My New Dev Laptop

[wiak]

My all-time favourite HP Elitebook 2530p (semi-retired)

So after eight years I have put my now crippled HP Elitebook 2530p dev laptop out to seed. It still functions, but only booting now from 16GB sdcard. I wouldn't be surprised it I keep using it for my daily browsing, but for development purposes I inherited the following machine a few months back (but had it gathering dust in a cupboard till now):

Code: Select all

HP EliteBook Folio 1020 G1
Processor: Intel Core M-5Y71 CPU @ 1.20GHz
RAM: 8017MB
Hard Disk: 256GB

My goodness, first time I've been using UEFI machine (left secure boot enabled and booting via grub2 on internal hard drive).

Tonight installed WDL_Arch64 onto it (mainly by direct copy from old machine's sdcard so my git directories already installed and therefore convenient pushing up this new blog post to my https://tinylinux.info site).

So plenty of space now and back in dev business...

Posting from it now.

Note that I boot with WeeDogLinux kernel option

Code: Select all

w_changes=EXIT

That uses a copy of upper_changes persistence folder in RAM and doesn't save it back to main harddrive unless I arrange for it to do so - that saves all potential SSD wear since not generally writing back to it. I should of course implement an rsync back, when desired during shutdown, but haven't got round to writing the script for that and just tend to do it manually for now... Of course anything actually written to the boot folder that doesn't involve upper_changes (such as my git folders and cherrytree notes) does actually get saved there.

I'll likely update this post later (I would change image to that of actual machine, but late here and a bit too dark for photo...).

[Grey]

Hello wiak. If you have time and opportunity, please measure the performance of your machine. I am interested in two tests. The simplest is the benchmark built into the 7z archiver, which is launched by the 7z b command(results in MIPS). And the second test in the HardInfo program, the CPU Zlib benchmark(results in HIMarks).

[rockedge]

This sounds and feels like good news!

[wiak]

Hello wiak. If you have time and opportunity, please measure the performance of your machine. I am interested in two tests. The simplest is the benchmark built into the 7z archiver, which is launched by the 7z b command(results in MIPS). And the second test in the HardInfo program, the CPU Zlib benchmark(results in HIMarks).

On the way out but I'll report back sometime later. I doubt it is very fast (I have no idea since just a business throw-out machine given to me so probably lowest spec version of Folio G1). In use doesn't feel any faster than my previous ancient Core2duo hp eliteboot 2530p machine, but nothing I'm doing that would show speed I guess. To be honest, I prefer my old machine (too bad its hard drive failed) cos I liked its size and excellent keyboard. This new machine looks fantastic by comparison (in the sense that looks like a thinish Mac type of computer and has hdmi port and usb3 I think). Anyway, I am lucky to have it so shouldn't mourn my old faithful too much (but yeah, going to set up my old machine for browsing, despite its slow boot up via sdcard - I would feel odd not using it most of the time - but for dev purposes this new one is interesting since using UEFI etc - actually my old machine had some kind of UEFI available too, but never tried it - must be ancient version I suppose). Back later.

[wiak]

Hello wiak. If you have time and opportunity, please measure the performance of your machine. I am interested in two tests. The simplest is the benchmark built into the 7z archiver, which is launched by the 7z b command(results in MIPS). And the second test in the HardInfo program, the CPU Zlib benchmark(results in HIMarks).

I'm not sure what following results will tell you in practice though. I got very different results when running same tests on my 'new' HP Elitebook Folio G1 in FossaPup64 (tried CPU performance scaling, and with scaling off altogether).
I don't want to compare overall though, just curious what is going on: (on FPup CPU Zlib test reported 0.25 on several tries including after rebooting). Maybe WDL_Arch64 results so good cos I'm running with upper_changes in RAM? [EDIT: does make a difference; I tried again with upper_changes being on disk and written to immediately giving CPU Zlib: 0.38 on WDL_Arch64 - anyway, obviously many factors can change results - kernel difference and so on. EDIT2: just tried again with upper_changes back in RAM and got WDL_arch64 CPU Zlib 0.38 again... sigh... very variable results - rebooted, tested again... back to over 0.50 - oh well, higher the better apparently]. I'm not going to do further tests though - except I may try same on my old HP Eliteboot 2530p core2duo machine (also using WDL_Arch64 OS).

EDIT3: On old HP Elitebook 2530p 4G RAM core2duo L9600 @2.13GHz CPU machine, OS identically configured WDL_Arch64 - hardinfo CPU Zlib reported 0.23 so pretty good for the old machine really, if any of this actually means anything...

