> On Tue, 2008-12-23 at 16:04 +0000, [email protected] wrote:
> > Anyone have a recommendation on a current model laptop that works
fairly
> > well with rhel5 64bit and a xen kernel?  I know ATI and Intel video
both
> > work fairly decently out of the box, not sure about nvidia.  I looked
at
> > RedHat's HCL, and there were very few laptops, mainly Dell Precision
e6300
> > and IBM [TX]61.
> >
> > I had always heard good things about the IBM T series and linux, but
one of
> > my co-workers installed it on his T61 and had all sorts of issues.
> >
> > i've been playing with an HP 6910p, but keep getting IRQ conflicts with
the
> > keyboard, sd card, and wireless.
>
> Co-incidentally, the thing under my fingers right now is a 6910p. Beware
> of the two possible options - that with built in intel graphics (like
> this one) and that with ATI graphics (not like this one). Obviously ATI
> graphics means binary driver (don't even attempt the "radeon" XOrg
> driver, it throws a wobbly).

Ours has the ati. I just updated to rhel5.3, but on this and 5.2 the radeon
seemed to work just fine.  RHEL5.3 even let me do a graphical install.  (RH
support recommended trying the 5.3beta due to the irq issue)


> I did test this one with RHEL5/64 and it worked OK. The intel video
> driver is slightly buggy (or was 3 months ago) and occasionally crashed
> on 3D operations (I was testing some Chemistry software at the time),
> but I had no problems with general use. The i810 driver doesn't support
> the native resolution.

i'll keep that in mind, because I would prefer intel graphics personally.

> The Wifi driver (iwlwifi) doesn't seem to get great reception, at least
> when I use it with the work WPA2-Enterprise, but I don't seem to have
> any problem at home with WPA-PSK.

The RHEL5.2 wireless was decent, I run WPA2 at home, and I streamed some
ISOs from the net at 4-5Mbps.  The iwlagn with RHEL5.3 seems to work fairly
well, but I haven't speed tested it yet.

> All the other peripherals work under Linux (actually I didn't try
> PCMCIA), even the Fingerprint reader if you can be bothered to get
> libfprint on there.

My SD card slot throws firmware errors in messages, but I haven't tested
it, and I think it also goes back to the IRQ issues.

> My one Caveat is that I didn't try the Xen kernel. My laptop experience
> with that is pretty horrible, due to the fact it lags behind the other
> kernel in terms of versions and hence drivers.

I had the same IRQ complaints pre-xen kernel, but I know that xen makes a
difference which is why I mentioned it.

> All in all it's a pretty good Laptop for Linux. I've got it running
> Fedora 10 at the moment - KVM virtual machines (I have a pair running)
> seem fine and it generally works as well as my desktop.

Goes back to the whole "We run RHEL5 internally" issue.  My desktop is
Fedora, but I'm special *chuckle*, and the laptops aren't for me.

> I think the problem is that you can't buy 6910p's any more (at least we
> can't on our HP procurement deal) - and a 6930p just won't work with
> RHEL5 (no Network driver)

See, I think we can still get these, but these 'Disabling IRQ' issues are a
bit of a show stopper (they weren't until it disabled the wifi and keyboard
because all they had hit was the sd card slot and expresscard slot).

-greg

_______________________________________________
rhelv5-list mailing list
[email protected]
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/rhelv5-list

Reply via email to