Thinking of only using my laptop to remote into my desktop 24/7, smart idea?

[dpatel]

Not sure if my topic title was clear enough.

Basically I need a new laptop, and was wondering if I could buy a cheap netbook, and simply use my laptop to connect to my desktop. I haven't really had much experience with remote desktop software, so I don't know how good it is, but I do use my laptop for several hours a day so the software does have to be good enough for vigorous use.

I am currently a student and work part time and will be using my laptop primarily to:
- surf internet (shouldn't really need to remote in for that)
- program (should be able to easily run any compiler)
- use virtual OS software (will most likely be running some form of Linux virtually)

If anyone has any experience doing something similar to this, please let me know. If the remote software is effective enough, it seems like a great option. This way, I can get a cheap laptop that can do everything I need and have a much longer battery life than the more powerful laptops.

 

[n25philly]

Remote desktop will be slow no matter what laptop you get

Running a virtual OS on a netbook is not the best idea. With a single core processor and a limited amount of ram it's likely going to run poorly. If you are going to get a netbook and want to run windows and linux the best option would be to dual boot.

If you definately want to do linux virtually I would pick up a more traditional laptop. For the same price as most of the latest netbooks you can pick up a regular laptop that can actually process data faster than a calculator and will handle what you need nicely.