
clitmouse is the day I'll be *totally* stuffed. I loathe trackpads. Moving
my hands from the home row is just so *wrong*.

Actually, yes: I do often knock the PgUp/PgDn keys when I'm editing and
it sends my workflow into a spin. There are also a few buttons missing
compared to the previous style but I don't notice that: things like
PrtScrn, Pause, etc are missing.

The mechanical feel of the build is great tho'.


It's nice on the fingers but you should definitely familiarise yourself
with the specification quirks.





Regards,
@ndy

[Andy Bennett]

Hi,

http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/x-series/x230/#techspecs
Intel® Core™ i5-3210M (3.10 GHz, 3MB L3, 1600MHz FSB)
Intel® Core™ i5-3320M (3.30 GHz, 3MB L3, 1600MHz FSB)
Intel® Core™ i5-3360M (3.60 GHz, 3MB L3, 1600MHz FSB)
Intel® Core™ i7-3520M (3.60 GHz, 4MB L3, 1600MHz FSB)

Ooops. Yes. And that extra megabyte of cache.
Sorry.

I have this one:

-----
model name : Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-3320M CPU @ 2.60GHz
-----

Which was the top-of-the-line i5 available to me when I bought it.

Post by Andy Bennett
It's got a yellow USB connector so I think that means USB3.

Yellow means "has power when off" like for charging your cellphone when
traveling. See...
Loading Image...

Oh right...
I've got it in the docking stations at the moment and dmesg says things
such as this:

-----
ehci_hcd: USB 2.0 'Enhanced' Host Controller (EHCI) Driver
-----
usb usb2: Product: xHCI Host Controller
-----
ehci_hcd 0000:00:1a.0: USB 2.0 started, EHCI 1.00
-----

...so perhaps it is only USB 2. I don't use the USB ports for very much.

Post by Andy Bennett
My tablet
has DisplayPort and VGA but I think the non-tablet version has
mini-DisplayPort and VGA.

Looks promising- same image- but you haven't used it? I'll websearch for
it...

Post by Andy Bennett
It's small and the non-tablet version is super light. It's also got an
ace keyboard and the battery life is pretty good.

The tablet version is same but with touchscreen for windows 8?

Mine came with Windows 7. The touchscreen works (better?) under Linux as
well. It certainly seems to be better calibrated near to the edges when
using the Linux Wacom drivers than it was during my (albeit only 2hr)
play with Windows 7 (before I installed Debian).

It's got an electro-magnetic-resonance stylus with tip, button and
eraser, but my other Wacom stylus works with it as well. It also does
capsense for finger touch with a couple of touch points so you can do
two finger scrolling (and pinch-to-zoom if the app understands it). The
palm recognition when using the stylus seems pretty good.

The screen is plastic (not glass) so my warm, fingers don't always glide
across it in the same way as they do on the iPad-style things. There
*might* be (or have been) a "Gorilla Glass" option at one point but it
wasn't available to me and I'm not sure how much extra it costs.

The tablet version has a different chassis and different set of
batteries. The machine is a little heavier than the non-tablet version
and at least an inch deeper (out behind the screen) plus another extra
bit for the sticky-out-battery. The tablet version has a completely flat
screen: it doesn't have that annoying bezel around the edge that
collects dust.

The tablet is great for annotating PDFs when I'm not at my desk. It's
also satisfying to finger-poken the shutdown button at the end of the
day. :-)

Post by Andy Bennett
I thought the keyboard might not be as good as previous Lenovos because
the X230 has the new chicklet type. However, the first time I used it I
was totally sold and I'm super picky about keyboards: Thinkpad has been
the only Laptop model I've ever got on with.

Very cool. Backlit too it seems.
Do you have the regular wifi? I'm inclined to pay extra for the 2x2 or
3x3 config if it works in linux

I have the standard branded (i.e. the Intel one, not the Thinkpad) card
but I think I have the slightly nicer aerial as I have the 3G option as
well. However, I don't think I've got the biggest aerial as ISTR that
causes the webcam to be evicted and I've definitely got one of those.

My X200 shipped with an 802.11 A/B/G card by default so I forgot to
upgrade it on this one. This one's got the B/G/N card (so no 5GHz). We
have both 2GHz and 5GHz wifi in the office so I don't see those 5GHz
SSIDs anymore so I miss it to that extent. However, the 2GHz works and
I'm not really sure if I actually *need* the 5GHz. If had noticed when I
was ordering it I would have paid extra. Now that I don't have it I'm
not sure what I would do if I was in the same position again.

Post by Andy Bennett
Unfortunately I can't tell you much about virtualisation because I don't
run it on this machine.

Perhaps you could check if your BIOS has the option? Some vendors block
it even though the CPU supports it. If it's enabled in BIOS, perhaps you
could post the results of...
# cat /proc/cpuinfo|grep '^flags'

I'll try to remember to take a look in the BIOS next time I boot. For
now, here's what it's currently reporting:

-----
$ cat /proc/cpuinfo |grep '^flags' |sort |uniq -c
4 flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep
mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm
pbe syscall nx rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good
nopl xtopology nonstop_tsc aperfmperf pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor
ds_cpl vmx smx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm pcid sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic
popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes xsave avx f16c rdrand lahf_lm ida arat epb
xsaveopt pln pts dtherm tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid fsgsbase
smep erms
-----




I hope I've been of some help: I found it really quite frustrating to
find any kind of reviews (let alone technical reviews) when I was buying
mine and there seems to be thousands of options, all alike.

