Re: [gentoo-laptop] amd turion laptop with good linux support (but i run gentoo so good gentoo support is the point)

[Leszek Tarkowski]

I would sugguest buing something else than turion-based notebook.
Centrino platform is very well supported. I would recommend IBM or
MaxData (german company - suse fully supported on some models, you can
buy it without windows) notebooks.

On 18/01/06, Mike Benson <mike@×××××××××.au> wrote:
> OK , I have an Asus Z81K, which is the barebones version of the A2000K.
>
> AMD64 support works, by and large, well in Linux. When you're only doing stuff
> that works, it's a pleasure.
>
> Don't pan NDisWrapper too much, with a 64-bit Windows driver, I've had minimal
> problems with it. Performance actually seems to be better than my wife's IBM
> T42p, using the 32-bit Windows driver.
>
> But,
>
> * You are critically dependent on the quality and standards conformance of the
> BIOS, especially in areas like APIC and frequency control (I still don't have
> freq control working, after a year). The Asus is very bad in this respect
>
> * I would strongly suggest you only get a Turion-based system. My system
> (processor is a Mobile 3700+) is inclined to overheat in summer, if I'm
> re-emerging gcc or something else particularly large, although removing "-j2"
> from the flags in make.conf improved that somewhat.
>
> * I have ATI graphics (mobility 9700) and it's a pain. The only way I've ever
> been able to get a stable X display without artifacts, snow and noise is to
> use the binary ATI drivers, which usually lag kernel development, and do not
> install nicely or easily (although Gentoo seems to be making a better fist
> of it than Fedora or Kubuntu).
>
> *  You will have general problems with stuff that isn't ported yet. Either
> because the developers can't get their heads around playing nicely with data
> types, and not assuming things (particularly pointers) are 32 bits, or don't
> use a recent version of autoconf that handles --enable-suffix (so things go
> in lib64), or in the case of propietary, binary only things, because they
> haven't got round to doing (or haven't be able to, or won't, do) a 64-bit
> port. Flash, and multimedia codecs are probably the biggest gotchas here (and
> don't flame me about WDNNS Flash! Like it or lump it, swf is a part of the
> web landscape, and sometimes can't be ignored)
>
> * PCMCIA was unstable for a long while. I haven't tried it lately, but expect
> it has improved in recent kernels. Ditto for firewire (but at least that
> worked). USB has worked very well.
>
> * Be prepared to build your own kernel. Be prepared to live inside testing
> (enable ~amd64 in your use flags, and sometimes even ~x86 for certain
> packages). Even today, running AMD64 is being on the bleeding edge. As a
> consolation, most bugs are fixed quickly, at least into testing.
>
> * I've been running Gentoo about a month, after nearly a year with the machine
> running Fedora (Core 2 and 3) and a couple of weeks with Kubuntu
> (unresolvable display problems forced me off that). I seem to be rebuilding
> or adding some packages every day, but it's kinda more fun than running yum
> over and over again. And it was the lagging KDE support that drove me off
> Fedora, I don't have that problem with Gentoo.
>
> Hope this helps,
>
> Mike
> --
> gentoo-laptop@g.o mailing list
>
>


--
Leszek Tarkowski
tel. [phone]

-- 
gentoo-laptop@g.o mailing list