Students in Kahlert School of Computing courses with laboratory sections are required to bring and use their personal laptop during lab. It is recommended that students use their laptop for coursework in all classes.
A reasonable laptop can be purchased for about $600 and should last for 2-4 years1. More information about specifications and software is given below.
Students should not share laptops. This is a necessary requirement because: 1) assignments and other coursework are private to a particular student, 2) students may need admin access to their laptop, 3) students may need to install/uninstall various software packages.
Students are responsible for the data on their laptops and should backup this data to a remote location regularly.2 "Remote locations" can be a separate computer the student owns, GitHub, Dropbox, Google Drive, etc.
Students are strongly encouraged to combine backing up and versioning. Programs such as Git can track software changes while making saves to a reliable "off-site" location.
Most modern laptops built in the last two years should suffice for the minimum requirements. Students may purchase either Macintosh* or Windows compatible computers. The prices listed below are for generic Windows laptops.
As a rule, we do not recommend gaming laptops, as they are often bulky and have short battery lives.
Additionally, tablets are not recommended.
Screen size is up to the student, though usually larger is better.
Some courses require the use of Windows-only software, although workarounds are usually available. If you decide to purchase a Mac instead, please note that you may need to invest additional time in troubleshooting and self-learning to ensure compatibility.
Low End Specifications (price → approximately $600):
High-end laptops can usually be purchased for $1,000-$2,000, with those at the $1000 price point being excellent for the next few years.
The laptop computer may run either Windows, OS X, or Linux, as long as it is able to run the software required by their major's required courses:
| Course | Specific Software |
|---|---|
| CS 1400 | PyCharm, Python |
| CS 1410 | Eclipse, Java |
| CS 1420 | Eclipse, Java |
| CS 2420 | Eclipse, Java |
| CS 3500 | Visual Studio, C# |
| CS 3505 | Linux or a virtual machine* running Linux |
The PCE maintains a "repository" of virtual machines that students can access via a web browser or standalone application. This allows a student's laptop to serve as a terminal to PCE machines, which have different types of software. See FAQ - Remote Access more information on remotely accessing these machines.
In some cases, the use of virtual machines alleviates the need for students to have specialized software running natively on their laptops (especially for expensive/licensed software that is specific to a course; e.g., Matlab, Cadence, Autodesk Maya). However, students may find that installing and running native applications to be more effective. Likewise, the PCE virtual machines are available only with internet access.
In general, it is the responsibility of the student to install and maintain the software on their computer. Should a problem occur with your machine, you should contact your service provider.
Specific courses (e.g., CS 1410) will have detailed instructions on how to install course specific software on standard Windows/Macintosh machines. If you have a problem installing the base software required for your course, there will be limited help from the course instruction staff, based on their availability.
For those students who are "experts" on their own machine, we highly recommend that you share your wisdom by helping others who are in need.
Students should plan to replace their laptop every 2-4 years depending on initial computer specifications (e.g., CPU speed and memory). The responsibility for maintaining and/or replacing the laptop is entirely on the student.
Students are responsible for backing up their laptop data remotely so that the loss of a laptop does not prevent the student from a timely completion of their coursework.