Re: IBM A30

[Michael Perry <mperry@lnxpowered.org>]

Quoting Adam Jacob Muller on Thu, Dec 06, 2001 at 01:36:07AM -0500:
> I just bought a IBM A30, now that i bought it i was wondering if anyone
> had any comments on the linux compatiblity of it.
> Specificly i bought a 26523BU
> also bought a DVD/cdrw upgrade
> i hope i can watch DVD's in linux and burn cd's on my laptop that would
> be REALLY cool.
> if anyone doesnt have any information on this system. then i guess i
> will post some when i get to installing linux on my new system.
> 
> Also i plan on taking my old hard drive out of my old laptop and putting
> it in my new system and putting my new hard drive in the 2nd hdd adapter
> that i bought.
> are there any specific things i should be aware of when putting a hard
> drive from system A in system B.
> Are there any things i should be aware of when using a linux installed
> on system A on system B?
> i know i have to recompile my kernel. (i use a custom kernel)
> and reconfigure X
> but other than that?
> 
> is there anything else
> 
> Adam Jacob Muller

This was covered in depth on the mailing list perhaps a week ago; but my
own perceptions follow.  I have to say I am not terribly enamored with
the A30 and I much prefer the T21.  The A30 has a video card which is
not supported by a public release of X unless you count rpms on rawhide
for redhat 7.1 and redhat 7.2.   One must either wait for X4.2 or
download the CVS code and do a "Make World" to get support.  That said,
I have had good luck with the CVS code but I did uncover a problem with
a lot of default kernels in distributions.  For some reason, I would get
a "failed to determine panel size" error until I compiled a recent
kernel.  I reported this on to the Xfree86.org group.  If you visit and
search on the xprt mailing list at Xfree86.org, I believe others have
reported this same error.  You could even find my email there perhaps :)

I have gotten the onboard nic to work as well as sound.  An issue I have
seen with sound using the ALSA developer/beta release is that apm events
are not handled too well when sound is playing in some models like the
A30p.  There is a kernel driver also which works great with desktops
with the INtel i8 chipsets but it also does not seem able to deal with
suspend/resume events.

The other laptop with the same video card I have played with a lot is
the Thinkpad X22.  This is a very light and easily used laptop
especially when one gets the "slice" to give it dvd and other support.
Nice little laptop.

IN favor of the T21, everything just works.  APM works like a charm and
it has plenty of horsepower to do DVDs.  It also has a S3 Savage MX
chipset which is very well supported (now).

I have used the A30 and A30p pretty extensively with 5 different
versions of Linux on it including debian, suse, redhat, caldera, and even
turbolinux 6.1 (we won't talk about that experience).

So, that's my impressions of the A30 and A30p line.  They are nice to
look at, but I don't particularly care for the shape or size.  The T
series suits my needs much better.  One can find a T21 these days on the
web sites for a nice deal.  I have seen them on ubid for only $800.  For
a laptop with a 800mhz processor, 256mb of memory, dvd player, and
well-supported, that's a good deal.



-- 
Michael Perry | "Do or do not; there is no try" Master Yoda
mperry@lnxpowered.org | http://www.lnxpowered.org