4 ms·

Chrome.exe ,no, srsly. Specifically, when doing deep infodiving, it's not uncommon to juggle (that is, actually apply ops within 30-min intervals to) 80+ tabs;

by sdrinf 12y ago

Chrome.exe ,no, srsly. Specifically, when doing deep infodiving, it's not uncommon to juggle (that is, actually apply ops within 30-min intervals to) 80+ tabs; 2 visual studio in the background; local number crunching: large-ish data / machine learning sandboxes; one-click virtual-machines ("wonder how this looks like in a mac?"); and the occasional steam round. 2x4 vCPU cores usually humming along at ~10-40%, 20-something GB ram usage, no swap. These reqs bias me towards performance, even at _some_ expense of mobility.

gh02t 12y ago
Why not a remote setup? I have a high performance workstation that lives in my office- dual 12-core Xeons, 256GB RAM, Tesla etc. I have a dirt cheap Lenovo laptop (~$300 + an SSD) running OpenBSD that I use to connect over OpenVPN + SSH for doing any serious computation. You'd probably want something with a higher-res display and Windows-based, but if it's possible that sort of setup might be easier. I long ago gave up on "workstation class" laptops. You just don't get enough bang for the buck IMO. Incidentally, if you're buying small-scale HPC hardware I highly recommend ThinkMate. Their prices are far far better than Dell/IBM/etc. and their support has always been superb.
- lqdc13 12y ago
  What about the network latency? It doesn't bother you?
  - gh02t 12y ago
    Most of the stuff I do on the remote side is in the shell and Mosh helps alleviate most of that so I generally don't have a problem with latency. For gui stuff I either run it locally or I use things that are client-server oriented (like ParaView). Last resort is to use X2go, which is really phenomenal remote desktop software with great performance, but Linux only AFAIK. Might not work for everybody, but something worth considering. For me, the trade off versus lugging around one of those monstrous "portable workstations" compared to my dinky little plastic Lenovo is well worth it.
boyaka 12y ago
From my perspective, Chrome is magical in terms of resource usage. You get a task manager to kill off tabs that use ridiculous amounts of CPU for when you aren't even looking at them, and all it takes is a simple refresh to bring them back. Compared to Firefox on Ubuntu on my cheap modern laptop, I can run an immensely larger number of tabs in Chrome with less CPU load, and bring them up very quickly. It seems like it is definitely doing a lot more GPU caching, as I have encountered a lot of weird graphical effects clicking to tabs that I haven't been using, especially when restoring a large session (I've been using Chromium lately). As far as the virtual machines go, you could potentially just remote for those, no? Honestly I would prefer a laptop running on a very low load, especially if it's in my lap!

by sdrinf 12y ago

gh02t 12y ago

Why not a remote setup? I have a high performance workstation that lives in my office- dual 12-core Xeons, 256GB RAM, Tesla etc. I have a dirt cheap Lenovo laptop (~$300 + an SSD) running OpenBSD that I use to connect over OpenVPN + SSH for doing any serious computation. You'd probably want something with a higher-res display and Windows-based, but if it's possible that sort of setup might be easier. I long ago gave up on "workstation class" laptops. You just don't get enough bang for the buck IMO. Incidentally, if you're buying small-scale HPC hardware I highly recommend ThinkMate. Their prices are far far better than Dell/IBM/etc. and their support has always been superb.

lqdc13 12y ago
What about the network latency? It doesn't bother you?
- gh02t 12y ago
  Most of the stuff I do on the remote side is in the shell and Mosh helps alleviate most of that so I generally don't have a problem with latency. For gui stuff I either run it locally or I use things that are client-server oriented (like ParaView). Last resort is to use X2go, which is really phenomenal remote desktop software with great performance, but Linux only AFAIK. Might not work for everybody, but something worth considering. For me, the trade off versus lugging around one of those monstrous "portable workstations" compared to my dinky little plastic Lenovo is well worth it.

boyaka 12y ago

From my perspective, Chrome is magical in terms of resource usage. You get a task manager to kill off tabs that use ridiculous amounts of CPU for when you aren't even looking at them, and all it takes is a simple refresh to bring them back. Compared to Firefox on Ubuntu on my cheap modern laptop, I can run an immensely larger number of tabs in Chrome with less CPU load, and bring them up very quickly. It seems like it is definitely doing a lot more GPU caching, as I have encountered a lot of weird graphical effects clicking to tabs that I haven't been using, especially when restoring a large session (I've been using Chromium lately). As far as the virtual machines go, you could potentially just remote for those, no? Honestly I would prefer a laptop running on a very low load, especially if it's in my lap!