[arch-general] Off-topic: Good laptop to run Arch on?
It's that time for me again... my desktop is getting long in the tooth so I'm starting to look around for a replacement. This time I thought I'd also include laptops in my search. However, with laptops it's difficult to find out just how well they work with Linux. Are all the built-in devices, webcams, fingerprint scanners etc, fully supported? Is the power management (ACPI) fully supported? Etc, etc... In the past I've heard good things about Linux on IBM's ThinkPads. But I've heard some VERY bad things about getting Linux working well on Lenovo's recent models. So, I resort to ask for advice on this mailing list. What laptops should I have a look at? Is there some brand (Dell, HP, ...) that is more Linux friendly than others? /M -- Magnus Therning (OpenPGP: 0xAB4DFBA4) magnus＠therning．org Jabber: magnus＠therning．org http://therning.org/magnus identi.ca|twitter: magthe
On Sat, May 22, 2010 at 04:33:36PM +0100, Magnus Therning wrote:
It's that time for me again... my desktop is getting long in the tooth so I'm starting to look around for a replacement. This time I thought I'd also include laptops in my search. However, with laptops it's difficult to find out just how well they work with Linux. Are all the built-in devices, webcams, fingerprint scanners etc, fully supported? Is the power management (ACPI) fully supported? Etc, etc...
In the past I've heard good things about Linux on IBM's ThinkPads. But I've heard some VERY bad things about getting Linux working well on Lenovo's recent models.
So, I resort to ask for advice on this mailing list.
What laptops should I have a look at? Is there some brand (Dell, HP, ...) that is more Linux friendly than others?
/M
-- Magnus Therning (OpenPGP: 0xAB4DFBA4) magnus＠therning．org Jabber: magnus＠therning．org http://therning.org/magnus identi.ca|twitter: magthe
I'd consider any Lenovo Thinkpad, except for SL series. There is a very friendly article about their drivers - http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Drivers . The only thing, that SL series has, and the other ones don't, is HDMI interface. So, if it's essential for you, then Thinkpads won't suffice.
On Sat, May 22, 2010 at 04:33:36PM +0100, Magnus Therning wrote:
It's that time for me again... my desktop is getting long in the tooth so I'm starting to look around for a replacement. This time I thought I'd also include laptops in my search. However, with laptops it's difficult to find out just how well they work with Linux. Are all the built-in devices, webcams, fingerprint scanners etc, fully supported? Is the power management (ACPI) fully supported? Etc, etc...
In the past I've heard good things about Linux on IBM's ThinkPads. But I've heard some VERY bad things about getting Linux working well on Lenovo's recent models.
So, I resort to ask for advice on this mailing list.
What laptops should I have a look at? Is there some brand (Dell, HP, ...) that is more Linux friendly than others?
/M
-- Magnus Therning (OpenPGP: 0xAB4DFBA4) magnus＠therning．org Jabber: magnus＠therning．org http://therning.org/magnus identi.ca|twitter: magthe
I'm using a Lenoxo Thinkpad x200 and except for the fingerprint reader _everything_ works completely fine. -- Lukas Grässlin GnuPG-Key: http://lg.ath.cx/lukasgraesslin@gmx.de.asc
Hmm...Get something which has Intel Wireless + Intel/Nvidia Graphics and Intel Chipset. These days almost all hardware is supported out of the box. it depends on your budget. While buying, take a Ubuntu Live CD with you and boot the laptop to check comparability. you can also cross-check support by running lspci and pasting output in Debian[1]. few more resources for your help. Ubuntu Laptop testing[2] Dell with Ubuntu factory installed[3] [1]http://kmuto.jp/debian/hcl/ [2]https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/Laptop/Reports [3]http://is.gd/ckHzH Hope it helps. Regards, Gaurish Sharma www.gaurishsharma.com 2010/5/22 Lukas Grässlin <lukasgraesslin@gmx.de>:
On Sat, May 22, 2010 at 04:33:36PM +0100, Magnus Therning wrote:
It's that time for me again... my desktop is getting long in the tooth so I'm starting to look around for a replacement. This time I thought I'd also include laptops in my search. However, with laptops it's difficult to find out just how well they work with Linux. Are all the built-in devices, webcams, fingerprint scanners etc, fully supported? Is the power management (ACPI) fully supported? Etc, etc...
In the past I've heard good things about Linux on IBM's ThinkPads. But I've heard some VERY bad things about getting Linux working well on Lenovo's recent models.
So, I resort to ask for advice on this mailing list.
What laptops should I have a look at? Is there some brand (Dell, HP, ...) that is more Linux friendly than others?
