6 replies to this topic

[bhaveshpandey]

this one's quite offbeat, may be outright silly
but I'll ask anyway  

has anyone here tried installing Ubuntu (or any other linux distro) on an Alienware machine? (I'm thinking of buying a M18X series laptop)
And has anyone been using Houdini on it?

cheers.

[lukeiamyourfather]

I've used Houdini with Ubuntu on other systems and it worked great. Be sure to use the proprietary graphics drivers to get the best performance from the graphics chipset. On another note, why that specific notebook? There are better options out there that would cost less. If you don't specifically need the portability of the notebook, a desktop would offer much more bang for the buck.

[bhaveshpandey]

Hi Luke, thanks for the reply. Well a bit of a trade off between portability is acceptable to me i.e as long as its not a desktop (so if I need to move i can live with a big notebook than a desktop)

I'm considering this particular one because of its gaming capabilities (ok..I confess I'm in love with it   ) but wouldn't want to leave linux and houdini either(most likely dual-boot with windows?)
Do you have any other options that I may be overlooking?

cheers.

[lukeiamyourfather]

bhaveshpandey, on 20 February 2012 - 08:55 AM, said:

Hi Luke, thanks for the reply. Well a bit of a trade off between portability is acceptable to me i.e as long as its not a desktop (so if I need to move i can live with a big notebook than a desktop)

For the same money you could get three times the performances or more from a desktop. If you plan on leaving it at your desk 99% of the time a laptop would be a poor choice. Also many laptops have overheating issues when pushed to render 24 hours a day (Google will show you many threads from other forums about this).

bhaveshpandey, on 20 February 2012 - 08:55 AM, said:

I'm considering this particular one because of its gaming capabilities (ok..I confess I'm in love with it   ) but wouldn't want to leave linux and houdini either(most likely dual-boot with windows?)
Do you have any other options that I may be overlooking?

That machine and any other machine will do just fine with Linux. Though if you're into gaming the same goes, you'd get far more from a desktop and be able to upgrade things like the graphics card down the road and not have to buy a new laptop again. If you absolutely must have a laptop you might want to check out a ThinkPad W520 as well.

[digitallysane]

bhaveshpandey, on 20 February 2012 - 08:55 AM, said:

Do you have any other options that I may be overlooking?

HP EliteBook 8760w , 8560w, Dell Precision M6600,M4600, ThinkPad W520, GoBOXX.

[eetu]

I have an Asus G74sx, good bang/buck. There was no matte screen option available in Finland, that's my only real gripe with it thus far.
I like it's two drive bays, an ssd for system/caching and a bigger hdd for data is a great combination for a laptop.

[bhaveshpandey]

thanks people! hmm i'll add asus and dell precision to the list as well!
anyone else??

Edited by bhaveshpandey, 23 February 2012 - 08:36 AM.