[svlug] Light AMD laptop for linux?

[Daniel Gimpelevich]

On Wed, 14 Feb 2007 21:48:56 +0100, Ivan Sergio Borgonovo wrote:

> On Wed, 14 Feb 2007 12:10:48 -0800
> Daniel Gimpelevich <daniel at gimpelevich.san-francisco.ca.us> wrote:
> 
>> OK, yeah, a non-masochist could conceivably be satisfied with free
>> drivers on an nForce chipset if Ethernet and other things nForce
>> provides are never used, which may very well be the case on a
>> laptop. See -- being too specific can also be something that needs
>> avoiding.
> 
> desktop athlon x2 (first generation), asus a8n-sli mobo.
> 
> Running sid stock kernel + nvidia proprietary video drivers.
> 
> nvidia CK804 (eth, audio, ide, sata) worked out of the box.
> On board I've a TI firewire (it should work never tried) and a
> marvell technology eth (worked out of the box).

Marvell Ethernet is cheap, but still better than nVidia. Asus was right to
replace the ForceD ethernet with it. Few people care much about on-board
audio, and as for SATA:

http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0508.1/1029.html
Read the rest of the thread, too.

> I didn't succeed to make dm_raid work (I didn't try too much actually)
> and I'm running Linux soft raid.
> 
> I choose an nvidia video board cos I had a reasonably good experience
> installing proprietary drivers on other boxes and cos it was the
> cheapest that could drive my lcd to 1920x1200 on dvi.
> Installation of *non server* ati drivers has been a PITA in the past.

Installation of ATI video drivers is no different from that of nVidia
ones. OTOH, use of them is not, due to incessant crashes showcasing ATI's
incompetence.

> I'm planning to buy a new notebook and a new server with good support
> for vitalisation.
> If I had to buy it now I'll buy an Intel notebook for battery life
> and an AMD server for VT and HyperTransport.
> 
> At this point I'll still chose nvidia/amd desktop (chipset,
> video), amd/ati for server and intel for notebook (chipset, video).
> 
> The newest intel box I have is my notebook and it is over 6 or 7 years
> old.
> 
> In the future I may consider ati/amd for desktop.

For a desktop now, choose an AMD CPU, an ATI chipset with no on-board
video, and an nVidia video card. If you get any Intel CPU for any purpose,
_only_ choose the Core2Duo.

> I had the feeling that in recent times (3+ years) amd hasn't been able
> to produce low power mobile cpu with good chipset for wifi.
> 
> So even if you're planning to buy a old one, amd doesn't look a good
> choice for a notebook.

There are no AMD chipsets that include WiFi. Laptop manufacturers are free
to choose whatever WiFi chipsets they wish to use with one of the four
makes of motherboard chipset for AMD. That is definitely A Good Thing™.