You'll want 512-1024 MB of memory. Some parts of AFNI really chew up memory (e.g., volume rendering, registration, SUMA). And you'll want enough disk space to keep all the data you'll be trundling around.

AFNI runs on RedHat 7.3, 8.0, and 9.0 (at least). It usually isn't very hard to get it to run on almost any Linux.

If you think you might want to run SUMA someday [afni.nimh.nih.gov] then you will want to get something with an nVidia GeForce graphics card -- these have Linux drivers for their hardware OpenGL and make SUMA rock and roll at 12+ frames per second. We have bought Dell laptops for this purpose. The downside is that these laptops are heavy: 8+ pounds with battery. Also, you will probably want a moderately skilled Linux sysadmin to get the nVidia drivers installed correctly; I believe that RH 9.0 is the simplest in this regard.

Most laptops do not come with such graphics cards. ATI Radeon cards are more common, but they don't have Linux drivers (yet), just Windows drivers, so they aren't so useful for SUMA. They'll work fine with AFNI itself, which doesn't use OpenGL.

If you are not planning to SUMA-ize with your laptop, then a lighter machine is quite possible. My wife just got a Sony Vaio, and it works well, and weighs about 4 pounds.

My personal choice would be a Mac OS X 12 inch PowerBook, though. Not Windows compatible obviously, but very nice, very cute, reasonably light. And it works well with SUMA. I'm more and more a Mac OS X user now. At the moment, I've got 3 in my office (new G5, PowerBook, and older iMac).

You can see some speed results at [afni.nimh.nih.gov] -- but the only laptop on there is my Mac.

bob cox