Prospective buyer: Linux drivers and My lap

Hi all,

I'm trying to break free of the Apple labotomy and love the Alienware laptops. It's great that you can still open them, the four memory slots and rooms for second HDD; true bliss.
Anyway.
I'm considering an M17x R4.

I can't get hold of on in the flesh and can't find any good inforamtion about the following:

(1) On your lap:
I love sitting in my rockingchair with my laptop. I work at a desk all day and don't want to sit at a desk when I'm at home.
Do any of you regulalry use the M17x on your lap?
I can't see how it would be a problem, I think I could handle the weight and heat, but the internet is full of "not for the lap" stories and I'm spooked.
What're your experiences?

(2) Linux
I like linux and although I can run it in virtualbox, there might come atime when I want to duel-boot and run linux.
Does anybody have expereince with hardware drivers for linux?
I'm thinking of the graphics, k1ller chipset wif, audip and those alienware lights -

(3) Any good threads I should read for tips such as the best memory to use and best harddrives to buy, etc. I can do a manual search too for these, but just incase there are any inparticualr that you've found useful.

Thanks,

 

1) it all comes down to what tour trying to do. If your playing games the bottom of the machine is gonna heat up and your gonna have issues. But for movies or light usage its not really an issue.


2) biggest issue with trying to run linux is the issue with graphics card drivers. Because the m17x has hybrid graphics, it makes finding compatible graphics card drivers a pain. I personally haven't ever really looked, but maybe someone else has more experience and can chime in.


3) it all comes down to price, personal performance and what your looking for. the corsair vengeance, and the hyper X RAM are both good brands so I would look at thoughs. As to SSD's the crucial m4 is a solid drive and has dropped below 1$/GB in most shops. Another more expensive, but fast drive you can look at is the vertex 4.

Hope some of this is helpful.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S2 running Resurrection Remix

 

Thanks for that. Well, I'd play the odd game but I'm sure I could just sit it on a tray or something.
It was more that I was worried these things are so big and so heavy that they literally aren't practical for sitting on a lap. It's hard to know until you try yourself.