New laptop for fun and machine learning

pascal

Veteran
Hi all,

Usually I use a ultrabook with SSD for daily work.
Now working at home a bought a small casual gaming notebook (arrive monday).
Lenovo L340 i5 9300H 8GB ram GTX 1050 3GB
I will install a 1TB MX300 SSD I have around.

I was thinking in have some fun and continue learning about different things:
- machine learning, python/cython, pytorch or/and tensorflow
- fedora (dual boot with windows)
- etc..

Any ideas ?
Thanks a lot ;)
 
Go with Google Collab.

It's free, it uses their hardware. It's cloud so you do it anywhere.
You can have access to CPU, GPU, and Tensor Processing Units.
All their libraries are up to date, and it can pull from Kaggle and GIT.

Its the fastest way to start datascience while bypassing environment setup, and the training is done on Teslas K80s or something like that. It's around 6-7 TF of power. Double precision and half precision aren't impacted like Pascals.

You can save all your stuff on your google drive etc. The only challenge is loading it with data sets, smaller ones are fine, but custom GB ones can get annoying to redo every single time you reboot your instance with them.
 
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Go with Google Collab.

It's free, it uses their hardware. It's cloud so you do it anywhere.
You can have access to CPU, GPU, and Tensor Processing Units.
All their libraries are up to date, and it can pull from Kaggle and GIT.

Its the fastest way to start datascience while bypassing environment setup, and the training is done on Teslas K80s or something like that. It's around 6-7 TF of power. Double precision and half precision aren't impacted like Pascals.

You can save all your stuff on your google drive etc. The only challenge is loading it with data sets, smaller ones are fine, but custom GB ones can get annoying to redo every single time you reboot your instance with them.

In the beginning I was considering buying a RTX 2060 laptop.
Google Collab and Drive looks very good.

Thanks!
 
The new Lenovo L340 laptop arrived on April 23. The idea is it to be a low cost and fun upgrade.
I have a very good Dell 7472 i7-8550U 14" FullHD laptop for daily use and exchanged the Lenovo 8GB ram with the Dell 16GB ram.
Also I migrated the Dell 1TB MX300 SSD to the L340 and installed an old and trusty 480GB M500 SSD in the Dell.
I upgrade the firmware and did some test/maintenance on both laptops.
My young daughter will use the Dell.

The first impressions of the L340 Laptop:
- The new configuration is 15,6" FullHD IPS, i5 9300H, 16GB DDR4 2400MHz ram, GTX 1050 3GB, 2.5" 1TB MX300 SSD, 2.2Kg
- It is easy to open, upgrade and configure.
- For me is not so heavy and hot for home office/web use.
- It is fast and fluid for office applications and web. The 9300H is perceptibly faster than the 8550U with the same RAM and SSD.
- The L340 is discret for a gamer laptop and the blue keyboard light is easy on the eyes.
- The 15.6" display has 24% more space and is more comfortable too.

Review:
Upgrade:

The Crucial MX300 SSD is fast enough and reliable. The Storage Executive tool show 99% of lifetime remaining !!
The Windows 10 Pro is installed in a 400GB partition.
Now I will create a new partition and test/decide the Linux OS version: Ubuntu 18.04.4 LTS, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (new release) or Xubuntu 20.04 LTS (light interface version).
I will test a few games too :)
 
The new Lenovo L340 laptop arrived on April 23. The idea is it to be a low cost and fun upgrade.
I have a very good Dell 7472 i7-8550U 14" FullHD laptop for daily use and exchanged the Lenovo 8GB ram with the Dell 16GB ram.
Also I migrated the Dell 1TB MX300 SSD to the L340 and installed an old and trusty 480GB M500 SSD in the Dell.
I upgrade the firmware and did some test/maintenance on both laptops.
My young daughter will use the Dell.

The first impressions of the L340 Laptop:
- The new configuration is 15,6" FullHD IPS, i5 9300H, 16GB DDR4 2400MHz ram, GTX 1050 3GB, 2.5" 1TB MX300 SSD, 2.2Kg
- It is easy to open, upgrade and configure.
- For me is not so heavy and hot for home office/web use.
- It is fast and fluid for office applications and web. The 9300H is perceptibly faster than the 8550U with the same RAM and SSD.
- The L340 is discret for a gamer laptop and the blue keyboard light is easy on the eyes.
- The 15.6" display has 24% more space and is more comfortable too.

Review:
Upgrade:

The Crucial MX300 SSD is fast enough and reliable. The Storage Executive tool show 99% of lifetime remaining !!
The Windows 10 Pro is installed in a 400GB partition.
Now I will create a new partition and test/decide the Linux OS version: Ubuntu 18.04.4 LTS, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (new release) or Xubuntu 20.04 LTS (light interface version).
I will test a few games too :)
I think it's easier to go with Docker or use Anaconda for your data science needs. No reason to make partitions for a new OS. Environment setup is always changing and it's such a pain. Being able to just bring in a data science container and get started right away is ideal if you want to do things locally.
 
The latest versions of Anaconda, Python, Nvidia CUDA and Pytorch are installed and running smoothly.
laptop-l340-pytorch1.jpg laptop-l340-pytorch2.jpg
I learned Python and beginning to play with Pytorch :)

I will test the Fedora Silverblue (the immutable) with containers soon.
My guess this is the future.
 
Upgrade time!
Bought a new laptop Lenovo Legion 5i -- i7 10750H, 16B ram, SSD 512GB nvme, RTX 2060 6GB, 120Hz FullHD 15.6" display.
End of year promotion. Hope it will be here before Christmas.
Current laptop will stay with my daughter.

Legion 5i review:
Looks like it has very good cooling.
 
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