53MP3RF1
WTFshady
Hello everyone! This goes out to the people who are programmers/coders/etc. I already have a great desktop, but I need a laptop ONLY for school (and a little TF2/Minecraft). I am going to get this Laptop, and I think this is a great value. I intend to use it for school, and having a 6 and a half hour battery life (slightly longer after I modify it) will help me immensely. Now, here comes the fun part. I'm probably going to take the 1TB HDD out of it, put it into an external HDD casing, and use it as an external HDD. I will then get a 256GB SSD and put it into my laptop to make it a super-fast machine. Now, this is where it gets tricky and why I asked the people who know code to weigh in on this. I am thinking about using Ubuntu on it, especially considering I'm just using it for school and Ubuntu comes pre-installed with Libreoffice, as well as Thunderbird, Firefox, etc. I already have a machine running Ubuntu (a server), and I know basic commands (basically only how to launch a craftbukkit server and a vanilla one) in the terminal, but I know most of the graphical layout pretty well (it reminds me a lot of a Mac, oddly enough). So, my question is: if I wanted to learn to code and become a power user in Linux (I have a book with various commands for the Ubuntu terminal already), would it be advisable to run Ubuntu on it if I'm only using it for school? Would this sort of thing also increase the battery life on the PC because it isn't as resource-intensive? Finally, and most importantly, will it be worth it for me to run Linux on the PC at all?
Thanks in advance for all of your help, everyone!
Thanks in advance for all of your help, everyone!
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53MP3RF1Hello everyone! This goes out to the people who are programmers/coders/etc. I already have a great desktop, but I need a laptop ONLY for school (and a little TF2/Minecraft). I am going to get this Laptop, and I think this is a great value. I intend to use it for school, and having a 6 and a half hour battery life (slightly longer after I modify it) will help me immensely. Now, here comes the fun part. I'm probably going to take the 1TB HDD out of it, put it into an external HDD casing, and use it as an external HDD. I will then get a 256GB SSD and put it into my laptop to make it a super-fast machine. Now, this is where it gets tricky and why I asked the people who know code to weigh in on this. I am thinking about using Ubuntu on it, especially considering I'm just using it for school and Ubuntu comes pre-installed with Libreoffice, as well as Thunderbird, Firefox, etc. I already have a machine running Ubuntu (a server), and I know basic commands (basically only how to launch a craftbukkit server and a vanilla one) in the terminal, but I know most of the graphical layout pretty well (it reminds me a lot of a Mac, oddly enough). So, my question is: if I wanted to learn to code and become a power user in Linux (I have a book with various commands for the Ubuntu terminal already), would it be advisable to run Ubuntu on it if I'm only using it for school? Would this sort of thing also increase the battery life on the PC because it isn't as resource-intensive? Finally, and most importantly, will it be worth it for me to run Linux on the PC at all?
Thanks in advance for all of your help, everyone!
That laptop will do the job. I have a similar one (the Dell Inspiron 17R). It can run Minecraft and TF2 smoothly on medium-high graphics. As for the other questions:
1. I don't think it is. Ubuntu is mainly used for servers etc. I currently use Windows 7 for school. Also, LibreOffice is limited compared to Microsoft Office, so if there's a possibility you can't do what you want to with it.
2. If it's less resource-intensive, then it should, but having the screen brightness on highest and things like that, The laptop will still need a lot of charging.
3. That's a question only you can answer. As the laptop currently has Windows 8 (and Windows 8 is one of the (if not the) best OS out there), it won't be worth it. You'll be limited in programs you can run. There are equivalents, but they're limited and don't have all the options that Windows applications have. BUT there are also pros of running Ubuntu. Free upgrades, not so much viruses, sometimes faster.
If I were you, I would've gone for dual-booting or a virtual machine, so you have both Windows and Ubuntu. If you want a more user-friendly OS, you can go with Linux Mint. Based on Ubuntu and easier installation.
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I used to have this laptop(I just recently upgraded) and it works perfect for TF2 and Minecraft. For school it would work fine, the only thing i'd say would be a downside for this is that on full brightness it chews up power almost 15x faster than it should.
Also, it would be completely fine using Ubuntu as far as I know.
Also, it would be completely fine using Ubuntu as far as I know.
