Linux on More Dell Client Systems? (Direct2Dell)
If you buy a Dell notebook and run Linux on it, does Dell's hardware warranty still apply? Absolutely. You'll need to demonstrate you're having a hardware problem using the Dell Diagnostics CD. Will Dell (today) provide full Linux software support for that system? No. You'll be counting on a community support model for software issues, but many people are already a part of that global community and it suits them just fine." (Found on Don Marti's blog.)
Posted Nov 2, 2006 17:29 UTC (Thu)
by b7j0c (guest, #27559)
[Link] (30 responses)
just give me systems that work with the major distributions. thats all i
speaking of which, any pointers on laptops that will work well with debian
Posted Nov 2, 2006 17:43 UTC (Thu)
by horen (guest, #2514)
[Link]
Etch runs great on both of them (they previously ran sequential versions of RedHat and Fedora, through FC/5).
Posted Nov 2, 2006 17:53 UTC (Thu)
by riteshsarraf (subscriber, #11138)
[Link] (28 responses)
Then you might end up in trouble in seeing the full "Just Works" desktop
Overall, Dell laptops are pretty standardized and work good.
Posted Nov 2, 2006 18:01 UTC (Thu)
by ajross (guest, #4563)
[Link] (9 responses)
As I point out below, though, things are getting much better
rapidly. The distros are finding creative ways of packaging needed
proprietary software in a way that doesn't break the user experience
(in Ubuntu, for example, enabling universe and installing nvidia-glx
is just a few clicks). And the hardware vendors are getting better at
providing drivers that work well in a free software environment (the
ipw3945 driver, for example, places all the proprietary "regulatory" code into a
single binary user-space app with a liberal redistribution license;
everything that touches the hardware is GPL).
Obviously this sidesteps the issue of what place proprietary code
has on the linux desktop. I'm just pointing out that the "just works"
experience is really very close to reality right now, even with
hardware requiring proprietary code.
Posted Nov 2, 2006 18:54 UTC (Thu)
by riteshsarraf (subscriber, #11138)
[Link]
Posted Nov 2, 2006 22:24 UTC (Thu)
by GreyWizard (guest, #1026)
[Link] (7 responses)
And the hardware vendors are getting better at providing drivers that work well in a free software environment (the ipw3945 driver, for example, places all the proprietary "regulatory" code into a single binary user-space app with a liberal redistribution license; everything that touches the hardware is GPL). How does this amount to an improvement? This might not violate the GPL but neither does externally loaded firmware. I respect the fact that some people object to binary blobs that the kernel passes to devices but I'm not one of them. On the other hand everything that runs as root on the host CPU is potentially a threat to security and I want the source code.
Posted Nov 2, 2006 22:30 UTC (Thu)
by ajross (guest, #4563)
[Link] (4 responses)
I tried really hard to avoid getting into a flame war about what is "good" or "bad" with regards to proprietary software. My sole (!) point was that the "Just Works" test for laptops vs. modern linux distros generally passes, even on systems with proprietary or semi-proprietary hardware.
Posted Nov 3, 2006 0:59 UTC (Fri)
by drag (guest, #31333)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Nov 3, 2006 2:07 UTC (Fri)
by hanwen (subscriber, #4329)
[Link] (1 responses)
The binary blobs are Intel's alibi for plausibly denying that they allow the radio to be operated out of spec.
Posted Nov 3, 2006 2:38 UTC (Fri)
by drag (guest, #31333)
[Link]
To bad that nowadays OpenBSD is now at the forefront of Free software driver development.
Is everybody just afraid of loosing Intel's support or something? Or are they just to busy working other stuff to care about propriatory drivers?
Posted Nov 6, 2006 18:58 UTC (Mon)
by GreyWizard (guest, #1026)
[Link]
Posted Nov 3, 2006 4:10 UTC (Fri)
by Ross (guest, #4065)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Nov 6, 2006 18:56 UTC (Mon)
by GreyWizard (guest, #1026)
[Link]
Posted Nov 2, 2006 18:06 UTC (Thu)
by Los__D (guest, #15263)
[Link]
Their support for the 2100 and 2200 is better than anything I've ever experienced, very much in the "Just Works" category...
Posted Nov 2, 2006 18:39 UTC (Thu)
by einstein (guest, #2052)
[Link] (16 responses)
By the same token, nvidia graphics are the best around, and linux/bsd/solaris drivers are always available. Now, if you have a religious objection to non-FOSS drivers, that's another matter - but don't say that it doesn't work, because it works beautifully.
