I really cant believe my little therapy session started such a great and informative thread. Even thoughtfix showed up

Truth be told, I did not know exactly how to word my question. Really my simple question was Laptop vs EEE. I built a desktop once, a 500ghz P3 from scraps, and my dad got drunk, angry and threw it in the garbage because I bought a 79 dollar printer for it. That computer was going to be my dedicated linux box. I guess basically I just wanted some advice on what portable would be more suited for learning linux and experimenting with programming and development. I dont need high end games, or fancy 3d Modeling software. I should have asked that from the beginning. But thank you guys. I appreciate it. I'm not really good at writing, so I am sorry if I sound like an idiot.

BTW There is so much information here that you guys posted, I am still reading it.

Sounds like a good reason to me to go for a portable that you can tuck away or do stuff on a other place. IMHO if you go for portable, get one of the big ones (physically) with limited batterylife (= using desktop components = cheap) with a low spec cpu, USB2, max amount of ram you can afford and the biggest screen that is a good price/screen estate ratio. Then add a 500gb USB drive(s) as vmware/VirtualBox or other virtual stuff eats your HDD space as candy.

ha, and second hand portables are almost as expensive as new ones, so might better spend 100 usd more and get a new one in promotion.
This one has 2gb ram for example: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....=1195599779433
550 usd
Please don't feel like a "idiot". I ask everyday several "stupid" questions, that's to only way to advance in life: trying to find knowledge in the ridiculous amount of information we have at hand.
...
and to learn for other ones mistakes (which is pretty hard to do)...

But something say's me not comment on all the things said before on EEE vs laptop so i'll shut up

Actually my GF had a great quote. "Have you got a computer?" "Yeah it's a Mac Laptop" "What, are you stupid?"

I think everyone needs to take a deep breath and read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. The main character went insane trying to define quality, because it can't be done. It's in the eye of the beholder and depends on their specific uses.

I for example, can be productive on the EEE. Gimmie a connection to a SQL box and I can write/execute all the queries/procs I want. I've got enough real estate to prep data imports in Excel/Spreadsheet if needed, and can document it in Word/Word Processor.

As for the off topic bit. Mooler, take EVERYTHING everyone here tells you with a grain of salt. I crap on people who want to be artists for a living, falling just short of having them try cheap catfood because it's gonna be what they're living off of. But people ARE successful artists. I'll still give you my two cents tho.

A+ is pretty useless. It's a lot of money to spend to end up working for Geek Squad with a bunch of mouth breathers. MCSE is always a nice to have but I've never seen anyone in the industry give it any mind. Someone said try the DB route. I did that and I love it, no shortage of work. You need a LOT of discipline to do it, and if you ever decide to, repeat this 100x. Production is hallowed ground. Test multiple times, execute once.

I've never understood the cat food thing. Cat food ain't cheap. It's more expensive than lots of human food. Ramen noodles, rice, and lentils are cheap, and the lentils and rice are very nourishing and taste pretty good to boot. For a dollar you can make several meals. It does require cooking and some prior planning, say a half-hour's worth.

Well, I hadn't planned on it, it just happened. I still have my HP laptop and my desktop, I just quit turning them on. They're still sitting there, gathering dust.

I guess I'll throw in my $.02. Based on what I hear from the OP (well thats how I read it at least), I think the eee would be the best bet overall. Here is my twisted reasoning. Based on his living situation it would seem best for him to keep it small so as to be able to stash it away and still be able to use it away from home. Also he can always just use the KM&M from the desktop. From what I overstand from his post, he is looking to learn, well there is much you can learn from the eee. The methods used to install other operating systems ( other flavors of Linux, same with windows and OSX are known to work), then configuring them to use all of the eee's hardware would be useful. Then there are all the mods that can be done to the little bugger. (Internal BT, touch screen, 3g, gps... you get the picture). There have been quite a few good suggestions but I think that there is nothing wrong with the original question. That there are other issues involved, uh, yeah.

And who can say he manipulates an Oracle as job?

There Is No Spoon

SQL>drop user sys cascade;
ora-3113: end of file on communication channel

sgosnell: Hey man, I've been a vegetarian for 15 years, ramen and lentils are right up my alley when I was broke. (Actually, 5 cans of beans and a can of stewed tomatoes and you've got a week's worth of veggie chilli for a few bucks, plus it's more nutritious.)

polossatik: I'm embarassed to admit it but I know little to nothing of Oracle. SQL Server here (sigh). I'm awesome with T-SQL but much to my chagrine MS is moving towards giving everything .NET cancer so I get to deal with developers who attack SQL like they would C. Different worlds.

I have a Nokia N800 with a 16 gig card. I am having vision problems and cannot see the screen on my 800. I am thinking about the Asus Eee 2g model. Anyone have any thoughts pro or con?

I have a Nokia N800 with a 16 gig card. I am having vision problems and cannot see the screen on my 800. I am thinking about the Asus Eee 2g model. Anyone have any thoughts pro or con? Can the card work on the Eee?