[GRASS-user] machine specs

[Nikos Alexandris]

On Wed, 2008-11-12 at 09:24 +1000,
nicholas.g.lawrence at mainroads.qld.gov.au wrote:
> I am considering purchasing a cheap second-hand laptop to install linux on,
> and also GRASS.
> 
> I want to be able to run GRASS on the laptop.
> 
> I do not intend to do heavy processing. I only want to demonstrate
> GRASS, show of the various features and prove that it works.
> 
> What minimum hardware specifications are recommended for GRASS?
> 
> Regards,
> nick

Hi Nick!

Any laptop that "just runs linux" will run GRASS. And because any laptop
"can" (theoretically) run linux without problems, you should rather look
for *which* distro and its minimum requirements.

*Practically* speaking, I would look for tested-linux laptops [1] to
avoid nightmare's with drivers for the graphics! (a) ATI drivers don't
perform well currently even if ATI "opened" the specs -- they will
become good in the future. (b) NVidia drivers are binary-only
(closed-source) but it's true that they perform good.

Of course the more RAM and VideoRAM the better (in general). Another
important issue is I think the monitor. The bigger the better.
Especially if you are going to use it for demonstrations. If you can get
a 17" it would be great. If not a 15.4" should be also ok. The 14" or
less are not not enough for any kind of demonstrating anything on more
than 2-3 people (I have one 14").

Regards, Nikos

[1] Some pointers: http://www.linux-laptop.net/,
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LaptopTestingTeam