Posted Nov 2, 2006 18:46 UTC (Thu)
by niner (subscriber, #26151)
[Link] (9 responses)
Posted Nov 2, 2006 19:44 UTC (Thu)
by einstein (guest, #2052)
[Link] (8 responses)
Nope, known to be problematic. So, we have to decide, do we use a particular nvidia-equipped machine for gaming/multimedia etc, or do we use it as a xen host? Can't do both, pick one or the other. There are always choices and tradeoffs we have to make.
Posted Nov 2, 2006 19:54 UTC (Thu)
by bronson (subscriber, #4806)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Nov 3, 2006 1:14 UTC (Fri)
by drag (guest, #31333)
[Link]
I've also used OpenSSI on my desktop. Turned my home PC and my server and another desktop that all remain idle most of the time into a almost single-image cluster.
With those I've run into problems with propriatory drivers.. but not free ones. The only problem with free ones is that I setup a Xen server and had issues with the IVTV with for the my Hauppauge PVR-250.
Good thing I've gotten rid of my Nvidia card, eh?
I wanted to have it mostly for Mythtv, but also have it for a little website and I wanted to have very isolated security context for it. On OS X with Parrellels it's very popular to run Linux and Microsoft on a VM for more technically oriented people and that is very specificly a desktop operating system. Nowadays it works fine.
In the future the software is improving and nowadays more and more distros are providing Xen functionality by default. There is absolutely no reason why Xen should not be a supported platform for Linux and there are plenty of reasons why you'd want that.
The future of Linux is tied very close to virtualization and it's flexible archectecture. Running Windows in Xen is a nice way to get 100% compatability for legacy applications that people need for their desktop, but don't have the source code aviable for.
Propriatory drivers are good for getting users to adopt Linux and providing nessicary functionality people require for video cards (which is the only thing you need propriatory drivers for nowadays.. you can find open source drivers for every other type of hardware without much issue) but they are definately holding linux back in a very technical and pragmatic sense.
Look how it's holding back X.org development in regards to AIGLX. Free software drivers for the Intel and ATI r2xx-r4xx series video cards support the extensions nessicary since the beginning. The same can't be said for the Nvidia propriatory drivers and it's even very much worse for the ATI propriatory drivers.
Posted Nov 3, 2006 4:27 UTC (Fri)
by einstein (guest, #2052)
[Link]
You have the full source to the nv driver, but good luck playing doom 3 with that setup.
Posted Nov 2, 2006 22:05 UTC (Thu)
by niner (subscriber, #26151)
[Link] (3 responses)
Everything could be fine, except for that I can not just try out Xen, run it every day and learn much about the problems and how to handle them, because I then could no longer do some other things I want to do on that machine. Like watching some movie with my girlfriend or fire up FlightGear and relax a little after a day full of work. And the only thing that keeps me from doing this is incidentally the only closed source code I have to run, the "beautifully working" nvidia drivers...
Posted Nov 2, 2006 22:46 UTC (Thu)
by dlang (guest, #313)
[Link]
David Lang
Posted Nov 3, 2006 4:30 UTC (Fri)
by einstein (guest, #2052)
[Link] (1 responses)
Nobody forced you to use nvidia - if you don't like the setup, yank the nvidia and install an old voodo 3 or other card with FOSS OpenGL. That's the beauty of having choice.
Posted Nov 20, 2006 19:41 UTC (Mon)
by linuxrocks123 (subscriber, #34648)
[Link]
Posted Nov 20, 2006 19:37 UTC (Mon)
by linuxrocks123 (subscriber, #34648)
[Link]
If the NVidia drivers were Free, then the Xen issue would have been fixed
Posted Nov 2, 2006 19:03 UTC (Thu)
by riteshsarraf (subscriber, #11138)
[Link] (4 responses)
I'd agree with you that nVIDIA is good at Linux driver support. Yes, but
And ever wondered whom to report when you find that your laptop doesn't
Try reporting a bug on a proprietary module at kernel.org and see the fake
Ideally, if the kernel developers really mean what they say, they should
Posted Nov 2, 2006 19:22 UTC (Thu)
by einstein (guest, #2052)
[Link] (2 responses)
Actually, I've had trouble with video drivers - my experience with the FOSS DRI drivers for ATI Radeon cards has been an unmitigated disaster. Sure, I can report the crashes and hangs, but they never stopped.