Good luck! :-)




Regards,
@ndy

[Tony Godshall]

Post by Andy Bennett
$ cat /proc/cpuinfo |grep '^flags' |sort |uniq -c
4 flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep
mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm
pbe syscall nx rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good
nopl xtopology nonstop_tsc aperfmperf pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor
ds_cpl vmx smx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm pcid sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic
popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes xsave avx f16c rdrand lahf_lm ida arat epb
xsaveopt pln pts dtherm tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid fsgsbase
smep erms

vmx! +1

That's the flag for intel style cpu virtualization, VT-x, which shows
up IIRC only if the CPU has the capability *and* it's enabled in the
BIOS. There are additional levels of virtualization, like VT-d, but
for a guest machine to perform close to (or exceed) performance on
bare metal it's VT-x (intel) or SVM (amd) that you need.

Thanks Andy

[Tony Godshall]

Thanks, Andy, Matt, Greg, Ben.

I got myself a Lenovo x230 with the mid-range i5 and 8GB RAM off ebay
and am pretty happy with it. 12" is about right for full-size
keyboard and portability.

Only fly in the ointment so far is that I'm not getting the full speed
of the 180 GB Intel 525 SSD drive I added. Lenovo forums say the
mSATA interface doesn't support SATA-III even though some of the
marketing materials and personnel say they do. But it's still pretty
good.

Only muscle memory issue is the damn Fn displacing the Left Ctrl, but
it's hard to find laptops that do that right. Like having both
multitouch and edge-scroll on the touchpad, and like having the rough
pointer in the middle of the kb as well. Never seen a Mic-Mute
button- I imagine that'll be useful at some point.

Thanks again.

[Teh Entar-Nick]

Post by Tony Godshall
Only muscle memory issue is the damn Fn displacing the Left Ctrl, but
it's hard to find laptops that do that right. Like having both
multitouch and edge-scroll on the touchpad, and like having the rough
pointer in the middle of the kb as well. Never seen a Mic-Mute
button- I imagine that'll be useful at some point.

I've never seen a laptop get Ctrl right. They keep putting "Caps Lock"
there instead.

[Andy Bennett]

Hi,

Post by Andy Bennett
My tablet
has DisplayPort and VGA but I think the non-tablet version has
mini-DisplayPort and VGA.

Looks promising- same image- but you haven't used it? I'll websearch for
it...

I've used the VGA. I've never tried the Display Port. I never got the
Display Port on the dock of my X200 to work with X.org. Apparently it
could have been made to work with some gubbins from Debian Sid tho'.

I'm not sure what the situation with the X230 is: I just use VGA either
on the chassis or on the dock.




Regards,
@ndy

[Greg Folkert]

Post by Tony Godshall
I've been a reasonably happy Core2duo user for a while, a dell with
4GB RAM and a hybrid SSD/HD serving me pretty well. 1920x1200 display
was hard to give up.

[SNIP]

Post by Tony Godshall
So, anyone have any suggestions for what laptop to buy next? I'm
enjoying USB3 memory sticks (esp. the Sansa Extreme) so that's a
requirement, and I want to keep the price down to about $1K or less.
I'm going to keep my models small, so I don't imagine I need tens of
gigs of RAM. Hard drive is not required- I've already got a perfectly
good 1TB SSD hybrid- so whatever is bundled is fine, or none at all.
Small screen is OK if it has DisplayPort or dual-DVI-D. Large screen
with low resolution is not OK. I generally run Debian but can
tolerate Ubuntu or other APT-based distros... what do you guys think?

Yes. I recently purchased a Lenovo T530. Equipped with the i7-3520M
(Dual processor not Quad). 8GB of RAM (16GB capable.) 500GB 7200RPM HD
(I haven't filled a 200GB drive in my daily use T61 in 6+ years,) a
1920x1080 by 15.6" Display, Web Cam, Has USB3 (and USB2). Has VGA out,
has mini-DVI out (most adapters work.) IWL Centrino 6300N Wireless,
Broadcom Bluetooth 4.0 adapter. Wonderful backlit keyboard (at two
levels) and normal think-light. Very stereo audio and stereo mics that
work.

With all the fun stuff I got with it (Windows Pro, even though I'll
never use it). some DVI Adapter, New backpack and 4 year Accidental
Damage replacement)... $1520 shipping and tax included.

If I'd have stuck to the Things I needed, about $1027 shipping and tax
included.

I've got a T410 as a backup (purchased for $200)... they both take the
same docking station. Buying 2 of those, one for Home Office another for
the Out-of-the-home-Office.

So far, the IBM design influences and feel are still there in the
T-Series. Gladly have them. Keyboard and touchpad and pointer all work
as expected.

The only issue I have right this very moment is after Sid switched to
3.8.x, the Ricoh Co Ltd MMC/SD Host Controller Media Card Reader stopped
working... but evidently it is a known issue. 3.10.7-1 (Debian Sid)
hasn't fixed it yet. I've got an old USB Alcor Micro Corp. SD/MMC Card
Reader that does most of what I need for now.

All around a very nice machine for ~$1000. It is my new daily.