InkScape Laptop!

Jason Nail · Postby **Jason Nail** » Sat Mar 26, 2011 12:16 am

Hello!

I am in the market for a new laptop to run InkScape. I've done some small research and I am leaning towards a Panasonic tough book, a Samsung XPS16, and others. Can anyone make any suggestions? I was trying to stay within the 4 to 5 to 600 dollar range.

Cheers! Jaso

I am looking on ebay, BestBuy, TigerDirect, & some local dealers. I want 1080p and a GPU but... And I want 4 GB of RAM that can be upgraded to 8 (one day)

Postby **prkos** » Sat Mar 26, 2011 1:14 am

CPU power is what you have to take into consideration when targeting a vector graphics application, it affects Inkscape speed. So look for a faster and better processor.

What OS do you plan to use?

Postby **Simarilius** » Sat Mar 26, 2011 3:07 am

yeah, processor and memory are the things that inkscape likes. we dont currently use GPUs, although that will hopefully change in the shortish term with the merge of the cairo branch.
Memory is a bit of a diminishing return, too little and you notice, but beyond a point it doesnt make too much difference most of the time. 4Gb is probably a good number for now.

Jason Nail · Postby **Jason Nail** » Sat Mar 26, 2011 5:20 am

Thank you very much!

I also am running modo. But, it's so advanced, I haven't been exercising it much. (As I need a lot of time for thinking. LOL)

I have flipflopped my mind on so many models in the last 24 hours, I don't know what I am going to come up with. I will post what I end up choosing. OK. Laters

Jaso

Jason Nail · Postby **Jason Nail** » Sat Mar 26, 2011 10:06 am

Traditionally, I've used Mac. But, because it costs so much for a Mac laptop, I've decided to go with Windows. (lots more to choose from too). Price is my biggest factor. What do you mean by CPU power? processor and memory? You mean like single or dual core or even i7? (as far as CPU power and processor) And you mean RAM like 4 GB? (as far as memory)

I think thats what yall meant. Yes, I had a burning return in my pocket today! LOL I had to spend it before it got out of control.

I went with what was affordable and within my means. $329.99 (BestBuy) for a Toshiba L645 with 3 GB's. I went ahead and upgraded it to 8 GB's. It's sitting in the other room charging now. I'm busy putting all my InkScape (and other programs) and work on my external HD (so I can load it all on the new Toshiba!).

Intel Pentium P6000, 8 GB RAM DDR3, 1.86 GHz, Mobile Intel HM55 Express ChipSet, Mobile Intel HD Graphics (up to 1274 MB shared), 221[actually 250...but] GB HD (5400 RPM), 14" WideScreen display with TruBrite TFT LED (1366 X 768), DVD, Dolby, VGA output!, Windows 7 64 Bit, and 5 hour battery.

llogg · Postby **llogg** » Sat Mar 26, 2011 11:24 am

That processor may make it feel a little sluggish.

Jason Nail · Postby **Jason Nail** » Sat Mar 26, 2011 5:27 pm

OK. I did a test on the Mac, the other Mac, the Acer, and my new Toshiba. I explained BestBuy salesassociates opinions, I tallied the results, I listed all my findings in a gigantic paragraph, and the post disappeared without my being able to go back to reretrieve it as my screen showed logout which means I'm logged in. But, the forum thought I was logged out and made me re-log in. So, maybe, I should have, like I thought I was going to do, was to go ahead and copy all, save in Word, refresh my screen to see if Login replaces Logout, and repaste from Word. How long does one have when logged in before being automatically logged out?

My new Toshiba is great! Bottom line, it's 6.5 times faster than my Macmini. But my mom's Acer is only 766 MB of RAM and is 3 times faster than my Macmini! So, this new Toshiba runs like a tank. It handles good so far. I may do another comparison of volume intensive time trials and post back here. (Those were InkScape boot times for my two Mac's, mom's Acer, & the new Toshiba).

OK. Thank you very much!

Jaso

Postby **prkos** » Sat Mar 26, 2011 9:10 pm

You'll be logged in for days I think, not sure of the exact time.

Having a similar experience on another board where I'd write a long reply and then got logged out, it trained me to copy my post before submitting, just in case, so I can paste it if anything goes wrong.