In contrast the nvidia proprietary drivers have been like the rock of gibraltar on my desktop machines. Are they perfect? No, there are some things they need to fix, but the FOSS alternatives are few - at this point the Intel 965 looks good.
> And ever wondered whom to report when you find that your laptop doesn't resume to X when the proprietary driver is loaded.
No mystery there, nvidia says up front that resume doesn't work yet.
>Try reporting a bug on a proprietary module at kernel.org and see the fake reaction they make.
ROFL - we all know the drill there, but luckily I haven't had any bugs to report lately. I did report crashes and hangs back in the day, with the FOSS ATI radeon drivers, but they were never resolved AFAIK.
I just hope Intel moves more aggressively to make their next generation graphics widely available, since the FOSS drivers allow for nice things like laptop suspend/resume
Posted Nov 2, 2006 21:55 UTC (Thu)
by dmarti (subscriber, #11625)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Nov 3, 2006 4:10 UTC (Fri)
by N0NB (guest, #3407)
[Link]
Posted Nov 2, 2006 19:31 UTC (Thu)
by ajross (guest, #4563)
[Link]
Posted Nov 20, 2006 19:29 UTC (Mon)
by linuxrocks123 (subscriber, #34648)
[Link]
You need a binary blob daemon for Intel wireless. You don't need anything
Posted Nov 2, 2006 17:42 UTC (Thu)
by ajross (guest, #4563)
[Link] (2 responses)
There is one glitch: the cores on the Merom CPU are not
synchronized (really: one can be at 2GHz while the other is idling at
1GHz), so you have to add a "notsc" flag to the kernel boot line. And
there is one real bug that might be a showstopper for some: closing
the lid causes an instant machine hang. This seems to me like it
might be a ACPI BIOS bug in long mode; doing the same when running
under an i686 live CD works fine.
* Really, pretty much everything: NVIDIA gpu (with nvidia-glx package
from universe), ipw3945 wireless, Dell-branded USB bluetooth,
ieee1394. The only piece of hardware on the box without support is
the O2 SmartCard Reader, which I don't have a use for anyway.
Posted Nov 2, 2006 19:44 UTC (Thu)
by alspnost (guest, #2763)
[Link] (1 responses)
Edgy, I have to admit, is a slightly different matter:
* Won't boot at all unless wireless switch is ON
But, much as I hate to admit it, I blame Ubuntu for this, not Dell. The hardware hasn't change and it obviously *can* work perfectly under Linux. I think there are just some nasty regressions in Edgy. I still love it though :)
Posted Nov 2, 2006 23:16 UTC (Thu)
by ibukanov (subscriber, #3942)
[Link]
Ubuntu 6.06 - the only issue after installation was the need to get 915resolution package so the display would use full 1280x768 resolution. The rest of hardware including wireless, gigabit ethernet, card readers etc. besides WinModem (which I doubt I would ever need) worked as is.
Ubuntu 6.10 - after upgrade cpu speed throtling stopped working properly (in the default "on demand" settings a heavy load does not bring the CPU to 100% speed), hibernation started to take longer, wireless became less stable.
I guess that the difference between long-term and the newest releases.
Posted Nov 2, 2006 18:16 UTC (Thu)
by dambacher (subscriber, #1710)
[Link] (3 responses)
Im running an inspiron 6100 laptop on gentoo.
So if you can avoid buying a dell portable, do so and support companies which care.
Posted Nov 2, 2006 18:49 UTC (Thu)
by N0NB (guest, #3407)
[Link] (2 responses)
For now I'll keep my T23 going and try to snag a good T42 at some point.
Posted Nov 2, 2006 19:03 UTC (Thu)
by bronson (subscriber, #4806)
[Link]
The problem is, the screen is getting dim. It's getting farily difficult to use it anywhere daylight comes through the window. If I could just swap the backlight out I'd keep this laptop for another 3 years.
As it is, I'll probably have to get another one in January. I can't keep telling customers to draw the curtains! So, beware the T42s. They are indeed phenomenal but they are also getting old.
Posted Nov 3, 2006 1:26 UTC (Fri)
by drag (guest, #31333)
[Link]
Everything works out of the box. Multimedia buttons, suspend. Everything.
But I think I am going to hold out till the Intel G965 chipset comes out for the notebook market and I can get GMA X3000 video.
most likely dell customer support for linux will involve even novice linuxdoes anyone *want* dell customer support???
users having to educate dell support staff on trivial matters. why bother?
really want - give me a chart or a page that tells me what works out of the
box and what doesn't for the top N distributions.
etch? independent sources tell me asus boxes tend to play nice with major
distros.
