On 03/15/2011 01:41 AM, Brendan Kidwell wrote: > For anyone who was following my attempt to get Ubuntu running on my Toshiba > Satellite T235D at Saturday's Installfest, and those of you shopping for a > new light laptop, here's my final report: I gave up and returned the damned > thing (bought less than a week ago) and paid the restocking fee. > > Back on Saturday, after fiddling with the Linux kernel ACPI switches, I > settled on "pci=noacpi" which allowed the system to boot completely, but > failed to provide any access to or even evidence of a backlight control. > What good is a claimed 6 or 7 hour battery life if I can't adjust the > display power? (Also as an aside, out of the endless stream of "studies" in > the news this week comes advice to not be reading harsh bright computer or > smartphone displays at bedtime, so there's a legitimate medical reason I > need a brightness control.) :^) > > Following some old advice archived here < > http://www.gentoo-wiki.info/ACPI/Fix_common_problems > I pulled the ACPI > DSDT information out of the firmware and had a look at it in disassembled > view. Using Intel's ACPI machine language compiler whose pickiness is > reportedly similar to that of the Linux kernel, I found there were tons of > errors and undefined symbols in it. I didn't want to become an ACPI expert > and spend days debugging it; I just wanted a working computer. More recent > advice confirms: you don't want to be mucking about with ACPI if you're not > an expert. > > I discovered that a lot of Toshiba Satellite computers are compatible with > the Omnibook ACPI driver, the computers themselves having been apparently > made by HP. Some more poking around in my machine revealed that the Omnibook > driver was always trying to load at boot time but didn't know what to do > with my firmware anyway. > > I wouldn't recommend anyone buy the Satellite T235D except as a Windows > 7-only machine. > > So I returned that on Sunday and went back to square one. Sunday night I > found out about the Dell Vostro 130, which is recent update of the Vostro 13 > from the previous year. It's a thin, light 13.3" widescreen no-optical-drive > laptop, and ships with Ubuntu or Windows. The updated 130 model that ships > with Ubuntu 10.04 ($430 if anyone's shopping...) has a dual core > Arrandale-based Intel Celeron, which is basically an Core i5 Lite (no > hyperthreading). The Windows model has an actual Core i5 processor. I'm > aware that reviews complain the battery is weak, but I live tethered most of > the time anyway. I figured I can't go wrong with compatibility if Ubuntu's > web site says the it works. > > I placed a mail order for the Vostro 130 and I'll let you know how it goes > when I get it. > Please do. I've heard a lot of bad things about Toshiba laptops both on Windows and on Linux, but I did buy my wife one a few years ago, and my friend bought one, but these are Windows only. Over the years in the installfests we've had success with the Thinkpad and most HP/Compaqs. While we had some issues initially with the Asus Eee PC, those seem to be resolved and the Asus and Acer netbooks run Linux reasonably well. In general, Dells also fare well although we have had some issues. I think you've made a good choice.
-- Jerry Feldman <[email protected]> Boston Linux and Unix PGP key id: 537C5846 PGP Key fingerprint: 3D1B 8377 A3C0 A5F2 ECBB CA3B 4607 4319 537C 5846
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