maybe OT? ConTeXt on an EEEPC
Dear all, maybe this is off-topic, but I just wanted to tell you about my experiences (and sorry if this sounds like a sales pitch, it isn't!). Since I have a fairly long commute to work, I spend a lot of time on the train and like/need to do serious work there. When you have to schlepp it almost every day, a normal laptop seems pretty heavy after a while, that's why I got me one of those eeepc thingies. Its tiny screen and small keyboard scream "I'm just a mobile device, not a replacement for a real computer," and it's not the fastest machine around. However, my joy is great whenever I stuff the little thing in my bag and lift it. I got the 8GB variant. To do work, I always want all my documents with me (so I can easily sync my entire Documents directory between work, home, and laptop) and, of course, my TeX installation. My texlive- texmf tree now is 1.6 G, so I needed a bit more space than the 4G model offers (models with larger screens and hard disks will be available soonish). It has a SDHC card reader, so I copied my Documents and the TeX installation to the internal disk (a SSD) and have my linux installation on a card from which I boot. With a shell script, I set the $PATH so I can mount the internal disk and run ConTeXt off of it. Everything works wonderfully. As I said, it's a slow machine, so you don't want to compile very long documents too often, but it does run every flavor of ConTeXt. I often prepare my presentations on the train, and this works great: I have the environment to which I'm used for editing the source files (emacs + ConTeXt) and a pdf viewer open in another workspace. This setup is one of the reasons why I prefer a texlive installation to a minimal ConTeXt tree: that way, I have to maintain it only once and can sync it between my computers. So whoever has to travel a lot: I find it wonderful to have such a small and light computer on the road. All best, have a nice weekend Thomas
Thomas A. Schmitz wrote:
a while, that's why I got me one of those eeepc thingies. Its tiny
ah, i was considering buying one of those
screen and small keyboard scream "I'm just a mobile device, not a replacement for a real computer," and it's not the fastest machine around. However, my joy is great whenever I stuff the little thing in my bag and lift it.
I got the 8GB variant. To do work, I always want all my documents with
how does luatex run on it? mem consumption and such ... what is 'slow'? how many pages per second for a 100 page document? does it connect well to a beamer? Hans ----------------------------------------------------------------- Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands tel: 038 477 53 69 | fax: 038 477 53 74 | www.pragma-ade.com | www.pragma-pod.nl -----------------------------------------------------------------
On Apr 19, 2008, at 2:46 PM, Hans Hagen wrote:
how does luatex run on it? mem consumption and such ... what is 'slow'? how many pages per second for a 100 page document? does it connect well to a beamer?
Hans
OK, just to give you a very rough estimate: here is the time for compiling my lecture course with mkiv. It's fairly long, but not very complex; it is written in xml and processed with an environment with the "new" xml mechanism. My home computer is a mac mini with a 1.83G intel core 2 duo and 2G RAM; I consider it a fairly fast machine. this is with the latest luatex + today's beta, after all fonts have been cached etc.: time texexec --lua --env=vorlesung-mkiv --mode=default aristophanes.xml mkiv lua stats : runtime - 26.041 seconds, 271 processed pages, 271 shipped pages, 10.407 pages/second 26.45s user 0.62s system 99% cpu 27.167 total Now the same run with the same file on my eeepc: mkiv lua stats : runtime - 71.326 seconds, 271 processed pages, 271 shipped pages, 3.799 pages/second 68.60s user 0.97s system 94% cpu 1:13.94 total Haven't yet tried connecting it to a projector, but I suspect that the graphics card may be a bit wimpy. Thomas
Eee pc wit ubuntu here (and context). Great small computer. The 900 comes in a few month… 8,9′ and maybe 20Go of ssd… 400€. Olivier. On Sat, Apr 19, 2008 at 9:05 PM, Thomas A. Schmitz < thomas.schmitz@uni-bonn.de> wrote:
On Apr 19, 2008, at 2:46 PM, Hans Hagen wrote:
how does luatex run on it? mem consumption and such ... what is 'slow'? how many pages per second for a 100 page document? does it connect well to a beamer?
Hans
OK, just to give you a very rough estimate: here is the time for compiling my lecture course with mkiv. It's fairly long, but not very complex; it is written in xml and processed with an environment with the "new" xml mechanism. My home computer is a mac mini with a 1.83G intel core 2 duo and 2G RAM; I consider it a fairly fast machine. this is with the latest luatex + today's beta, after all fonts have been cached etc.:
time texexec --lua --env=vorlesung-mkiv --mode=default aristophanes.xml
mkiv lua stats : runtime - 26.041 seconds, 271 processed pages, 271 shipped pages, 10.407 pages/second
26.45s user 0.62s system 99% cpu 27.167 total
Now the same run with the same file on my eeepc:
mkiv lua stats : runtime - 71.326 seconds, 271 processed pages, 271 shipped pages, 3.799 pages/second
68.60s user 0.97s system 94% cpu 1:13.94 total
Haven't yet tried connecting it to a projector, but I suspect that the graphics card may be a bit wimpy.