I'm running Etch (daily dist-upgrade) on my Toshiba Tecra 8100 laptop, as well as on my hand-rolled PIII/866 desktop (Asus CUV4X motherboard).does anyone *want* dell customer support???
Majority of the problems with the laptops come in the additional hardware does anyone *want* dell customer support???
and has not much to do with the motherboard.
If you buy a laptop with hardware like:
* nVIDIA/ATI
* Intel Pro Wireless
* Integrated UVC Camera
experience. Something will just keep breaking.
My recently launched Dell XPS M1210 works good except the UVC Integrated
Camera.
But yes, I do miss the "Just Works" OS experience.
does anyone *want* dell customer support???
Possibly you haven't had issues when some proprietary driver crashes your does anyone *want* dell customer support???
kernel and no kernel/distro developer is going to help you out on that.
Intel is a good example as a creator of such proprietary drivers.
Have a look at this bug report:
http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=7295
does anyone *want* dell customer support???
Then you can't use this wireless hardware, period. The regulatory limits are an issue of law, not software design, and not ethics.does anyone *want* dell customer support???
Well be very aware the the Intel binary blob does very much more then just regulation. So don't fool yourself into thinking that this is the real issue.does anyone *want* dell customer support???
There are a number of other wireless devices that work just fine and don't require firmware or binary blobs or anything of that nature.
The following is from kernel trap article on a developer writing fully free software drivers for same intel hardware
In his efforts to understand how the ipw3945 driver controls the firmware, Damien found that the binary daemon was simple to bypass, offering no real control. "I was able to make the daemon think it was in another regulatory domain," he explained, "just by adding a few lines of code into the GPL'd part of the driver." The binary-only daemon is described as necessary due to FCC regulations, causing Damien to retort, "I think Intel (and Atheros) use FCC rules as a pretext to hide intellectual property in the binary-only portions of their drivers." He went on to explain that the Intel regulatory daemon, as well as the Atheros HAL, implement a number of complex algorithms, including automatic calibration of the radio power based on temperature variations, and dynamic tuning of the radio sensitivity based on received signal strength. "These algorithms go far beyond the simple enforcement of regulatory compliance," he added, "and can really make the difference by extending the operating range of the adapter, improving throughput in various environmental conditions, and reducing power consumption. That is why vendors want to keep these algorithms secret.
.end of quote.
I bet people would appreaciate to have a fully free software driver for those devices for Linux also....
I have spoken to people closely involved with the Intel wireless drivers, and they fully expected the Linux folks to reverse engineer this regulatory blob within weeks. This was more than half a year ago. does anyone *want* dell customer support???
Makes me wish that I knew how to do driver development.does anyone *want* dell customer support???
What are you talking about? I said I want control over what runs on the CPU, not that I insist on free software even in the firmware. Regulatory issues are better handled there, from my perspective.does anyone *want* dell customer support???
At least it won't taint your kernel. In other words, you won't be on your own if you are having a kernel problem with that type of driver, whereas most Linux kernel developers will touch a system with a binary driver with a 10 foot pole.does anyone *want* dell customer support???
A binary firmware blob won't taint my kernel either.does anyone *want* dell customer support???
What's wrong with the Intel Pro/Wireless?does anyone *want* dell customer support???
On which planet? Intel wireless is as good as it gets for linux - one of the very few that "just works", and no need to futz around with silly windoze drivers/ndiswrapper.does anyone *want* dell customer support???
Ever tried to load the nvidia graphics driver into a Xen enabled kernel? "Works beautifully" is something else...beauty
> Ever tried to load the nvidia graphics driver into a Xen enabled kernel? "Works beautifully" is something else...beauty
Except when you're running a stack that includes full source and you have a lot of time and expertise to apply fixes. Then you can have it all.beauty
I used Xen on my desktop for a long time.beauty
> Except when you're running a stack that includes full source and you have a lot of time and expertise to apply fixes. Then you can have it all.beauty
Microsoft talked much about synergy effects when using the same OS on the server that's already running on the desktop. Well ironically Linux gave me exactly these effects. I know the system that runs on my servers pretty intimically, because it's exactly the same that's running on my desktop, every day. It's just priceless to be able to say "Oh, that's that problem I had a few months ago on my machine, this is how to fix it: ..." or to know how to move the installed system to that new server hardware because I needed exactly the same when I got a new computer at home.beauty
I moved to a linux desktop about 9 years ago for this very reason. I spent all day long working on *nix systems, by moving my desktop to linux I gained significantly by not having to shift mental gears between windows and *nix.beauty
> And the only thing that keeps me from doing this is incidentally the only closed source code I have to run, the "beautifully working" nvidia drivers...beauty
By recommending that he use a different card, you are admitting that the beauty
Nvidia drivers do /not/ work beautifully, which was the point of his
comment.
