Phil,

Funny you should mention Vmware. I use it instead of a dual boot set-up and
it works fairly well assuming that you allocate about 60GB to the virtual
partition. The nice thing about Vmware is the capacity to pass files back
and forth between operating systems through a shared directory. I process a
few things in Linux and pass the results to the shared directory, then I
leave Vmware to pick back up in Windows for various operations. I'm sure I
pay a price in performance by using Vmware, but I'm too chicken to go
completely off the Windows-grid.

Warm regards,
Jeff Browndyke

- Duke University Medical Center -

-----Original Message-----
From: Phil Greer [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Tuesday, April 25, 2006 18:14
To: Jeff Browndyke
Cc: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [SPM] Laptop recommendations for mobile imaging work


The Dell will probably work good for windows. I have most always have
linux driver
issues when installing on brand spanking new software. Usually
something like the
network driver, modem or accelerated graphics. As the new Core duo
kit is so new
I would troll some of the fedora newsgroups to see if anyone is
having problems
with that chip set or just stick with Windows for now.

You could also try out VMware or Parallels workstation and setup a
virtual linux
install. I have read that doing that can be surprisingly good
performance wise, at
least on the Apple kit were matlab runs under emulation.

-Phil Greer
University of Pittsburgh

On Apr 25, 2006, at 5:45 PM, Jeff Browndyke wrote:

> Thanks to all for the suggestions. It was helpful to hear that I
> wouldn't run afoul by going with the Intel Duo Core processor. As
> such,
> I believe I've settled on a Dell Inspiron E1710 w/ the Duo 2GHz, 2GB
> RAM, and 100GB drive. Assuming I don't have any screen overheading
> issues (as was experienced in an old Dell laptop of mine), I think
> that
> set-up will do the trick.
>
> BTW - Darren, your numbers generate serious data envy! I thought I
> was
> lucky to work with 50 scans at any one point in time.
>
> Cheers to all,
> Jeff
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: SPM (Statistical Parametric Mapping) [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> On Behalf Of Darren Gitelman
> Sent: Tuesday, April 25, 2006 4:22 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [SPM] Laptop recommendations for mobile imaging work
>
> Hi Phil
>
> I have a Dell 600m, Pentium M 1.8 Ghz, 2 GB ram, 60 GB hd, running
> windows xp, and matlab and spm run quite well. No I cannot start more
> than 1 analysis at a time and expect to use the machine while it is
> running, but
> Matlab 7 is pretty good about not totally hogging the processor. I can
> run
> DCM's with 5-6 regions and 1300 scans in 20-60 minutes depending on
> the
> number of iterations. It runs a "standard" SPM analysis, 200 images,
> comparing some active and some rest condition in less than 10
> minutes. I
> just ran a 260 image realignment which estimated and wrote out the
> images
> and mean image- it took 10 minutes. I assume that a faster processor
> and/or
> hard disk would speed the processing proportionately.
>
> By the way, the lab just bought an desktop computer with an AMD 64 bit
> processor and it was a huge pain to install the 64 bit version of
> windows and appropriate 64 bit drivers (perhaps this argues for
> linux). Something
> went surreptitiously wrong with installing the updated windows
> installer
> and
> this required reinstalling the OS again.
>
> Surprisingly though running bench on the 64 bit version of Matlab -
> 2006a, was not very speedy at all even for the purely CPU based
> calculations. So
> perhaps there is some other optimization that needs to be sorted out.
>
> I'm going to go play with the software settings now until something
> breaks. Darren
>
>
> | -----Original Message-----
> | From: SPM (Statistical Parametric Mapping)
> | [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Phil Greer
> | Sent: Tuesday, April 25, 2006 2:22 PM
> | To: [log in to unmask]
> | Subject: Re: [SPM] Laptop recommendations for mobile imaging work
> |
> | the core duo is currently a 32bit chip. the 64bit version
> | (mermon) will not be coming out till fall/winter.
> |
> | matlab works fine on the core duo under linux and windows. it does
> | not run that well on osx-intel. the biggest problem there is the
> | java front end it does not work on macintel machines.
> |
> | I am not sure what is the best linux supported core duo laptop right
> | now, you will have to wait for another answer.
> |
> | -Phil Greer
> | University of Pittsburgh
> |
> |
> | On Apr 25, 2006, at 2:52 PM, Jeff Browndyke wrote:
> |
> | > While well knowing that laptops are generally not the best
> | option for
> | > imaging work, I'm curious to hear of any success stories from list
> | > members who have run analyses from a laptop. Aside from maxing
> out
> | > the RAM (2GB), having a fast processor (2Ghz), and at least
> | 100GB of
> | > storage, what else would one need? Is any particular laptop brand
> | > better than others for imaging work?
> | >
> | > Also, does anyone know if Matlab has difficulties running
> | on Intel's
> | > Duo processor, which I believe is a 64bit setup? Any
> processors to
> | > avoid?
> | >
> | > Thanks,
> | > Jeff
> |