Developing on a budget...

March 19, 2009 6:51 PM

Unix-based development work on a netbook?

So, I'm a web and lightweight unix app developer, in the market for a new computer. I rather like the profile of the netbooks (and love the pricetag)... my big question is, could it be a viable platform for development?

Tools I use: emacs, python tools, gcc, firefox with firebug...

Things I'd want from it: Needs to be able to host an apache 2 server, and probably a mysql implementation (both lightweight, single user test environments)

Does anyone have experience trying to do this? Horror stories?

posted by frwagon to Computers & Internet (27 answers total)

Why not use the netbook to ssh into a server set up remotely that runs apache and mysql? That's more like what they were designed to do.
posted by demiurge at 6:53 PM on March 19, 2009

You should be entirely fine. There are plenty of netbooks that run linux, and any should be able to handle apache 2 & mysql -- emacs, though, may be a stretch (kidding... sort of). To put it in perspective, apache & mysql run fine with room to spare on a P2 300mhz box we currently have running. If you're not doing anything too stressful and don't need blazing fast performance you're not going to have problems. Just make sure you choose one that actually will run Linux.
posted by devilsbrigade at 6:57 PM on March 19, 2009

Serious consideration though: I hate netbook keyboards. You might also think about something like Lenovo's x61 laptops, which are almost as small as netbooks but have a full-size (for the letters, anyway) keyboard.
posted by devilsbrigade at 6:59 PM on March 19, 2009

Sure. I've got an original eee 701, running ubuntu eee (which has since been renamed to something else, not sure what, but a google will tell you.) Install the LAMP stack, and you're ready to go, same as on any other ubuntu box. It works relatively well, given the machine is what it is. A newer, more powerful netbook would do better obviously, especially if there's a linux variant that is compiled specifically for it.

But personally, I'd do the ssh thing as well. Save your meager processing power for firefox alone.
posted by cgg at 7:00 PM on March 19, 2009

Best answer: Somebody says this in every netbook thread: be sure to try one out, just to make sure that the smaller keyboard isn't a dealbreaker.

I'm no programmer, but, for the kinds of uses you describe, you might want to make a special point of checking out the ctrl, alt, etc. keys--some netbook keyboards do weird stuff with 'em. My Lenovo S10, for example, has no right-ctrl, and Home and End are relegated to F+ combinations.
posted by box at 7:01 PM on March 19, 2009

Response by poster: demiurge, while the ideal is to ssh to my test server, that's what I rely on my desktop for. Most of the time I'd be using the netbook, connection to the internet will be questionable.

Devilsbrigade, I use the streamlined emacs - only needs half a gig of memory ;) ...but good to hear apache/sql are safe.

My big question has to do with the solid state media - any experience playing with that?
posted by frwagon at 7:01 PM on March 19, 2009

Response by poster: hm.. Box, that ... yeah, a funky keyboard could be a dealbreaker.
posted by frwagon at 7:02 PM on March 19, 2009

Plenty of netbooks these days have regular hard drives (and several offer both options)--whether you want to avoid or embrace the SSD, it's easy enough to do.
posted by box at 7:03 PM on March 19, 2009

I bought an MSI wind for similar purposes. I couldn't take the keyboard and returned it for an HP Mini 1000. If you're going to be coding I think the keyboard is the most important aspect. Most of the rest of the hardware is pretty similar. After looking at several models the Mini seems to have the best one around.
posted by roue at 7:05 PM on March 19, 2009

I write a lot and also have found the netbook keyboards unusable, even the HP Mini. YMMV, so I'd head down to the Bestbuy or wherever and try out a few.
posted by yesno at 7:09 PM on March 19, 2009

Plug in a USB keyboard, like a Happy Hacker 2 USB.

Other than that, 100% go for it.
posted by unixrat at 7:12 PM on March 19, 2009

I do some programming type scribbling on my netbook while I commute. I'm a heavy Emacs user. The small keyboard I've gotten used to but control keys still annoy me and that's a real drawback when using Emacs. The other problem I have is the very limited amount of screen real estate. There's no way I'd use a netbook for a primary development machine but it's great for squeezing in work when I'd otherwise be trying to sleep on the bus.
posted by rdr at 7:15 PM on March 19, 2009

I am right now on a Dell Mini 9 - awesome for travel, but I the keyboard is a bitch. I can only do development on it with an external keyboard (I've also got a MacBook Pro which is my main machine).

So for travel and light dev - its great. But not full time development.
posted by bitdamaged at 7:16 PM on March 19, 2009

From a resource standpoint, keep in mind that Unix was designed to run on computers that had about as much processing power as a bar of soap does nowadays. The biggest strike against the netbook will probably be the small keyboard and/or display. (The thought of Emacs + a keyboard that small makes my wrists shudder, but maybe you have tiny hands.)

I'll second ssh tunneling to another server, but note that if you're just looking for a cheap programming laptop, old Thinkpads are worth consideration. I got a T41 for <>very well. (I'm running OpenBSD.) See also ThinkWiki, which has a lot of info about installing Linux on Thinkpads.
posted by silentbicycle at 7:34 PM on March 19, 2009

Oops -- That should be "...old Thinkpads are worth consideration. I got a T41 for <$400 a about two years ago, and you could probably find similar ones for $300ish nowadays. They're quite solid, have reasonable keyboards, parts are readily available, and they run Unixes very well. (I'm running OpenBSD.) See also ThinkWiki, ..."

