new dell laptop guide

In an attempt to expedite my thesis work, last month I purchased a new laptop: Dell Inspiron 640m. A high-end MacBook would have been preferable; but unfortunately, the Mac would have been near double the price for the same raw computational power. (Already I miss the keyboard and DVI video output.)

The performance for this model—both in terms of computation and battery life—is quite impressive and makes all of my other machines appear to be obsolete by comparison. Needing a competent workstation for hardware and software design, I removed the preloaded Windows Vista Business and installed Gentoo Linux; and as such, I have written a page of notes with details.