Thomas
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maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net
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-- [Message tapé sur un clavier Bépo : http://www.clavier-dvorak.org ] Olivier nemolivier@gmail.com http://nemolivier.blogspot.com
Olivier Guéry wrote:
Eee pc wit ubuntu here (and context). Great small computer. The 900 comes in a few month… 8,9′ and maybe 20Go of ssd… 400€.
the 900/20G would be my choice indeed .. plus an extra battery Hans ----------------------------------------------------------------- Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands tel: 038 477 53 69 | fax: 038 477 53 74 | www.pragma-ade.com | www.pragma-pod.nl -----------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.ink-media.com/index.html -- luigi it's new . it's powerful . it's luatex . http://www.luatex.org
luigi scarso wrote:
the via c7 is ok but not enough mem for a decent tex installation and tex job; maybe we should define a kind of 'suited for tex' spec Hans ----------------------------------------------------------------- Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands tel: 038 477 53 69 | fax: 038 477 53 74 | www.pragma-ade.com | www.pragma-pod.nl -----------------------------------------------------------------
Thomas A. Schmitz wrote:
On Apr 19, 2008, at 2:46 PM, Hans Hagen wrote:
how does luatex run on it? mem consumption and such ... what is 'slow'? how many pages per second for a 100 page document? does it connect well to a beamer?
Hans
OK, just to give you a very rough estimate: here is the time for compiling my lecture course with mkiv. It's fairly long, but not very complex; it is written in xml and processed with an environment with the "new" xml mechanism. My home computer is a mac mini with a 1.83G intel core 2 duo and 2G RAM; I consider it a fairly fast machine. this is with the latest luatex + today's beta, after all fonts have been cached etc.:
time texexec --lua --env=vorlesung-mkiv --mode=default aristophanes.xml
mkiv lua stats : runtime - 26.041 seconds, 271 processed pages, 271 shipped pages, 10.407 pages/second
ok, 10p/s is as expected (given taco and my timings with test documents of average complexity)
26.45s user 0.62s system 99% cpu 27.167 total
Now the same run with the same file on my eeepc:
mkiv lua stats : runtime - 71.326 seconds, 271 processed pages, 271 shipped pages, 3.799 pages/second
68.60s user 0.97s system 94% cpu 1:13.94 total
not that bad, given that the machine runs on 500mhz Hans ----------------------------------------------------------------- Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands tel: 038 477 53 69 | fax: 038 477 53 74 | www.pragma-ade.com | www.pragma-pod.nl -----------------------------------------------------------------
How about the MacBook Air?… It is some 1300 grams (but indeed more expensive). Best regards: OK On 19 avr. 08, at 11:42, Thomas A. Schmitz wrote:
Dear all,
maybe this is off-topic, but I just wanted to tell you about my experiences (and sorry if this sounds like a sales pitch, it isn't!). Since I have a fairly long commute to work, I spend a lot of time on the train and like/need to do serious work there. When you have to schlepp it almost every day, a normal laptop seems pretty heavy after a while, that's why I got me one of those eeepc thingies. Its tiny screen and small keyboard scream "I'm just a mobile device, not a replacement for a real computer," and it's not the fastest machine around. However, my joy is great whenever I stuff the little thing in my bag and lift it.
I got the 8GB variant. To do work, I always want all my documents with me (so I can easily sync my entire Documents directory between work, home, and laptop) and, of course, my TeX installation. My texlive- texmf tree now is 1.6 G, so I needed a bit more space than the 4G model offers (models with larger screens and hard disks will be available soonish). It has a SDHC card reader, so I copied my Documents and the TeX installation to the internal disk (a SSD) and have my linux installation on a card from which I boot. With a shell script, I set the $PATH so I can mount the internal disk and run ConTeXt off of it. Everything works wonderfully. As I said, it's a slow machine, so you don't want to compile very long documents too often, but it does run every flavor of ConTeXt. I often prepare my presentations on the train, and this works great: I have the environment to which I'm used for editing the source files (emacs + ConTeXt) and a pdf viewer open in another workspace. This setup is one of the reasons why I prefer a texlive installation to a minimal ConTeXt tree: that way, I have to maintain it only once and can sync it between my computers. So whoever has to travel a lot: I find it wonderful to have such a small and light computer on the road.
All best, have a nice weekend
Thomas
___________________________________________________________________________________ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!
maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___________________________________________________________________________________
Otared Kavian wrote:
How about the MacBook Air?… It is some 1300 grams (but indeed more expensive).
indeed much more expensive (my current workhorse is a dell M90); i have a 17 in mac sitting dead on a desk for year snow ... too closed hard/software to figure out the problem (i could have bought 10 EEEPC's for the money) anyhow, for me the ieee solution sounds like a nice way to carry tex to a conference instead of a production machine -) Hans ----------------------------------------------------------------- Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands tel: 038 477 53 69 | fax: 038 477 53 74 | www.pragma-ade.com | www.pragma-pod.nl -----------------------------------------------------------------
On Apr 20, 2008, at 3:18 PM, Hans Hagen wrote:
Otared Kavian wrote:
How about the MacBook Air?… It is some 1300 grams (but indeed more expensive).
indeed much more expensive (my current workhorse is a dell M90); i have a 17 in mac sitting dead on a desk for year snow ... too closed hard/software to figure out the problem (i could have bought 10 EEEPC's for the money)
anyhow, for me the ieee solution sounds like a nice way to carry tex to a conference instead of a production machine -)
Hans
Yes, the MacBook Air is nice, but in a completely different league - price, specs etc. For me, the form factor was also very important: I wanted something as small as possible, and the MBA has the same size as a regular laptop. As for carrying TeX to a conference: the really great thing is that you can have different operating systems on SDHC cards. I have one with Mandriva and one with SuSE and want to try Ubuntu next week. So you could have different TeX installs and switch very quickly and cleanly. I would've gone for the 9" as well, but given the looooooong wait for the first generation, I don't think you'll be able to actually buy one of those before the end of the summer. The 7" was announced for November, then December, then February... Thomas
participants (5)
-
Hans Hagen -
luigi scarso -
Olivier Guéry -
Otared Kavian -
Thomas A. Schmitz