Did you really manage to miss the point that completely?beauty
long ago. Binary blobs, like the Intel one you're a fan of, are bad
because they create issues with new FLOSS development. Today it's Xen and
AIGLX, tomorrow it will be something to do with wireless, and always it
will be anyone who wants to run anything other than x86 or, if
you're /really/ lucky, x86-64.
And looks like you too haven't had much experience with the device driver does anyone *want* dell customer support???
problems.
Here's what I have to say for Intel:
http://bughost.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=1112
not comparable to their offering of the Windows drivers. The Linux drivers
still don't have SLI support. The official stable drivers still don't have
GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap
resume to X when the proprietary driver is loaded.
reaction they make.
drop the framework to load binary modules. That'd make it simply a black
and white game. You either support or you don't. The kernel should only
allow loading of a module which is licensed as the kernel is.
> And looks like you too haven't had much experience with the device driver problems.does anyone *want* dell customer support???
In order to keep increasing revenue in a slow-growing PC market, Intel has to keep making a bigger and bigger fraction of the parts in each PC. So look for them to do for graphics what they did for Ethernet, sound, and wireless -- sell a part that's might not be the absolute performance leader, but that does enough for most users, and eats the category leader's volume sales. (Next somebody-other-than-Intel part to go: the BIOS?)does anyone *want* dell customer support???
Actually, Intel has been doing just that for some time, i865, i915 onboard video chips come to mind. You know, the ones that derive their video memory from the main memory bank(s). I have two IBM machines with the i865 chips and they work well. Neither machine needs outstanding video performance, so they are "good enough".does anyone *want* dell customer support???
The NVIDIA beta 9125 linux drivers do, actually, have support for SLI (although I haven't tried it). It's true that they don't push the beta features into the production drivers with the same speed as with their WinXP drivers, but the feature set actually stays remarkably consistent between the two branches.
does anyone *want* dell customer support???
> Intel wireless is as good as it gets for linux...does anyone *want* dell customer support???
for Ralink except mainline kernel drivers. Therefore, Intel
wireless is is not as good as it gets for Linux, because Ralink is better.
Apropos of Dell laptops, if anyone wants a plug: I'm very, very happy
with my
Dell M65 laptop. Everything* came up working out of the box under
Ubuntu Edgy (amd64 version, even).
Linux on More Dell Client Systems? (Direct2Dell)
Yep - I have a Dell XPS M1710, which has worked absolutely flawlessly under Ubuntu Dapper from day one. Never had a single issue with anything on there.
Linux on More Dell Client Systems? (Direct2Dell)
* Screen brightness buttons now slaughter my X session
* Sound is very garbled in games
I have a similar experience with Dell Latitude X1 and Ubuntu:Linux on More Dell Client Systems? (Direct2Dell)
Other than the server market, dell is ignorant to linux!Linux on More Dell Client Systems? (Direct2Dell)
the old firmware I had to fix the nasty acpi bugs they left to get acpi and battery to work.
When the power supply died (common problem- we use 3 laptops of this) and took the power logic with it, they just repaired the thing and updated firmware - thanks - Software suspend stopped working, acpi stopped working, buttons stopped working.
Support ? sorry, use windows!
But, who does care any more? IBM Thinkpads of recent vintage had excellent support, but Lenovo seems schizophrenic on Linux support. I have no experience with HP offerings, but based on their printers, I don't think I could be convinced to try one. The company gave my a Dell Latitude 510 earlier this year and I've booted KNOPPIX 5.0 on it with good support (the Broadcom wireless is probably an issue), but it seems quite cheap compared the Thinkpads I've had.Linux on More Dell Client Systems? (Direct2Dell)
My T42p is great. What a workhorse. Best laptop I've ever had.Linux on More Dell Client Systems? (Direct2Dell)
Personally I'd rather have one of these:Linux on More Dell Client Systems? (Direct2Dell)
http://system76.com/product_info.php/cPath/1/products_id/181