That'll teach me to not hit preview once, ever.
posted by silentbicycle at 7:39 PM on March 19, 2009

Best answer: In the last four hours on my linux netbook (eee 901), I've written about 500 lines of java code in Eclipse, and run the jetty server to view the web app in my browser.

Previously, I've written PHP code that called a MySQL database (with several tables, most the data coming from a 500,000 row table), and used that app in my browser that by running Apache2 and the MySQL server on the netbook.

So I can confidently say, you can run Eclipse, Apache, MySQL server, and jetty, all at the same time (Apache binds 80, jetty 8080, and yeah, sometimes I've forgotten and had both running at once).

The worst bottleneck? Firefox 3. Complete memory hog, and javascript is s-l-o-w. Running Venkman in Firefox for debugging is possible, but not fun. On the eee, the smaller flash drive is significantly faster than the big one, so you might move your FF profile there; I have mine on a ramfs, and it's still slow at javascript.

But it's do-able. The other major problem is that Eclipse just likes to take up lots of screen real-estate with big margins and padding, and my screen's only 1024x600. There are two work arounds: the eee has no problem driving my 1920x1200 24 inch Dell monitor. Or (well "and") pick a GTK theme and settings to minimize this. You'll wantto do the same to maximize screen space in Firefox. There are instructions for both on eeeuser.com.

If you get an eee and the keyboard just sucks, return it (or just have Asus send a new keyboard). This makes a world of difference.

My advice would be to get something the size of the eee 1000, and with a harddrive in addition to flash. The 901's small size is a joy, but I'd rather have my mp3s on it than attach my ipod to it. And it avoids some keybaord issues.
posted by orthogonality at 7:46 PM on March 19, 2009 [1 favorite]

I'm running an asus eee 1000H with an SSD and running eeebuntu. I have to completely agree with Orthogonality- the machine is generally great, with the exception of firefox, which is a pig. Siezes up all the time, long pauses as it swaps stuff in and out, etc. I've tried alternative browsers, but they aren't very good. I'm hoping the next release works better.

Emacs works great; I haven't done much compiling, but I can't imagine it's much of an issue.
posted by jenkinsEar at 7:55 PM on March 19, 2009

Try them out in the store. I recently got to play with a Dell Mini 12. Its incredible how much of a difference a 12" screen makes compared to those awful 9 inchers the industry standardized on. You can get the mini 12 with ubuntu for $350 at dell.com. Keyboard isnt bad either.
posted by damn dirty ape at 8:40 PM on March 19, 2009

jenkinsEar writes "with the exception of firefox, which is a pig."

Seriously, much better if you put your profile on a ramfs "disk". Still bad, but a much better bad.

(Eeebuntu Hardy 8.04, so I can run KDE 3.5 rather than KDE 4 or Gnome.)
posted by orthogonality at 9:05 PM on March 19, 2009

Mu eee has xp home, I run wamp and it works well
posted by mattoxic at 12:29 AM on March 20, 2009

9" screen with the tiny keyboard here, I am using it right now and it is my main machine. I rely on an external USB keyboard most of the time for obvious reasons (transporting netbook + keyboard is still more convenient than a regular laptop), and I use a WM that only adds 2 horizontal pixels and 2 vertical pixels worth of border to any given app (I realize that most people do not have the patience to learn a keyboard driven WM, but it does help alot with screen real-estate). In terms of slowness, the big hogs on Ubuntu are networkmgr and gnome, if you can learn how to work without these, then you suddenly have a much much more powerful machine.
posted by idiopath at 12:30 AM on March 20, 2009

In regards to firefox on an eee (using mandriva linux), I've found that the 3.1 betas (soon to be 3.5) works better than 3.0. Some extensions I use had to be forced with nightly tester tools though.
posted by rpn at 1:13 AM on March 20, 2009

I've got a 90% size keyboard on my Wind netbook (apparently). It's too small for anything serious. Good for emergencies, but not for any serious work.
posted by devnull at 2:38 AM on March 20, 2009

AnandTech has an exhaustingively thorough article about the state of the art in SSDs. (Of course, some of the "SSDs" in some netbooks are just plain old flash memory, but none of them only have flash memory so far as I know.)

Anyway, I found Emacs slower than I'd like, but still usable, on an 800 MHz 256M Pentium III laptop. So far as computing power goes, I wouldn't hesitate to consider the higher end of modern netbooks for what you describe.
posted by Zed at 5:43 AM on March 20, 2009

The biggest hurdle for development is probably going to be screen resolution (it sucks to code when you can only see a couple dozen lines at a time). This was actually the primary factor of consideration when I purchased my laptop (1600x1200 @32-bit, 15" screen!).

Well, that and Firefox's memory usage.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 9:01 AM on March 20, 2009

wow, just took Orthogonality's advice and got firefox running on tempfs - very very nice. Here's the writeup I followed- probably not a good idea to do the pack script every 5 minutes as they recommend to an SSD, but everything else is pretty much right on.
posted by jenkinsEar at 2:30 PM on March 20, 2009

jenkinsEar: I call the pack script in my KDE startup and shutdown directories. Since that occasionally fails (if I reboot without shutting down X properly), I keep a tar'd packed.good.tar backup.

Since the script creates the tmpfs on X startup, this almost always works (though I have problems with saved sessions runnign firefox before the tar is untarred to the tempfs).
posted by orthogonality at 9:11 PM on March 22, 2009