Quartus II on NetBook Computer w/Win7 starter OpS

[Altera_Forum]

hi, folks, 

i am a sub-contractor designer, and from tome to time a have to come to customer lab for system debug & integration. i am tired of running around with large 15", multi-kilogram, high performance laptop computer.....  i'm thinking of option to buy a high-screen-resolution netbook computer, like lenovo idealpad d10-3 and use it in 2 modes:  for light fpga designs i want the Quartus II to be installed on the netbook and run from it. the netbook is quite limited - it's usually equipped with atom N450 processor, 1G memory and has Win7 starter for operating system. 1. would the quartus II run on this kind of machine and operating system? 2. would the run times be reasonable for instance to run compile design on EP3C16, 70% utilization?  the other way, for really "heavy" designs, i want to run the whole thing via remote desktop application (like LogMeIn) on server in the office and use the netbook to program the device on target by usb-blaster and to use the signal tap interface. 1. the signal tap is an iterative application. do you think the netbook is strong enough to support this kind of operation?  does anyone has such experience? any advice? is there any special support by quartus II software i should know?  thanx in advance eli.

[Altera_Forum]

I have Quartus installed on a Gigabyte T1028 from the last time I needed it for a demonstration. 

 The Netbook has a 1.6Ghz Atom, 1Gb memory and a fairly high resolution screen.    Quartus installs and runs but to be honest I get frustrated with the compile time on my 2.6Ghz RAIDed 64-bit Quad Core desktop with 6Gb RAM; the netbook isn't even on the scale.   If the 15" is too bulky have you considered buying another high power but smaller laptop? I recently recommended to my brother an Alienware M11x. It has a more powerful processor than my desktop (which I would guess is the most important factor in Quartus compile time) and weighs barely more than the netbook, if any more at all. (Though the Gigabyte is heavier than most netbooks with its clever screen)   If you don't want to pay for the Alienware brand im sure there must be similar offerings from other manufacturers if you think you can work with the smaller screen.

[Altera_Forum]

Yes, i would prefer the 11.5" or even the 10" because it's light and small... 

The problem is that most of 10" netbooks are limited to 600 pixels in height resolution.... I don't want to run heavy compilations on it, the method of work should be that the compilation runs desctop a server in the office, the only thing the netbook shoud do is to download the sof and stp files and operate FPGA download and debug by the signal tap...  The big question is what is this "Windows7 Starter"? is it good enough or i need at least the "Home" addition? Are they significant limitations which not allowing to use it?  This Alienware M11x really looks like a wild animal and it is 3 times more expensive than the Lenovo IdeaPad U150 with the duo processor and 3G ram... It also less heavy and comes with the Win7 64 bit...

[Altera_Forum]

Windows 7 Starter is a cut down version of Windows 7 designed for netbooks and for sale at very low costs. 

In Starter a number of UI features have been removed (some purely asthetic ones - you can't change the wallpaper - and some acctually fairly crippling ones - access to the clever touch screen features in 7 is not available in Starter which is a little grating after spending all that money on the Gigabyte).   There is quite a lot online about Windows 7 Starter (mainly articles complaining about it!) but in fairness to Microsoft it was intended as the ultra-cut price version specifically for netbooks whose markets probably couldn't bear the cost of a more expensive OS. The idea I think is that if you buy a netbook with Starter on it, its meant to be one so basic that you wouldn't need any of the features that Starter has had removed. Of course all the manufacturers just use it as a cheap way to ship all netbooks with 'Windows 7' and thus much dissapointment follows.   I think the things you'd miss from Starter are the .NET Framework at 64bit support.   In my personal experience netbooks are a bit of a false economy, they seem great on paper, but my Gigabyte, as nice as it is, isn't used as much as my older and larger laptop was before it broke. Like how GPS on the phone is never quite as good as a dedicated TomTom, netbooks aren't as easy to read off as eBook readers, not as portable as internet enabled smartphones and not as powerful as proper laptops.   The U150 looks like a great deal also, i'd definately go with the Core 2 Duo, it might also be an idea to check out some benchmarks comparing the low voltage series processors, which the U150 has, with the desktop series so you could get a better idea of how it will run (assuming you have some older PCs with Quartus installed). Though if you can afford it I would consider a Core i-series based notebook as the performance jump from the lga775 range to the i-series is much greater than that of the 478 to lga775 owing to the removal of the northbridge in its traditional form.

[Altera_Forum]

the conclusion is that i'll skip the starter option. 

the whole idea to use netbook is because i don't want to wander around with big and heavy computer. i always looking for more convenient way of doig things.  this may be a good idea for MaxplusII developers in Altera - to create a version of their excellent design tool to be splitted on 2 machines: the heavy duty processing core to run on remote server, while the netbook lite computer runs only the user/graphical interface, what may reduce significantly the data flow between them to create the look & feel like working on the server locally....