buying a laptop either bare or with Ubuntu

[Ben Scott]

On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 3:58 PM, Lloyd Kvam <python at venix.com> wrote:
> The HP laptop that was too slow did OK in casual store browsing.
> However, once Steph started trying to do some real work on the laptop,
> the screen scrolling was just too slow.

  That's almost certainly due to video drivers.  Most likely, it was
running the generic SVGA drivers, as Jerry said.  They lack
practically all hardware acceleration, so even simple scrolling means
tons of data transfer between main memory and the frame buffer.

  If device-specific proprietary drivers are available, it will make a
huge difference in performance.

-- Ben