dmotd wrote:
I have come to the end of another laptop lifespan, and have started searching for a replacement. Unfortunately the marketplace has substantially changed since my last search and in this period it seems that both firewire (400+800) and pc expansion ports have been for the most part eradicated. As an owner and constant user of a half decent firewire interface (fa-101), and with a rather constrained budget, i would hate to have to ditch it.
So what are the options these days? I use a laptop for live performance, so a desktop is out of the question. And as much as the hardware is solid and generally well spec'd, i'd prefer to avoid the expensive premium for glowing fruit.
For all the bells and whistles of modern hardware it seems that few machines are designed with pro audio in mind, and even those left with 1394 support often use dud chipsets like ricoh. Combined with infuriating graphics card support (yes i need DRI - blender/pd-gem) I am finding this round of laptop compatability just a little more frustrating than usual.
So what can folks recommend for linux multimedia, which companies are comitted to packaging decent quality chips with solid assembly? Or contrary, what are the recent horror stories - what looked good on paper, only to fail miserably under a stress test?
I know that these things keep changing and keeping abreast is some folks full-time job, but really should it be so difficult!?
My last machine was an old hp/compaq nc6400 with a belkin fw (TI based) pcmcia (TI cardbus). Sadly missed.
Two years ago I purchased an HP G-60 laptop. I was surprised to discover
that for all its variety of ports it had no 1394 connection. Not a big
deal for me, I don't own a Firewire audio interface, but I thought it a
significant lack. Of course, as you point out, Firewire is going the way
of the dodo, 8-track tape, and the compact disc.
I use an Edirol UA-25 (not the EX) with the laptop when I want to record
decent audio. I can get ~9 msec latency with Jack and an rt-kernel for
Ubuntu 10.04, but I haven't stress-tested the device beyond making some
long recordings (3 to 4 hours) on two tracks. Got no xruns in those
experiments with Ardour 2.8.11.
Like yourself I need hardware accelerated 3D. The G-60 includes an
nVidia 8200M chipset that works pretty nicely with AVSynthesis (realtime
Csound + OpenGL). CPU is a dual-core AMD Turion X2. Memory is only 3G,
not sure if it's expandable.
Hardly a current piece of hardware, but I'm pretty happy with it.
Best,
dp
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