Please help. Looking for a laptop with special specs.

  • Thread starter Thread starter Dave C.
  • Start date Start date
D

Dave C.

You should be aware, that *some* LiveCD distros, really need
a swap file for stability. And others, the garbage collector
routine seems able to keep up with memory requests and pressure
on the memory subsystem.

In English, this means some LiveCDs will crash, if there is
no hard drive to hold a swap file. Others seem to be OK
(at least, I didn't crash them while using them).

What it means, is when you get your new laptop, you'll have to
test Linux distros one after another, and see if they survive
without swap. For a good place to start, you can try the
latest Knoppix 6 release, as I suspect it is OK (in limited
testing - I wasn't trying to crash it at the time, and was
trying to get some work done).
Click to expand...

This laptop is running puppy linux 4.0 off of the hard drive. I know the OP doesn't want a hard drive. But puppy can be run from CD-Rom. In fact, it MUST be run from CD-Rom, in order to install it to a hard drive. But you don't have to install it to a hard drive, you can run it from CD media. No hard drive required to be installed in the laptop. In fact, puppy won't touch a hard drive unless you tell it to by "mounting" a hard drive first.

This laptop is old, but the main stumbling block you will have in running linux on any laptop is support for the video chipset. Linux in general has pretty good support for most video chipsets, but it's always a few months behind the latest technology.

In short, if the OP wants to buy a laptop specifically for a linux live CD use, he can buy new, but he should buy "new" that's been out for a while. Don't buy a laptop that was just released to retail channels last month, as that might be a problem. -Dave
 
Hi:

I'm looking for a laptop that:

1. Is fully-compatible with the Linux Live CD and does not need any
HDD or any non-volatile RAM.

2. Uses dynamic RAM for volatile memory with no static RAM at all.

3. Has a wireless internet card in it.

4. Is new and not used.

5. Compromises* among the following:
5a. Least expensive
5b. Has the most amount of volatile memory

*I say compromise because usually if the system is less expensive, it
will have less memory. So I am looking for the least expensive with
the most amount of memory [dynamic volatile memory] for the price I'm
paying.

The reason I need so much volatile memory is because I don't plan to
use any HDD or non-volatile RAM on this laptop. Linux Live CD doesn't
need any non-volatile RAM and can boot from the CD.


Thanks
 
GreenXenon said:
I'm looking for a laptop that:

1. Is fully-compatible with the Linux Live CD and does not need any
HDD or any non-volatile RAM.

2. Uses dynamic RAM for volatile memory with no static RAM at all.

3. Has a wireless internet card in it.

4. Is new and not used.

5. Compromises* among the following:
5a. Least expensive
5b. Has the most amount of volatile memory

*I say compromise because usually if the system is less expensive, it
will have less memory. So I am looking for the least expensive with
the most amount of memory [dynamic volatile memory] for the price I'm
paying.

The reason I need so much volatile memory is because I don't plan to
use any HDD or non-volatile RAM on this laptop. Linux Live CD doesn't
need any non-volatile RAM and can boot from the CD.
Click to expand...

Check with the forums for the Linux distro you will be using to find
out basic compatibility with laptops.

Buy any "normal" laptop that meets your specs.

Remove the HDD.

Boot from the CD.

What are you going to do for apps, updates, saving files, etc?
 
He's very scared of having anything stored on disc or RAM.
Click to expand...


I don't mind ROM discs though. CDs/DVDs are usually -- but not always
-- ROM discs.

FWIW, running on a LiveCD *only* means that there's no way to store
"work in progress". I suspect he doesn't even trust pen drives.
Click to expand...


Yes and the LiveCD is certainly a ROM disc.

You're right in that I don't trust pen drives. This is because pen
drives are non-volatile RAM and will store all my activities no matter
how hard I try to overwrite them. In any non-volatile RAM device, the
only way to eliminate confidential information is to destroy the
device. I can't afford to keep destroying and buying new NVRAM
devices.

The reason I want the volatile memory to be DRAM -- as opposed to SRAM
-- is because the former has a much shorter time of data remnance
[when the PC is offed] than the latter.
 
GreenXenon said:
I plan to use this laptop for stuff I don't want to save.
Click to expand...

You should be aware, that *some* LiveCD distros, really need
a swap file for stability. And others, the garbage collector
routine seems able to keep up with memory requests and pressure
on the memory subsystem.

In English, this means some LiveCDs will crash, if there is
no hard drive to hold a swap file. Others seem to be OK
(at least, I didn't crash them while using them).

What it means, is when you get your new laptop, you'll have to
test Linux distros one after another, and see if they survive
without swap. For a good place to start, you can try the
latest Knoppix 6 release, as I suspect it is OK (in limited
testing - I wasn't trying to crash it at the time, and was
trying to get some work done).

I think a good percentage of laptops should be fine for your
purposes. Just don't select something which isn't mainstream.
When you see a product, find out what chipset it uses, then
do some Googling of that chipset name. I doubt you're going
to find a nice list, that tells you all the laptops that
are OK.

In terms of "wearing out the CDROM drive", check for an option
to hold the whole OS in RAM. For example, Knoppix has a
"toram" option. Also, you can hold the compressed LiveCD file
system on the laptop hard drive. The OS will then be able to
use that in a "read-only" manner. You can then unmount the
CDROM and eject the media. This will prevent the CDROM drive
from wearing out.

So if I have a CD sized distro, I do something like

knoppix toram

and then eject the CD.

If the distro is DVD sized (like Knoppix 5.3.1), then I do

knoppix fromhd=/dev/hdc3

and after the optical media has stopped booting, I can eject
the media and all file system calls are answered, read-only,
by the hard drive. Nothing is stored on there. You can't
even add files to that volume, while it is mounted for that
purpose. (To put the files on /dev/hdc3, I do that from
another OS. You can mount ext2 file systems from Windows
with EXT2IFS.)

http://www.fs-driver.org/

Good luck,
Paul
 
GreenXenon said:
I don't mind ROM discs though. CDs/DVDs are usually -- but not always
-- ROM discs.




Yes and the LiveCD is certainly a ROM disc.

You're right in that I don't trust pen drives. This is because pen
drives are non-volatile RAM and will store all my activities no matter
how hard I try to overwrite them. In any non-volatile RAM device, the
only way to eliminate confidential information is to destroy the
device. I can't afford to keep destroying and buying new NVRAM
devices.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure its a computer you need..
 
By the way, you do know the BIOS chip is NV ram of a sort?
Click to expand...


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIOS

It could be NVRAM -- such as Flash RAM. According to wiki, it could
also be PROM or EPROM.

Why don't manufacturers make the BIOS chip mask-programmed ROM? Mask-
programmed ROM is malware-proof.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIOS#Virus_attacks

If I had it my way, all ROM chips would mask-programmed and all RAM
chips would be dynamic volatile RAM [hopefully Twin-Transistor RAM]

More on Twin-Transistor RAM: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_Transistor_RAM

Since Twin-Transistor RAM has no capacitors, it has the shortest data
remanence time [of all volatile RAMs] when the power is offed.

BTW, wouldn't the disadvantages of Flash RAM chips make it impractical
to store BIOS on them?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_memory#Limitations
 
GreenXenon wrote:








I have to ask, what is it you plan to do on this computer thats so top
secret?
Click to expand...


Personal stuff that I don't want anyone other than me to know about.
 
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