/M
-- Magnus Therning (OpenPGP: 0xAB4DFBA4) magnus＠therning．org Jabber: magnus＠therning．org http://therning.org/magnus identi.ca|twitter: magthe
I'm using a Lenoxo Thinkpad x200 and except for the fingerprint reader _everything_ works completely fine.
-- Lukas Grässlin GnuPG-Key: http://lg.ath.cx/lukasgraesslin@gmx.de.asc
On May 22, 2010, at 11:05 AM, "Lukas Grässlin" <lukasgraesslin@gmx.de> wrote:
I'm using a Lenoxo Thinkpad x200 and except for the fingerprint reader _everything_ works completely fine.
Is it a Thompson reader? While I don't have it set up ATM, in the past I've used "thinkfinger" to successfully login thru [xkg]dm, on the terminal (sudo/su), and screensavers with my fingerprint... Pretty neat. C Anthony
I have a Lenovo Y450 which runs arch x86_64 fine, except for a small problem with the lcd brightness control. Card reader, webcam, suspend and hdmi audio/video are ok. -- Guilherme M. Nogueira "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - Arthur C. Clarke
I have a Lenovo Y450 which runs arch x86_64 fine, except for a small problem with the lcd brightness control. Card reader, webcam, suspend and hdmi audio/video are ok. As subnotebook, i can recommend the acer 1810t, everything works fine,
Am Samstag 22 Mai 2010 schrieb Guilherme M. Nogueira: limitation is displaysize and missind dvd drive but the rest works all fine. greetings tpowa -- Tobias Powalowski Archlinux Developer & Package Maintainer (tpowa) http://www.archlinux.org tpowa@archlinux.org
On 05/22/2010 11:33 AM, Magnus Therning wrote:
What laptops should I have a look at? Is there some brand (Dell, HP, ...) that is more Linux friendly than others?
My work laptop, a Dell Precision M4400, runs Arch fine. Had to install a few extra kernel modules (e.g., broadcom-wl), but everything else got picked up automagically. HTH, DR
I have a lenovo thinkpad T500 with optional intel 5100 AGN wireless card and HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-U20N dvd recorder, and overall i'm quite satisfied. But I did get a few quirks : - Graphics card is a switchable intel/ATI gpu, and I had to force the BIOS to only use either ATI or Intel. The open-source drivers don't support the ATI model yet, so I had to go with catalyst which has caused pains each time that I want to upgrade xorg. I haven't tried out the intel card under linux, but from what I read its well supported. -ACPI volume buttons don't work out-of-the-box, had to configure a key event listener and use amixer -Sound when playing a DVD is awfully quiet compared with winDVD, even with the volume at max Otherwise the rest (webcam, wireless, suspend, SD card reader, etc) works fine - On Mon, May 24, 2010 at 5:30 PM, David Rosenstrauch <darose@darose.net>wrote:
On 05/22/2010 11:33 AM, Magnus Therning wrote:
What laptops should I have a look at? Is there some brand (Dell, HP, ...) that is more Linux friendly than others?
My work laptop, a Dell Precision M4400, runs Arch fine. Had to install a few extra kernel modules (e.g., broadcom-wl), but everything else got picked up automagically.
HTH,
DR
-- "All musicians are drug addicts, no question about it. The ecstasy we get during a concert is proof enough. yet there is a slight difference between us, the musicians, and the typical 'street-junkie'... Instead of consuming powder, we consume vibrations" Will et/ou Gregory Eric Sanderson Turcot Temlett MacDonnell Forbes et/ou Touffa! :)
I have an Acer 4736ZG runs arch fine, nvidia graphic. test the machine with a ubuntu cd is a good idea. On Wed, May 26, 2010 at 10:19 AM, Gregory Eric Sanderson <gzou2000@gmail.com
wrote:
I have a lenovo thinkpad T500 with optional intel 5100 AGN wireless card and HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-U20N dvd recorder, and overall i'm quite satisfied. But I did get a few quirks :
- Graphics card is a switchable intel/ATI gpu, and I had to force the BIOS to only use either ATI or Intel. The open-source drivers don't support the ATI model yet, so I had to go with catalyst which has caused pains each time that I want to upgrade xorg. I haven't tried out the intel card under linux, but from what I read its well supported. -ACPI volume buttons don't work out-of-the-box, had to configure a key event listener and use amixer -Sound when playing a DVD is awfully quiet compared with winDVD, even with the volume at max
Otherwise the rest (webcam, wireless, suspend, SD card reader, etc) works fine
-
On Mon, May 24, 2010 at 5:30 PM, David Rosenstrauch <darose@darose.net
wrote:
On 05/22/2010 11:33 AM, Magnus Therning wrote:
What laptops should I have a look at? Is there some brand (Dell, HP, ...) that is more Linux friendly than others?
