Laptop Requirement

Any student enrolled in a Kahlert School of Computing course with laboratory sections is required to bring and use their personal laptop during the lab class.

Do Not Share Laptops

Students should not share laptops for the following reasons:

• Assignments and other coursework are private to a particular student and must not be shared.
• A student may need administrative access to their laptop.
• A student may need to install or uninstall software packages.

Backing Up Data

Each student is responsible for the data on their laptop and should back up this data to a remote location (e.g., UBox, Google Drive) regularly so that the loss of a laptop does not prevent the student from completing their coursework in a timely manner.

Suggested Specifications

Most modern laptops built within the last two years should meet the minimum requirements.  Students may use either Macintosh or Windows-compatible computers. At least 512GB of storage is recommended. Tablets are not recommended.

Required Software

The laptop may run Windows, OS X, or Linux, as long as it is able to run the software required by courses, which may include PyCharm and Python, Eclipse and Java, C#, Linux, or a virtual machine running Linux.  In general, it is the student’s responsibility to install and maintain the software on their laptop.

Access to the Price College of Engineering Software via Virtual Machines

The Price College maintains a repository of virtual machines that students can access via a web browser or standalone application.  See the Remote Access FAQ for more information on remotely accessing these machines.  In some cases, using a virtual machine alleviates the need for students to have specialized software running natively on their laptops.