Choosing a laptop for development

Feb 11, 2005 in Java

Just last week I was faced with the decision of choosing a laptop that I would be travelling with but also be using for development.

I needed something powerful that I could develop on and have no problems running jboss, the database, and eclipse. Eventually decided on a Toshiba A70 tha
t came stock with 1gig of ram and 3.333ghz p4 HT. It’s definately a beast, but a nice one at that. Power consumption is intense but for the most part I’m
hoping to have it running on AC. A tad on the heavy side but I think I’ll be able to manage without too many difficulties.

It’s definately a fast machine, a few notches faster than my regular desktop.

I decided to try out Ubuntu on it and it has been working fairly flawlessly. A kernel update gave me the sound s
upport I required, and wireless worked pretty much out of the box. Haven’t quite figured out the touchpad (it works off and on) but I usually use an exter
nal USB mouse anyways.

I’d recommend the laptop and would also suggest to any of you who want to try out linux give Ubuntu a try. I usually just install the stock Debian distrib
ution and run unstable, but Ubuntu is a nice install with a good gnome setup out of the box.

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