My work laptop, a Dell Precision M4400, runs Arch fine. Had to install a few extra kernel modules (e.g., broadcom-wl), but everything else got picked up automagically.
HTH,
DR
-- "All musicians are drug addicts, no question about it. The ecstasy we get during a concert is proof enough. yet there is a slight difference between us, the musicians, and the typical 'street-junkie'... Instead of consuming powder, we consume vibrations"
Will et/ou Gregory Eric Sanderson Turcot Temlett MacDonnell Forbes et/ou Touffa! :)
-- Arch Linuxer, Pythoner, Geek --> Blog: http://apt-blog.net
On Tue, 25 May 2010 22:19:28 -0400 Gregory Eric Sanderson <gzou2000@gmail.com> wrote:
I have a lenovo thinkpad T500 with optional intel 5100 AGN wireless card and HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-U20N dvd recorder, and overall i'm quite satisfied. But I did get a few quirks :
- Graphics card is a switchable intel/ATI gpu, and I had to force the BIOS to only use either ATI or Intel.
For what it's worth, GPU switching is currently being worked on. I'm not sure if it's in .34, but .35 seems to look good for it. You will still need to restart X, but rummaging around in the BIOS might soon be a thing of the past.
On 05/22/2010 09:33 AM, Magnus Therning wrote:
[snip] What laptops should I have a look at? Is there some brand (Dell, HP, ...) that is more Linux friendly than others?
/M
I have an HP dv6 that works perfectly in Arch. After my first laptop, I realized (like some other people suggested) that you should go with Intel parts if possible, so my current laptop is pretty much 100% Intel (lspci is a big list of "intel", with one "broadcom" at the bottom). My previous laptop had an nvidia graphics card, which worked perfectly but ran much hotter and has some minor things that annoy me (no KMS, driver doesn't get built with the kernel). Nvidia is a good choice if you plan to run games, but an Intel card can run compiz fine and might be easier to work with. The advantage of the Intel processor (Core2 Duo) is that it uses less power, runs cooler and works better with laptop-mode-tools (look it up in extra). I have a broadcom wireless card (Broadcom BCM4322), which is annoying during the initial install, but has worked perfectly since then (including 802.n support). Sound works perfectly with no work (intel's hda driver has worked fine in ALSA for a couple years -- be careful of this if you use a slower updating distro like Fedora/Debian). Bluetooth worked out of the box (on Arch, out of the box means after installing bluez), no idea what kind it is (not listed by lscpi or lsusb). Might be part of the broadcom stuff. Mine also came with a webcam, and it seems to work fine. I don't remember doing anything special to set it up, but don't quote me on that. The one I bought isn't available anymore, but here's the specs if you want it: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834147934 -Brendan Long PS: I haven't tried the card reader or lightscribe support.
Hi, I have heard Google Chrome (chromium) for linux and mac is out of beta. When is it coming to arch repo? Thanks
On 26/05/10 10:20, Madhurya Kakati wrote:
Hi, I have heard Google Chrome (chromium) for linux and mac is out of beta. When is it coming to arch repo? Thanks
It's already been in [extra] for some time now. :) http://www.archlinux.org/packages/extra/i686/chromium/
On 5/26/2010 1:11 PM, Evangelos Foutras wrote:
On 26/05/10 10:20, Madhurya Kakati wrote:
Hi, I have heard Google Chrome (chromium) for linux and mac is out of beta. When is it coming to arch repo? Thanks
It's already been in [extra] for some time now. :)
http://www.archlinux.org/packages/extra/i686/chromium/ but i guess thats beta right?
The Package in Extra is is flagged out of date since weeks without any update. the repo version is 5.0.342.9 whereas stable version[1] is 5.0.375.55. The latest version has security fixes so its suggested that repo version should be updated. [1]http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com/2010/05/stable-channel-update.html Regards, Gaurish Sharma www.gaurishsharma.com
On 5/26/2010 8:01 PM, Gaurish Sharma wrote:
The Package in Extra is is flagged out of date since weeks without any update. the repo version is 5.0.342.9 whereas stable version[1] is 5.0.375.55. The latest version has security fixes so its suggested that repo version should be updated.
[1]http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com/2010/05/stable-channel-update.html
Regards, Gaurish Sharma www.gaurishsharma.com
thats what i wanted to say. the google guys have removed beta from chrome so i guess arch should update chromium in repos.
participants (14)
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Alexander Duscheleit
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Brendan Long
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C Anthony Risinger
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David Rosenstrauch
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Evangelos Foutras
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Evgeny Burmentyev
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Gaurish Sharma
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Gregory Eric Sanderson
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Guilherme M. Nogueira
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Lukas Grässlin
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Madhurya Kakati
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Magnus Therning
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PT M.
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Tobias Powalowski