<p>id say wait for centrino 2 to come out. but cbeley with any laptop under 1k you cant do high performance required applications/game.</p>
<p>lethargytm: games yes, but for video editing and multi-tasking, I don't think so excactly. I haven't done HD video editing, but I have done video editing with a ton of layers under cinelerra and it worked quite well.</p>
<p>Adobe photoshop should have no problems at all and other than the time taken for encoding video or compiling large projects, I think a laptop under $1000 can take you quite far. Still, as I said, it's not ideal, but you can make it work for most things without pulling your hair out of your head.</p>
<p>Though then again, this is comming from someone who mainly does programming and deals with low-resolution pictures and not the most procesor intensive software. so say I'm speaking nonsense. Though, in a college enviroment, how often do you need that much horsepower? Also, in a college environment, chances are you can find access to some sort of render farm or powerful computers that you can use along side what you currently have. Lug a couple LCD's and computers of your own to a computer lab with good equipment, and you can set up a pretty powerfull work enviroment.</p>
<p>EDIT: As for me, the games I do like are N64 games and PS2 games, and those work pretty well on my laptop. If I can play Mario Kart 64 without my Nintendo 64, I am happy :-P</p>
<p>when i was talking about high performance applications/games, i was talking about any new games or video/animation stuff. video editing itself wont need much power, and any laptop under 1k should be able to code those videos without trouble (although it may take a long time) but working with programs like 3dmax will. and compiling code doesnt need much power at all so if youre into programming anything under 1k is fine.</p>
<p>ugh i had to setup a rendering farm, or so you call it, once and it took forever.</p>
<p>"and compiling code doesnt need much power at all so if youre into programming anything under 1k is fine."</p>
<p>Depends on what you're compiling. If you're compiling a few million lines of code, an external disk and 4 GB of RAM can help quite a bit. I routinely run links using VS2005 that consume 1.4 GB of RAM.</p>
<p>well i doubt you need to compile anything that serious in college as a project or homework. whenever i compiled they were only a few thousand lines.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Depends on what you're compiling. If you're compiling a few million lines of code, an external disk and 4 GB of RAM can help quite a bit. I routinely run links using VS2005 that consume 1.4 GB of RAM.
[/quote]
I would agree, considering I use gentoo and have to compile everything. However, I gennerally don't mind waiting for things to install considering all the flexibility I get with the distro. </p>
<p>Also, it seems fairly simplistic to use distcc to do distributed computing to compile software. I may try it once I set up the computer I'm building.</p>
<p>
[quote]
links using VS2005
[/quote]
Out of curiosity, what are you doing. I'm assuming VS2005 = Visual Studio 2005, but what is links? First thought that came to my mind was the links text browser, but I have a feeling that is not what you are talking about.</p>
<p>HOWEVER, you shouldn't have to recompile EVERYTHING to make modification to some software you are working on. If you are, you probably have something set up wrong unless for some amazingly weird reason you have millions of lines of source code all in one file.</p>
<p>
[quote]
but working with programs like 3dmax
[/quote]
yeah, I didn't think about that, but I don't do 3D stuff anyway. Though, I think a laptop under $1,000 would work well for that IF you could hook it up to a render farm when need be...otherwise...yeah, it would be slow and painful (I had a friend who did a little of that).</p>
<p>
[quote]
well i doubt you need to compile anything that serious in college as a project or homework. whenever i compiled they were only a few thousand lines.
[/quote]
Well, maybe we have some people here who want to contribute to an open source project. Though, as I said above, you SHOULD NOT HAVE TO compile the whole thing over and over again. So, it's a moot point. and the times you do have to, you just step out for a quick snack/break. :-)</p>
<p>"Out of curiosity, what are you doing. I'm assuming VS2005 = Visual Studio 2005, but what is links? First thought that came to my mind was the links text browser, but I have a feeling that is not what you are talking about."</p>
<p>A compiler converts source code to object code. The linker takes a bunch of object code, resolves symbols and generates an executable or shareable library. Modern compilers typically provide global optimization and profile guided optimization which can take an amazing amount of resources.</p>
<p>"HOWEVER, you shouldn't have to recompile EVERYTHING to make modification to some software you are working on. If you are, you probably have something set up wrong unless for some amazingly weird reason you have millions of lines of source code all in one file."</p>
<p>That's true for static software. If you're pulling the active development source, then you're much better off rebuilding everything.</p>
<p>The way you said that made it sound like links was a program >_> either way, that initial sentence of yours still doesn't make much sense, but from your explanation I know what you were trying to say with that sentence now.</p>
<p>Anyway, even if you are pulling the development source, I assume that once you have that compiled you are working on it as an individual and thus don't need to recompile everything while you alone are working on it. Sure, you'll need to sync it with the latest source and recompile, but you won't be doing that more than once or twice a day I'd think. >_< Once or twice a day seems to be pushing it even. Oh well, I'm done talking, off to do other things.</p>
<p>EDIT: even with a fast computer, if you were recompiling a large code base for every little test for changes you make, I woulden't see you surprised to go insane from waiting over and over again :-P</p>
<p>There are various reasons for pulling the code or rebuilding from scratch frequently. One is working on bugs where you want to keep the debugging environment separate for each discrete piece of work. Another is building on multiple platforms for distribution.</p>
<p>And there are cases where the build system is broken and rebuilding over an existing build doesn't work.</p>
<p>this thread became way too nerdy.</p>