Most affordable, portable, battery-powered hardware for running a LAMP setup for development?

Question

I will be flying to Australia (~15 hr. flight) and I'd like to continue work on my current project while on the airplane.

My project (website on CakePHP framework) requires a LAMP bundle so I'm looking for a very portable, reasonably affordable device that can accommodate a LAMP installation, and also could retain battery life throughout the majority of the flight.

I've never owned an Apple product, but could an iPad (decent battery lifetime) be setup with LAMP somehow? A netbook seems to be the obvious choice, but ones I've looked at don't have great battery durations. Is there a third party battery for netbooks with uber-strength somewhere?

Thanks!

Answer 1

I don't think an iPad is able to run LAMP :

• Linux : definitly not -- but, OK, you could go without Linux : AMP will generally be enough
• Apache : I don't think so
• MySQL : same
• PHP : heu... I've heard once that it was possible to run some PHP script on an iPhone, but I don't think it'll be as great as the real thing...
  • For example, on Android, you can run PHP scripts, but only have a couple of very basic extension (no mysql extension, for example, to communicate with a MySQL server)

If you want to develop in PHP and run an [WLM]AMP stack, you'll probably need some kind of a "real" computer...

... SOme sort of netbook (i.e. eee-PC like) should generally be OK : the screen an keyboard are small (not perfect to develop), but battefry-life should be OK on some of those.

Else, some high-end portable computer have up to 4-6 hours of battery-life... Not 15h, though... you'll either need a couple of additional batteries (can you take those on a plane ? ), or an adapter to be able to charge it.

Answer 2

Considering the cost of a Netbook and additional batteries, it may be worthwhile checking prices for upgrading to a (Business class? First class?) seat that offers a DC plug able to satisfy a "normal" laptop if you have one.

Answer 3

You have a few choices.

• Spend the dough and upgrade to buisiness class. They have power outlets.
• Figure out the battery life of your netbook (say 3 hours) and buy enough batteries so you can swap them out as they die. (thats 5 batteries buddy!)
• Just take a couple of Ambien and get some drug induced sleep and forget about working.