Athlon 64 Laptop for Linux

  • Thread starter Thread starter Alan Walpool
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A

Alan Walpool

Hi,

Are there any Athlon 64 Laptops that have complete Linux hardware
compatibility? Any suggestions would be appreciated. I have been
looking at hp mainly but it appears these units are very similiar.

Thank for any input.

Alan
 
Hi,

Are there any Athlon 64 Laptops that have complete Linux hardware
compatibility? Any suggestions would be appreciated. I have been looking
at hp mainly but it appears these units are very similiar.

Thank for any input.

Alan
Click to expand...

I have the Compaq R3000z, I put Mandrake 10.0 x64 and Fedora Core 2
x64 on it, both installed fairly easily. Mine has the 1680x1050 screen
which requires hacking the XFConfig-4 file because neither XFree86 or Xorg
understand it. If I had it to do over I would have gone with the standard
sized screen, the bigger screen make the laptop a little bulky and it
complicates installing X (although it does work). They bundle it with a
Broadcom wireless card which has no Linux support, supposedly ndiswrapper
can be used to run the Windows driver but I haven't tried it and I don't
know if you can use a 32 bit Windows driver with a 64bit version of
ndiswrapper (probably not). I also haven't tried the modem, I'm using
ehternet which works fine. There is an HP version called the 5000z which
is identical except for color but cost $300 more in the configuration that
I bought.

CPU clock speed management requires a later kernel then the one in
Mandrake 10.0. I built a 2.6.8.1 kernel and the clock speed control works
fine with that. Fedora Core 2 uses the 2.6.5 kernel but the 2.6.8.1 kernel
is available as an update.

The AMD64 is blazingly fast, my benchmarks show that the 3400+ in this
laptop is up to twice as fast as my 2.66GHz Xeon server.

There is one downside to the AMD64, you can't run Win4Lin. Win4Lin runs
DOS/Win98 which requires the VM86 protected mode which is not available
when running in 64 bit mode. I had some trouble installing the 32 bit
version of Mandrake 10.0 so I don't know if you can get it to run on a 32
bit version of Linux.

The configuration that I bought is as follows

AMD 64 3400+
1G DDR
60G drive
54G 802.11G/B (it was bundled in free on the Compaq, it's extra on the HP)
1680x1050 screen
64M Nvidia graphics
XP Pro (Home is standard, I got the Pro just in case I ever needed to use
XP I figured I'd spend the $50 and get a version that works)
$1525

One final thing about HPs/Compaqs. Don't buy a case from them. The case in
the $99 starter bundle is little better than a shopping bag. I made the
mistake of getting it, I'm just going to use it as a beach bag. I bought a
decent Targus case from Best Buy for $49.
 
General> On Sun, 22 Aug 2004 09:26:17 -0500, Alan Walpool wrote:


Great review thanks a lot! 1Gb of ram for that price is nice. I have
not seen the compaq around locally but will start looking in the
morning.

I saw an e-machines today in the newspaper will check that out. I
heard a rumor that the same company in asia makes almost all the so
called different models anyway. Don't have any clue if this is really
true.

Thanks again.

Alan
 
General> On Sun, 22 Aug 2004 09:26:17 -0500, Alan Walpool wrote:


Great review thanks a lot! 1Gb of ram for that price is nice. I have
not seen the compaq around locally but will start looking in the
morning.

I saw an e-machines today in the newspaper will check that out. I
heard a rumor that the same company in asia makes almost all the so
called different models anyway. Don't have any clue if this is really
true.

Thanks again.

Alan
Click to expand...

I bought it from http://www.hpshopping.com. The ones in the stores all
have 512M of RAM which isn't enough for my purposes. BTW I've now
installed the 32 bit version of Fedora Core 2. So as of now I've run
Mandrake 10.0 x64, Fedora Core x64 and Fedora Core x32. Now that I have a
32 bit version of Linux running I'll see if I can get the wireless working
and I'm also going to see if I can get Win4Lin working. Win4Lin can't run
on a 64 bit OS because the x86 protected mode used by Win98 is
incompatible with the new 64 bit modes. I'm hoping that it can run if you
build a 32 bit kernel.
 
I bought it from http://www.hpshopping.com. The ones in the stores all
have 512M of RAM which isn't enough for my purposes. BTW I've now
installed the 32 bit version of Fedora Core 2. So as of now I've run
Mandrake 10.0 x64, Fedora Core x64 and Fedora Core x32. Now that I have a
32 bit version of Linux running I'll see if I can get the wireless working
and I'm also going to see if I can get Win4Lin working. Win4Lin can't run
on a 64 bit OS because the x86 protected mode used by Win98 is
incompatible with the new 64 bit modes. I'm hoping that it can run if you
build a 32 bit kernel.
Click to expand...

A follow up on Win4Lin. I haven't been able to get Win4Lin to work under
FC2 32 bit. I built a patched 2.6.7 kernel, the Win4Lin module core dumps
when it's loaded on boot up. The Win4Lin installer crashes the machine.
I'll let everyone know what Netraverse's support tells me.
 
General> I bought it from http://www.hpshopping.com. The ones in the

Wow - unreal that basically the same computers but if you buy compaq
instead of hp you can save 300-400 bucks with the same configuration.

Strange. I wonder what that is all about. Anyway thanks for the tips.
Will hit the stores today to see what the super rebates will bring me
over the online ordering.

Later,

Alan
 
General> I bought it from http://www.hpshopping.com. The ones in the

Wow - unreal that basically the same computers but if you buy compaq
instead of hp you can save 300-400 bucks with the same configuration.

Strange. I wonder what that is all about. Anyway thanks for the tips.
Will hit the stores today to see what the super rebates will bring me
over the online ordering.

Later,

Alan
Click to expand...

When I called the 800 number they said that there was more software
bundled with the HP (although that's not clear from the website). In any
event the since that software is for XP it's worthless to a Linux user. As
I recall one of the apps was something to help you port your applications
from your old box to the new box. In Linux that's called rsync and it's
free.
 
Avoid Mitac 8355 clones!

Although some of the hardware is claimed to be linux compatible, its a complete
hotchpotch!

The dvd re-writer works, but the only upgrades to get the full features are for
Apple Macs (this is the only PC I've found that uses this drive!) The wlan is
only supported with a proprietry driver under kernel 2.4 and 32 bit, and the
built in modem only has 32 bit drivers. Won't compile under x86_64.

Also, the CMI 9739 audio chip will only work at zero volume (yes, I have
unmuted it, but the volume sticks at zero!)

A complete turkey, linux-wise!
 
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