• Registered: 2012-01-31
  • Posts: 21

Topic: Thoughts about #! on a Ultrabook (MB Air equivalent)?

Hi everyone, first post here.

I really like the portability of the new ultrabooks, particularly Asus' 13" Zenbook. The excellent battery life is really attractive too (about 5-6 hours in the tests I've seen, rated for 7).

I'm a little concerned though, going from a past of pretty monstrous laptops (in terms of CPU power), to something running at 1.7Ghz. I know its a Sandy Bridge, which means it can turboboost to about 2.7, but I'm not sure if it will be fast enough.

In terms of what I use it for, I run awesome WM instead of Openbox, and so the actual weight of #! isn't my concern. I would imagine its just as snappy on a 1.7Ghz as it would be on a 3.7Ghz.

Probably the two heaviests tasks I use my laptop for is Photoshop and high-def movies (1080P).
From what I understand, the Intel HD3000 graphics card in Sandy Bridge is more than capable of playing 1080P without any problems.

So that leaves Photoshop. The trick here is that I usually work with very big images, straight off a camera. Maybe 5 or 6 at a time anywhere from 5MP to 10MP. I'm thinking the SSD will actually make the biggest difference though, as they don't stay massive for too long, I scale them down before I do most of the work on them, and I can wait for a crop or stitch.

Besides those tasks, I'll be doing text based work (HTML/CSS and programming), as well as playing a few video games, probably a roguelike or two).

I guess what I'm looking for is any experience from people who have gone from very fast machines (quad cores, 2.8Ghz, 8-16GB of ram, that type of thing) to more meager machines such as these or worse. Do you notice a performance hit? I'm just worried the machine won't be powerful enough to handle my current Photoshop workflow.

On another note, the machine is 13" at 1600x900. I'm thinking that although 13" is a little small, the resolution should be plenty of room to have a few apps open at once. I find 1366x768 to be too small on my 15.4". However my current screen is a 17" 1080x1200 MBP. I realize I'm giving up room, but I just need enough to put maybe 2 or 3 windows side by side happily.

Any thoughts or comments are greatly appreciated! smile

Thanks!

  • From: #! NightClub
  • Registered: 2011-06-02
  • Posts: 3,869

Re: Thoughts about #! on a Ultrabook (MB Air equivalent)?

I think #! will run fine. It is a very lightweight distro, it is its nature.

But Photoshop, how do you run it under Linux, in a virtual machine? That would be the only problem here.

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  • From: Pennsylvania, USA
  • Registered: 2010-04-11
  • Posts: 151

Re: Thoughts about #! on a Ultrabook (MB Air equivalent)?

If you have any stores near you, try out a live usb in front of one of the salespeople.  Explain to them what you are trying to do and what you want out of the machine.  Of course, tell them that the usb will not alter the machine.  They are usually eager to make a sale and geeky enough to  let you.

If not, go else where,  if possible.

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  • From: 127.0.0.1
  • Registered: 2010-07-02
  • Posts: 1,274

Re: Thoughts about #! on a Ultrabook (MB Air equivalent)?

The CPU in those computers is nothing to sneeze at, but it obviously won't be as fast as a desktop's quad core sandy bridge i5. I'm sure it's more than capable of running photoshop responsively in windows, but in WINE or virtualbox, it may be a tad sluggish. There's lots of discussion about the zenbook on the ubuntu and arch linux communities. Some things to take into consideration:

  • The computer has no built in ethernet, but comes with a USB to ethernet dongle. The wireless card afaik is an atheros card. Both can reportedly be made to work, but are less than perfect and sometimes require patching of kernel modules and/or upgrading of the kernel. It may be advisable to purchase some type of usb wireless device with better compatibility.

  • The touchpad works apperantly, but doesn't have the full range of functionality that it does in other operating systems. Proper drivers for the elan touchpad are currently in development.

  • Some work might be required to get suspend and power saving features up and running.

I really like the idea of a ultrabook running linux, but I think I'm going to stick it out and wait for the Samsung Series 9 or perhaps a Lenovo Yoga.

Last edited by mynis01 (2012-01-31 15:32:58)

  • Registered: 2012-01-31
  • Posts: 21

Re: Thoughts about #! on a Ultrabook (MB Air equivalent)?

Sadly it won't be possible to try it out in a store, I don't have the time, and very few stores locally seem to be carrying stock.

@ivanovnegro, I run Photoshop via Wine, so theres no VM overhead.

  • From: inside Ed
  • Registered: 2011-07-25
  • Posts: 2,867

Re: Thoughts about #! on a Ultrabook (MB Air equivalent)?

Wait for the Ivy Bidge ultabooks, they should have better graphics and battery life. Shouldn't be more than a few months.

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  • Registered: 2012-01-31
  • Posts: 21

Re: Thoughts about #! on a Ultrabook (MB Air equivalent)?

@mynis01,

Thanks for the headsup, I've already see the ubuntu wiki page and forum discussion. The most recent developments has all of the hardware working well, with the exception of battery life. From what I understand someone has just posed a fix for that as well.

