Hi all,
I run Pd Vanilla on a MacBook Pro, so I am at a loss here...
I'm looking for the lowest-range laptop running a flavour of Linux to install Pd Vanilla needed for a specific use described below. As I've never purchased this, I'm looking for hive-mind experience.
I don't need heavy hitting power, because it will be for outreach groups (kids from disadvantaged areas). We won't get into extremely intensive patching. I'm happy with built-in stereo out. The more laptops I can afford on a €12,000 grant (minus speakers, projectors and screens for the actual art installation) the better. At this stage, I just need to get quotes for the Irish Arts Council funding application.
What laptop? What Linux distribution? Any gotchas I need to worry about (sound card issues, etc.)?
Enquiring minds want to know...
Cheers,
Kerry
www.kerrylhagan.net www.spade.ul.ie www.dmarc.ie www.issta.ie
Hi Kerry,
Hope all is well. FWIW, in L2Ork we use HP dm1z 4xxx series. I would advise using a version with integrated Intel HD graphics card, as fglrx driver is not as stable as I would like it to be (it's ok but not perfect). Main concerns are:
lowlatency kernel, I would recommend using open source driver to avoid xruns caused by the proprietary one but that also means it can be sometimes finicky), and
with the proprietary flgrx driver (this is why I don't recommend Intel version over AMD).
These run typically around $3-400 per laptop.
HTH
Best,
Ico
On 7/16/2015 2:42 AM, Kerry Hagan wrote:
Hi all,
I run Pd Vanilla on a MacBook Pro, so I am at a loss here...
I'm looking for the lowest-range laptop running a flavour of Linux to install Pd Vanilla needed for a specific use described below. As I've never purchased this, I'm looking for hive-mind experience.
I don't need heavy hitting power, because it will be for outreach groups (kids from disadvantaged areas). We won't get into extremely intensive patching. I'm happy with built-in stereo out. The more laptops I can afford on a €12,000 grant (minus speakers, projectors and screens for the actual art installation) the better. At this stage, I just need to get quotes for the Irish Arts Council funding application.
What laptop? What Linux distribution? Any gotchas I need to worry about (sound card issues, etc.)?
Enquiring minds want to know...
Cheers,
Kerry
www.kerrylhagan.net http://www.kerrylhagan.net www.spade.ul.ie www.dmarc.ie www.issta.ie
Pd-list@lists.iem.at mailing list UNSUBSCRIBE and account-management -> http://lists.puredata.info/listinfo/pd-list
Hi,
On 16/07/2015 08:42, Kerry Hagan wrote:
Hi all,
I run Pd Vanilla on a MacBook Pro, so I am at a loss here...
I'm looking for the lowest-range laptop running a flavour of Linux to install Pd Vanilla needed for a specific use described below. As I've never purchased this, I'm looking for hive-mind experience.
I don't need heavy hitting power, because it will be for outreach groups (kids from disadvantaged areas). We won't get into extremely intensive patching. I'm happy with built-in stereo out. The more laptops I can afford on a €12,000 grant (minus speakers, projectors and screens for the actual art installation) the better. At this stage, I just need to get quotes for the Irish Arts Council funding application.
What laptop? What Linux distribution? Any gotchas I need to worry about (sound card issues, etc.)?
For this scenario I would go for any off-the-shelf "consumer" laptop.
AFAIK Dell offer rather cheap laptops with Ubuntu pre-installed, and I guess Pd easily available on Ubuntu (but have no direct experience nor am I affiliated with Dell whatsoever). For your scenario I'd see machines with Linux preinstalled particularly useful as you'd have them working 'out of the box' compared e.g. to computers with windows pre-installed (and even secure boot etc.) and risk of incompatible hardware.
My two cents. Lorenzo.
Thanks to all who replied off and online. Many options. Great advice.
Best,
Kerry
www.kerrylhagan.net www.spade.ul.ie www.dmarc.ie www.issta.ie
2015-07-16 8:42 GMT+02:00 Kerry Hagan klhagan@gmail.com:
...I'm looking for the lowest-range laptop running a flavour of Linux to install Pd Vanilla....
...The more laptops I can afford (...) the better.
Hi Kerry. It seems like you need the most affordable "just enough for Pd" Linux-friendly laptop; that you can purchase right away in "volume"; because i guess you would prefer to avoid the second hand market to save you the burden of disparate equipment out of warranty.
Do they have to be laptops ? Because if they mostly remain fixed on a table (with external speakers?) and connected to an outlet, a Raspberry Pi would be just fine with a cheap usb audio interface, and it's easier to look for a serie of refurbished LCD screens previously owned by some company.
There are tons a sub-300€ laptops these days, but most of them come with an Intel Bay Trail chipset, Linux support is still experimental but much better with latest kernel, and finallly efforts have led to a better handling of those "tablet-like" hardware implementations....
The best candidates in this category could probably be the ACER Aspire ES1 / E3 / E11 (and V3 too) line. They are just variants of the same hardware (available in a number memory, storage and touchscreen options, and different sizes) and some models sold in emergent countries come with Linpus Linux installed. Most issues have now been adressed (Arch Linux wiki provides all the techical details) and many report show that recent versions of the main distributions work about flawlessly on models equiped with mechanical drive, once EFI boot has been well tuned in bios. This blog sums it up pretty well : http://www.zdnet.com/article/installing-opensuse-fedora-and-ubuntu-on-my-new...
However, entry-level versions are equiped with eMMC flash storage (instead of HDD; and internal SATA connector is removed) which was not correctly supported until a recent fix, so they should be safely avoid (but could worth a try with newer releases, like recent arch isos).
Sure, these are low-cost laptops with limited cpu, battery life and quality (some touchpad instability may occur), but there are still many units on the market in Europe and you could find some deals around 250€ for 11.6 inch versions (have a look at "laptopsdirect.ie" website). Cheers, Nicolas