[gentoo-user] Re: purchasing a dell laptop

[James]

Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon <at> gmail.com> writes:


> > The hardest decision is size vs performance, but I know you can't help

Maybe, maybe not.

> > I will definitely get
> >   * 16GB ram (2 x 8GB)
> >   * 512GB solid state disk
> >   * most powerful CPU compatible with the options chosen

> > 1. Graphics.
> >     I can afford a high-end graphics co-processor, but prefer the
> >     software/administrative simplicity of intel graphics.  I do not
> >     play high speed games or otherwise run graphics intensive
> >     applications. Am I correct in believing that Linux (the kernel)
> >     supports (the dell option)
> >        Intel Core i7-5600U Processor, UMA graphics, Smart Card
> >     directly with no extra gentoo package needed?

Cuda on nvidia is well seasoned, but expensive. Gentoo distros such as
Pentoo, use cuda for smokin fast passwd cracking. Many/most apps
will benefit, in the near future, with the deployment of GCC-5.x as RDMA via
gcc% will allow for using that smoking GPU (a simd processor) and the DDR5
ram as if it was part of the CPU/ram resources.  If you read up on all the
advances with GCC 5 you will  see most gpu (amd, Intel etc) will/should be
supported. How long for stabilization, is unknown, at this time. But
for very few dollars it's the biggest thing to hit hardware, since the FPU
was integrated onto the same die, imho. YMMV.


> All Intel cards I've ever seen are supported. My current machine has an
> AMD co-card, the one before a Nvidia co-card. Both times I just used the
> Intel hardware, it does everything I need.

Check whatever GPU you select for the amount of its own (discrete) DDR5
memory on the GPU (card).

> So on the whole, my experience with higher-end Dell is that hardware is
> pretty much well-supported across the boards with very few gotchas. The
> only two exceptions would be wifi cards (cheap to fix) and maybe GPU
> co-processor (if you are unlucky to get an unsupported cutting edge one
> and need to wait a bit for Linux support to catch up).

I'd check around on the precise details of the GPU before purchase.
Some GPU use the general system ram, and that is a severe (buss-bandwidth)
bottleneck that really dampens performance on many softwares. The looming
gcc-5 is a game changer on using video resources, as general system resources...

hth,
James