I won't be buying one for 2 weeks or so, and I'm following the progress of that thread. I think thats plenty of time to get everything sorted on their end..

  • Registered: 2012-01-31
  • Posts: 21

Re: Thoughts about #! on a Ultrabook (MB Air equivalent)?

@el_koraco,

I don't want to wait for Ivy Bridge, because that will be a whole new bag of worms that linux has to support. I'd rather stick with Sandy Bridge thats had a while to mature.

On top of that, I really want the 1600x900 resolution, and only the YogaPad offers that, which isn't due out until Q3 2012 (according to Wikipedia).

  • From: 127.0.0.1
  • Registered: 2010-07-02
  • Posts: 1,274

Re: Thoughts about #! on a Ultrabook (MB Air equivalent)?

If sandy bridge was any kind of example, ivy bridge will most likely be supported pretty much out of the box. Chances are if any changes are required at the kernel level, they will be made before the chips are released to the public. Intel as far as I can remember, has never really been overtly beligerent to the linux community.

  • From: inside Ed
  • Registered: 2011-07-25
  • Posts: 2,867

Re: Thoughts about #! on a Ultrabook (MB Air equivalent)?

The i915 driver has been supporting Ivy Bridge graphics for three or four kernel releases now. I don't expect any problems there. The battery life problem on Sandy Bridges should be fixed in kernel 3.3, and is patch that fixes it is already in the Zen/Liquorix builds.

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  • Registered: 2010-09-02
  • Posts: 347

Re: Thoughts about #! on a Ultrabook (MB Air equivalent)?

Intel is Linux friendly.
You will need to upgrade to testing or unstable to get a kernel new enough to help with power management and battery life, or maybe use backports if they work for you.
The Asus Zenbooks I have looked at support up to 8 gb of RAM, and for once I would be likely to pay the store to install it rather than do it myself.
The top end Zenbooks have an i7 and 256 gb SSD, but are $400 more.

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  • Registered: 2011-09-03
  • Posts: 337

Re: Thoughts about #! on a Ultrabook (MB Air equivalent)?

In general: Wait for the hype passing by. After that has happened, the really good models will appear on the market.

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  • Registered: 2012-01-31
  • Posts: 21

Re: Thoughts about #! on a Ultrabook (MB Air equivalent)?

Well sandy bridge is still having improvements made just recently. So while initial support was alright, there has been constant improvements. I suspect the same with Ivy Bridge.

As el_koraco mentions, the battery life problem is just being fixed now.

@jeffreyC, it's not possible for the Zenbook to have 8GB, since it's memory is soldered straight to the board.

I think I'm going to go with a different laptop, namely the new Vaio S 15" from Sony.

Comparing the two, the only advantage of the Zenbook is about 2 pounds of weight. Everything else is the same or inferior to the Vaio S, for more money (even if I bought the sheet battery for the Vaio).

The one place the Vaio S falls short is it has a 500GB 5400rpm instead of a 128GB SSD. However I am supplying my own SSD from my last laptop, so that point does not matter to me.

it's seems like at this point your paying a lot for a small form factor (though I know the SSD is a lot of the cost).
I've had no problems with a 17" MBP, and going from about 7.5 pounds to the 4.5 of the Vaio should be a big enough jump for me.

  • From: inside Ed
  • Registered: 2011-07-25
  • Posts: 2,867

Re: Thoughts about #! on a Ultrabook (MB Air equivalent)?

Good choice. Just avoid the switchable graphics models, neither AMD nor Optimus work reliably. The Vaio has a matte screen, right? I'll never buy a glossy screen again. Small correction, though. The power management problem is due to a buggy implementation of ASPM, it's mostly a BIOS vendor thing, it affects AMD chipsets as well as Sansy Bridge laptops.

Last edited by el_koraco (2012-01-31 22:42:59)

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  • From: 127.0.0.1
  • Registered: 2010-07-02
  • Posts: 1,274

Re: Thoughts about #! on a Ultrabook (MB Air equivalent)?

If this is the laptop you're talking about, might want to look into what exactly it means by "Hybrid Graphics."

  • Registered: 2012-01-31
  • Posts: 21

Re: Thoughts about #! on a Ultrabook (MB Air equivalent)?

That is the laptop mynis, and I have no problem with the switchable graphics models. From what I understand they work perfeclty fine using only the HD3000, which is all I want. The extra AMD card doesn't matter to me.

Or are you suggesting I won't even be able to use the HD3000 properly?

  • Registered: 2012-01-31
  • Posts: 21

Re: Thoughts about #! on a Ultrabook (MB Air equivalent)?

Sorry, thats actually an old or US-only model mynis01, you can see the one I'm talking about on the Canadian site here: http://store.sony.ca/webapp/wcs/stores/ … 1644771498

Most notably is the different screen rez and the processor going from 2.1 to 2.5

  • Registered: 2010-09-02
  • Posts: 347

Re: Thoughts about #! on a Ultrabook (MB Air equivalent)?

I have seen websites claiming the RAM in an Asus Zenbook is upgradeable.
Thanks for making me look again, you saved me money.

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