Sunday, May 27, 2012

Pre-installed linux laptops

Looking around for pre-installed linux laptops. Although one can install it themselves, there is some time-savings around dealing with laptop components/linux driver support. My particular need is for a Xen/Virtual style environment for many 'servers' for development/research. With that in mind, here is what I have been looking for: 11"-14" primarily, 15" if they have 9-cell longer battery life, but I've only seen 9-cell on 17" thus far (and do not want that big a laptop). i7 CPU (or similar AMD, just have not seen many in laptops nowadays) 16GB ram, if 32GB ram option via 4 sodimm slots, great! 750GB/7200 rpm harddrive. No SSD. No Hybrid. no 5400rpms. If larger, great. Lan port + wireless N built in VGA/HDMI/similar video output for demo's/etc. And, based on current pricing, ~$1000. And, preferably Fedora or CentOS Dom0/Host OS that is full OS (xwindows, Eclipse IDE, etc support), with Xen VM support for guest OS's. Ubuntu/others if that is the only option, but would prefer Fedora/CentOS. So far, I found only a handful of companies that seem reasonably able to handle these kinds of requirements: http://zareason.com/ - has fedora support, and laptops within the above configuration range. https://www.system76.com - best 'known' linux laptop, only ubuntu. Still reviewing my options!