On Thursday, February 03, 2011 20:31:03 Frank DiMitri wrote: > > The higher end of the Thinkpad line (T & W) remain quite solid on Linux. > > > > No real issues of late on them by folks here in the LTC at IBM in > > > > Poughkeepsie. I can't speak about the rest of their line from direct > > experience. > > The X series is basically the same as the T/W, but in a slimmer case, with > a smaller screen/battery and generally slower clocked CPUs. > > I'd think that pretty much all laptops have good Linux compatibility.
Be careful making that kind of a general, global statement -- that kind of thing can lead people astray. New hardware comes out all of the time, and obscure laptops with broken BIOSes that misreport local hardware or have ACPI or other bugs are common. It takes about a year for new hardware support to trickle down into your favorite distro, so if you buy something brand new, you have a brand new interesting problem getting Linux fully supported on it -- it doesn't always work right away. I still commonly see complaints about people not being able to find touchscreen devices -- device finders like lspci, lsusb, etc, can't always find these. Before I would ever buy a NEW laptop, I'd want to know whether Linux worked on it first and/or what lengths someone needed to go through to get it working fully. And even when it comes to ThinkPads (which usually get good support) there are devices you can get for them that are still not supported, like "Turbo Memory": http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Intel%C2%AE_Turbo_Memory_hard_drive_cache For old laptops, I like to test that at least a Knoppix CD will boot on them and get to a graphical desktop. > Ralink/Atheros drivers seem fairly stable, though some of the brand new > chips can be problematic sometimes (though they're usually on mini-pcie and > not difficult to change). > > One of the only things you have to look out for is the wireless stuff. Most > of them have Intel graphics for those of you who insist on open source. > > > On 02/03/2011 03:50 PM, Anthony Acquanita wrote: > >> I've seen system76, zareason and the Thinkpads. Am I missing > >> anything? Anyone built a recent laptop with linux and can recommend > >> one? > >> > >> Right now I'm leaning towards the systems76, either the Lumar or the > >> Pangolin. > >> > >> Thanks. > > I'd try to stick to business laptops (my personal preference are Thinkpads, > but then again I try to stay away from laptops, and only just got my first > used Lenovo as a personal machine). Most of the consumer laptops are pure > garbage. Junk hinges, screens, lots of flexing, or just crappy keyboards. > Are you looking for something new? > > The IdeaPads should be OK as far as compatibility, but are nowhere near the > quality of a Thinkpad. There is at least one special Linux kernel options specific to the IdeaPads as of Linux 2.6.36, relating to the "RF Kill Switch" for the wireless device. And ThinkWiki reports that not all IdeaPad models have Linux support. One thing that's common on laptops are custom keyboard buttons (like volume up/down/mute), and these can be tricky to get working under Linux. > If you're going to look at laptops, just make note > of what wireless card they use. Shouldn't have to worry about system > chipsets at all, and all the graphics options are well supported. > Everyone uses an Intel HighDefAudio sound option, which is well supported > under Linux. Just about every SATA controller is now AHCI, which is well > supported under Linux. > > Much as I love AMD, my preference for graphics is nVidia > Intel > AMD for > Linux applications. At least last time I use the frglx driver.. it was > terrible. It caused crashes. The open-source AMD GPU driver does not > support newer GPUs last I checked. The ones it does support it gives > fairly terrible performance on. You can't ask much from Intel integrated > graphics as far as performance, but if you don't intend on doing anything > even close to intensive this is a non-issue. Everything past the > i965/3100HD graphics does some video decode offloading for modern codecs > if that's important to you. There are also things you need to know concerning the new Intel video drivers because of the recent kernel mode setting changes https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Intel > The nVidia binaries are pretty good (I've never had a problem with them), > but if you're opposed to the binaries for some philosophical reason, you're > probably better off with Intel graphics. You can get the source code for a good portion of the Nvidia driver, and another part is a binary blob. So if you want to build your own kernel, you can still do this with the Nvidia drivers. Nvidia do seem to be a bit more consistent than ATI/AMD on which products are supported. > I just went with a used Thinkpad (T61, getting a T61P too), it was cheap, > and I know *I* don't need a laptop to be fast. What you need to know is that the Nvidia G84M video chip in the T61p has internal manufacturing problems and is known to fail heat-related death, thus requiring depot repair. There's likewise a problem requiring eventual motherboard replacement in relation to the RAM controller when using two sticks of RAM. [I had both problems.] Great laptop otherwise, though. > If you go with something a > couple years old, there's a good chance that it will have a stable driver > package. I didn't even have to think about setting anything up when I > installed Slackware on it. Wireless, laptop function keys, etc just worked > out of the box.. and that's Slackware! -- Chris -- Chris Knadle [email protected] _______________________________________________ Mid-Hudson Valley Linux Users Group http://mhvlug.org http://mhvlug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mhvlug Upcoming Meetings (6pm - 8pm) MHVLS Auditorium Mar 2 - MHVLUG 8th Anniversary - Show and Tell Apr 6 - Introduction to IPv6 May 4 - Inkscape