I wouldn't mind owning that laptop :mrgreen:

Why not go with linux and save even more?

Postby **Simarilius** » Sat Mar 26, 2011 9:14 pm

Dont know what linux does for inkscape performance, but my broadband gives me 49mbs on ubuntu, and about 23mbs on XP on the same machine... that was enough to get me to switch

Postby **brynn** » Sun Mar 27, 2011 2:15 pm

I think we're logged in indefinitely. But I still sometimes get logged out through no doing of my own. Since you're on a new system and new operating system, maybe double-check that you have cookies allowed. You can log in without accepting cookies, but if you browse away and come back, you have to log in again

Jason Nail · Postby **Jason Nail** » Sun Mar 27, 2011 4:44 pm

Its funny, the 1GB Macmini would handle more pixel volume where the 766 MB Acer would fail. (but the Acer was 3 times faster on booting InkScape) The new Toshiba is 2 times faster than than the Acer. But, I wonder what pixel volume it would handle by comparison. I imported a 3458 X 2608 1956 EIA Resolution Chart BMP file and traced it with 64 scans, smoothing off, remove background, smooth threshold of 1.31, and it took a while. But, it did it in two big chunks, the trace of objects went up to 32 and froze there, and then almost instantly, it had 63 objects. (Normally I watch the trace counting one by one on the Macmini) Not bad for a 25.8 MB BMP. (Actually it did that on traces up to 32. When I tried 64 it went up normally to about 31 then came back at 48 and counted some more, then instant to 63.) The vector came out to 29 MB (plain) SVG.

In the old days (yesterday), I wouldn't of even tried tracing an image threes of thousands of pixels wide! This makes InkScape .48.1 a well rounded production version! Anybody know what the new cap (as far as the code and the 100 MB security limit) is for .48.1? The boot time on the Mac was 28 seconds, 8 on the Acer, and 4 on the Toshiba! It's asleep in the other room now and is never disturbed to go online. I simply come over here to the Acer to node chat with sysop's. I see you guys stay so busy answering questions, that it makes sense you never log out. Do yall know so much because yall write the software?

Who is at the top of the food chain? I once attended a Commodore Convention where a lot of guys in suits were in the audience and a cloaked man (much like OB One KeyNoB) entered code at superhuman speed, as viewed on the overhead projector, for what I don't know, and explained, speaking to the crowd, as he typed. That same Atlanta Convention (1990) had the very first touch screen multi-media computer! LOL Are there guys like this writing the InkScape software as I type? How do I know who is the highest ranking tech responding to my posts?

I like Simarilius's code name. It sounds like a mixture of similarity, Cornelius, hillarious, & simmer down now! LOL

Postby **brynn** » Sun Mar 27, 2011 9:59 pm

Oh, relatively few InkscapeForum members are on the development team, or otherwise involved in that end. I would say less than half, conservatively guessing. But I can really only think of 5 or 6 that I know of. Although there are probably a few more.

I found a list on Launchpad: https://launchpad.net/~inkscape.dev/+members#active. And from the Inkscape Wiki site: http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php ... nformation. I'm not sure if those are very current though....?

I don't know if the developers are just writing code all the time, or do a little here and a little there. I know that alot of it is done during the Google Summer of Code. And I also know that it's all done by volunteers -- none are paid! A while back prokoudine (who reports on Inkscape development news) did an interview of some developers. There's a link in a topic in the News forum. You should be able to find it by searching the member name. (I'm about to fall asleep as I type, or I would search it out and post a link :mrgreen:

)

We don't really have a member ranking system, other than the number of messages posted. But that is NOT a reflection of skill, knowledge or experience. I'm not sure we would call ourselves "techs". The vast majority of us just like Inkscape, and want to share what we've learned and help others. You can get a good idea of who is focused on various different uses of Inkscape, just by reading the forum. I tend to answer more questions from new users, because I'm like a perpetual new user myself, lol. But I would be really hard pressed to try and categorize members' proficiencies. I would say just read through the messages, and after a while, you'll get to know us

Postby **Simarilius** » Sun Mar 27, 2011 11:37 pm

I'm a dev, although not a very active one recently. You can see a full list by doing help>about then looking at the authors tab.
That should be a list of anyone who has contributed code to the version you have.

