Re: Linux on new AlBook
On 13 Jan, this message from Rogério Brito echoed through cyberspace:
> Hi, Mich.
Hello :-)
> On Jan 12 2006, Mich Lanners wrote:
> Can you tell us how does this machine works? I refrained from ordering
> one of these things (they cost quite a lot here) when I first heard
> the rumors that the PowerBook would possibly be updated this year
> (which actually came true).
Yeah, well, it seems a minority of people expected the Powerbook to be
switched to Intel first...
> Would it be worth to have it? Is it actually a good machine overall? I
> see that BenH mentioned that he was going to get (got?) one for
> himself and this would mean that, possibly, the chances of getting it
> working well with Linux would be higher... :-)
I'm comparing it to my current machine, a first-generation TiBook with a
replaced motherboard. The original board ran at 400 MHz, but after
roughly 2 years of daily use it started crashing, finally totally
corrupted the hard disk. After some time I decided to try exchanging the
motherboard, got a 500 MHz for it, and it works perfectly fine again
sincce a few months :-). I also got myslf a new battery, the old one
wouldn't keep the charge anymore.
This TiBook is perfectly supported under Linux: graphics, old Airport
card (although mine doesn't work anymore in low signal conditions, but I
suspect that to be a firmware issue), runs cool, and has very good
battery life. With laptop-mode, ext3 FS, display backlight turned down a
bit, I can easily get 4-5 hours of light use.
Now, what about the Albook? It is a very nice machine overall. Rugged
construction, much more than the TiBook. The display is much better:
better resolution, so more room on the desktop. Much brighter, although
I don't know how much the TiBook's backlight has lost power over the
years. Connectivity improves a bit over the already good connectivity of
the TiBook: USB 2.0, and GigE. Minus: unsupported Broadcom Airport card,
but there's been hope recently :-).
I've been using the AlBook a bit under OS X. Very nice to work with,
good keyboard, and the backlight is very useful under low lighting
condition. The integrated Airport antennas have very good range, so once
this works under Linux :-)..... Sleeping and waking up are very fast as
well. I haven't done any serious performance tests yet, but compiling a
kernel is a _lot_ faster than on the TiBook. hdparm gives deceiving
values for disk reads (only 11 MB/s), need to check that.
As far as Linux support is concerned, here a quick rundown:
- PC Cards: supported
- USB: untested, but should be supported
- Bluetooth: said to be supported as well
- Display: supported in 2D, no official 3D
- Firewire: untested, no idea about the FW-800 port
- Ethernet: supported
- Modem: a binary driver for Linux/386 is said to be somewhere, but no
trace of an opensource effort.
- Sound: untested
- CPU speed: untested
- fan: works, speed regulated
- sleep: don't know, sleeping seems to work, but waking up is still
untested :-)
>> PS I'm still struggling myself to get everything working, I'll be
>> back with more...
>
> Please, do give us more details, as you have them. They are very
> welcome. Any (subjective also ok) word on the performance and the
> battery longevity would be great (and the way that the DVD+RW burner
> works too).
My first real problem: the installed Etch system has a problem with
udev, after boot no tty device files (at leats, but I suspect many more)
are available, and everything stops working. If anybody has an idea
about this... Anyway, workaround is to disabe udev (boot with
UDEV_DISABLED=yes on the kernel command line).
Other than that, battery life is clearly smaller than on the Ti. This is
with full CPU speed and full backlight, however. Subjective performance:
as far as I have tested, very decent, but as I said, I have not loaded
it really (except one kernel compile).
Concerning the DVD burner, I have so far only tried it under OS X,
without any problem.
There are a few things I have not sorted out yet:
- backlight adjusting: should be a matter of defining the right keys to
use
- trackpad: should permit emulation of second and third mouse button
through two/three-finger-tapping
- cpu speed switching
- sleep: either it works (untested), or I will have a hard time :-)
- keyboard backlight: that's the nice gimmick that just _needs_ to be
working.
So far for this status report :-)
Cheers
Michel
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Michel Lanners | " Read Philosophy. Study Art.
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