[TriLUG] recommendation for laptop running vmware

[Ron Joffe]

On Saturday 12 April 2003 12:31 pm, Glen Ford wrote:
>     I am looking to buy a laptop to run Windows stuff for home and Linux
> for my work.
> I would like to run Vmware with Linux 8.0 as either native or guest
> operating system.
> I want to make sure that the laptop I buy will run Linux without any
> weird compatibility issues such as configuring the video.
> I was leaning toward a Dell laptop only because of price and convenience
> of ordering.
> Does anyone know of any issues with Dell or can anyone recommend an
> other brand based on my requirements.
>
> Thanks for any help pointers
>
> /glen


Glen,

I have been running Thinkpads with SuSE and VMWare for about 3 years now. My 
current machine is an A31P. Everything works dandy from the high res display 
(1600x1200) to the bluetooth and wireless on 802.11 nic. 

I typically will have at least 2 vm's running at all times, and sometimes as 
many as 6 virtual winders instances running. I have shifted from using native 
drive to the VMWare own virtual drives. The performance seems to be a bit 
better that way.

Whichever machine you get get plenty of RAM. I've got 1GB in my Thinkpad, and 
that ain't always enough :). The one best way to improve the performance of 
VMWare is to give the vm's plenty of memory to play with (256 per vm is a 
bear minimum, with 384, they are very happy).

Ron