My nick is a play on the Tolkien book the simarilion. Used to use it as my counterstrike nick when I played.

Jason Nail · Postby **Jason Nail** » Tue Mar 29, 2011 3:56 am

OK.

I just made another outstanding reply that disappeared after trying to attach a picture! It was full of information. OK. So, copy to Word before attaching a picture!

I'm not going to list all the scientists, personal assumptions, and references all over again. I will simply state, in a nutshell, that I think... Well, I am being rushed. I find it difficult to express thoughts under such circumstances. Before, I had all morning, alone, to research, postulate, and respond to this post. Now, its like, hurry up, and lets go. So, I am going to attach the picture again and maybe it can speak a thousand words of what I originally intended. The intent was to post great names and accomplishments in the advancement of percieving our reality to see if any one would respond. My question, Is anybody tracing tachyonic particles?, is beyond the domain of this forum, but, maybe some one is? I used this link as reference, http://www.drechsel-science.de/texte-qu ... lement.pdf. I haven't even been able to find "images" of tachyons. I think we could learn a lot by tracing them. OK. I'm glad to see ~SUV as a developer. (It explains how accurate and quick the responses were) I will report more performance observations soon.

Thank you very much! Jaso

Postby **brynn** » Tue Mar 29, 2011 1:05 pm

OK. So, copy to Word before attaching a picture!

Or just copy (to clipboard) right before Submit or attaching something, or halfway through a long message. I've made a habit of doing that, after losing so many messages before they get posted! Not just here, it can happen anywhere. Sometimes it's my fault or sometimes is a glitch or server error, etc. I know a lot of people use programs like WordPad or NotePad (in Windows) or other similar programs, to write their replies, then copy/paste into the message editor when finished. That way, you have a copy left over, in case you lose it.

All I know about tachyons, I learned watching Star Trek: Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, one other that I forget the name of, and some of the Star Trek movies. As far as I know, they only exist in theory. I found this on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachyon. I suspect those doing such scientific research probably don't have time or use for Inkscape. But, I guess, who knows???

Jason Nail · Postby **Jason Nail** » Wed Mar 30, 2011 4:07 pm

I got 4000 DPI PDF in 1 second! Jaso

http://astronomyonline.org/Cosmology/Da ... rek_factor

http://www.fynu.ucl.ac.be/users/j.steyaert/index.html

http://www.asnsw.com/universe/alternate/AU8/tachyon.asp

flamingolady · Postby **flamingolady** » Fri Apr 01, 2011 8:14 am

This has been a fun thread to read! DH's (business) pc is dying (10+ yrs old) a quick and painful death, so we're also looking at pc's and hope to be able to afford one later this yr. We also like Toshiba's in general, we're owned a few and they hold up well.
I love astronomy but don't know alot about tachyons either, but, you never know who or what you'll find on here, and it sure can't hurt to ask!
There's a good variety of levels of skill on here too, the developers and such are amazing talents. I would call myself intermediate in skill, some things I know on a higher level but then there are basics I haven't learned, so I figure intermediate is a decent call, lol.
I also copy just about all of my longer posts (when I remember), FB especially loses them. I just right click and copy to the clipboard, even if the program loses the post, it's still in the memory, there's only a few really long posts that I copy to Word first.
dee

Jason Nail · Postby **Jason Nail** » Sat Apr 02, 2011 2:08 am

A 256 Scan trace of a 394KB 500x325 PNG file on the Toshiba took 17% RAM usage up to 36%. The CPU made an initial spike to 58% and danced around the 50's and stopped in under 2 minutes! and produced a 44 MB SVG file. Having done the trace a few times to log performace, InkScape had to close itself a few times (but always made an emergency save). The last error I got was:

Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime Library
This application has requested the Runtime to terminate it in an unusual way. Please contact the application's support team for more information.

Otherwise, I was able to save as a PDF @ the proper DPI no problem (prior to any crashing) and all is good.

Greetings prkos, Simarilius, llog, brynn, flamingolady, hellocatfood, druban, ~suv

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