Purchasing a computer
Most long-term appointments (graduate student, postdoc, staff) will mean purchasing a new computer. Exceptions include:
If you are joining an existing project for which another staff member is leaving behind a state-of-the-art computer (e.g., 1-2 years old), we may use that one instead of purchasing a new computer.
Short-term appointments (e.g., internships) will not involve a computer purchase unless otherwise stated - you will instead receive an excellent computer from the group’s stock.
Mac, Windows, or Linux?
You should buy a Mac, and probably a Macbook. Although this sounds extreme, and may even induce strong feelings if you are used to a different system, in practice this has never been much of a problem. Note that I am not an Apple fanatic but simply find that these are the best systems for our type of work because they contain many of the advantages of both Linux and Windows systems in a single package.
Why not Windows? Anubhav used Windows for a very long time; it is nice, but a couple of things make it non-optimal for our work. There is no native Terminal, which you will use heavily, and programs like Cygwin are poor substitutes. Certain seemingly minor decisions made by Windows (directory slashes, line endings) are different than those from Linux, making interoperability between Linux/Mac and Windows systems more problematic (e.g., copying files to and from supercomputing centers can require converting line ending format).
Why not Linux? Linux is fine, but Microsoft Office is not available (which is used by us and most of the materials science research world) and OpenOffice is a poor substitute. Certain videoconferencing software doesn’t work well with Linux.
How about Mac? I have my complaints about it, as they are catering more to the general consumer and less to developers. Thus, you really need to spend some time setting up your Mac to make it productive for power users (see Appendix sections on how to accomplish this). But for the moment it remains a very good compromise between Linux-like and Windows-like and thus forms the basis for our workstations.
Preliminaries
Here is how to purchase a computer at the lab. Before we begin, a few notes:
In terms of the mechanics of purchasing:
Request a computer via the following link: https://commons.lbl.gov/display/itfaq/Request+a+Computer#:~:text=To%20purchase%20a%20new%20computer,and%20submit%20a%20procurement%20request.
Use LBL Ebuy (not Ebay!) to buy peripherals. Use a purchase request to buy various components using other sites like Amazon if not available via EBuy
The laptop is government property; you are expected to return it to the group when you are done working at LBNL. Note that Mac computers make it very simple to transfer everything over to your next computer.
The lab receives your computer and tags it before sending it over to you.
Selecting a computer, monitor, and accessories
Your computer workstation is one area where you should just get whatever you think will make you most productive and not care about cost. Seriously, just get what is best and do not worry about cost.
For the computer, you should select a Macbook Pro (any screen size) as mentioned above.
For accessories, make sure to get:
An extra charging cable
Any needed dongles
A Time Machine hard disk (for backup)
A keyboard. I suggest Apple Wireless Keyboard since I like the feel of Mac keys and I also like a consistent feel between my laptop keyboard and my desk keyboard. If you prefer a larger or ergonomic keyboard, you can get that.
A mouse/trackpad. I suggest Apple Magic Trackpad. Note that I’ve found that a mouse is better on Windows but a trackpad is better on Mac. The reason is because the Mac OS has really customized a lot of the interface for the trackpad (e.g., gestures). I also value consistency between my laptop and desk workstation. After awhile you get used to doing everything on your trackpad even if you were previously very productive/accurate with a mouse on Windows.
(optional) A presentation tool, e.g., Logitech R800
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