Using WDL_arch64 on my new HP Elitebook Folio G1

From Hardinfo benchmarks:

Code: Select all

CPU Blowfish: 4.18
CPU CryptoHash: 396.08
CPU Fibonacci: 0.45
CPU N-Queens: 6.62
CPU Zlib: 0.54
FPU FFT: 1.87
FPU Raytracing: 1.89
GPU Drawing: 5471.37

From 7z b:

Code: Select all

[root@bootstrap ~]# 7z b

7-Zip [64] 17.04 : Copyright (c) 1999-2021 Igor Pavlov : 2017-08-28
p7zip Version 17.04 (locale=C,Utf16=off,HugeFiles=on,64 bits,4 CPUs x64)

x64
CPU Freq: - - - - - - - - -

RAM size:    7829 MB,  # CPU hardware threads:   4
RAM usage:    882 MB,  # Benchmark threads:      4

                       Compressing  |                  Decompressing
Dict     Speed Usage    R/U Rating  |      Speed Usage    R/U Rating
         KiB/s     %   MIPS   MIPS  |      KiB/s     %   MIPS   MIPS

22:       9151   337   2640   8903  |      88373   399   1891   7540
23:       9034   347   2656   9205  |      55397   398   1203   4793
24:       5452   334   1756   5862  |      53977   398   1189   4738
25:       5354   338   1809   6114  |      53385   398   1193   4751
----------------------------------  | ------------------------------
Avr:             339   2215   7521  |              398   1369   5456
Tot:             369   1792   6488

[dancytron]

Offtopic I know, but if you don't mind, what failed on your other laptop.

I have a HP 2540P and just wonder what's coming?

[wiak]

Offtopic I know, but if you don't mind, what failed on your other laptop.

I have a HP 2540P and just wonder what's coming?

HP 2530p has proved to be an incredibly resilient machine. Only thing that tended to go (I have a few) is the internal fan, getting very noisy and seizing eventually from dust (but on very heavily used machines). What finally did go was the SSD harddrive in my machine but I remain convinced the system was damaged by a cheap device I connected to usb since immediately after that the harddrive was smoked:

viewtopic.php?p=23036#p23036

Hmmm... So today I discovered a wee bluetooth receiver (audio plug output) for NZ$2 in what we call a 2 dollar shop. Was like a usb flash stick with a 3mm audio socket. Bought it, took it home, plugged it into a usb port on my main machine (which I do all dev work on), plugged computer speakers into it, switched on my android phone bluetooth, connected to the new device, played a youtube video, yeah... the sound played through the computer speakers... success!!! Then, for the first time in history of me using it, WDL_Arch64 crashed. ?????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! All I was using it for was to provide power to the bluetooth receiver... oops.... it wasn't a usb port that says it supplied power (never thought that wee BT receiver would need much - seems I was wrong...

Result: my computer generally seems fine (posting from it now), but... the SSD 128GB hard drive is fried... I guess something to do with usb voltage shorting out and somehow taking the drive with it...

Unfortunately the internal HD interface seems to have been damaged with the result that a new SSD I then substituted in only worked for one boot and then was unusable too - hence my resorting finally to only booting that apparently damaged machine via SD card (since I'm not willing to risk trying any further harddrive inside it...).

Actually, I'm posting from same 2530p machine right now because I love its keyboard and can't get myself to use the newer HP Folio G1 for general browsing, so I'm happy this old 2530p laptop still serves me well.

wiak

[Grey]

I'm not sure what following results will tell you in practice though.

Wow... The results are even better than I expected. Yes, the results depend on the settings, but such tests are needed for an overall performance assessment and comparison of different machines. An acquaintance offers me to buy such a device from him, almost for nothing. He says "put it in the kitchen, eat an omelet and read the news" There is something wrong with the hard drive, but that's not a problem.

I already have hefty Acer Aspire 7560G. I have not been able to use BOTH video cards SIMULTANEOUSLY on it in Linux. Hybrid Radeon HD 6740G2(Radeon HD 6650M + Radeon HD 6620G). A bunch of two AMD. There is a special driver for Windows and the cards can be paired in CrossFire mode.
But it does have a compartment for a SECOND hard drive True, it turned out that even thin disks do not fit. I didn't buy a special cover for a lot of money, but just took a scalpel and cut off the growths on the back of the cover. It is also possible to install a third hard drive through a cheap chinese adapter instead of a DVD drive.
The keyboard is awesome apart from the cursor keys - Acer had a lot of space on a huge laptop, but they made the cursor keys SMALL.