[ltp] T40 / Pentium M and Linux

[Atul Chitnis]

On 27 Mar 2003, Rune Froysa wrote:

> On my T30 (type 2366 - 92g) with RH8.0, the network driver randomly
> hangs every few MB.  I have transfered several GB with the prism2_pci
> driver from linux-wlan-ng without problems.

I used the default orinoco_pci driver and it worked just fine. No issues 
transferring any amount of data. I also use the hostap pci driver 
(http://hostap.epitest.fi/) because it is supposed to perform better,  but 
seriously I haven't found too much of a difference.

> The tv-out port is not supported.  I have been unable to find anyone
> that provides alternative drivers.  According to the gatos
> mailing-list there may be some legal problems related to developing
> such a driver, which to me indicates that IBM made a poor choice of
> video chipset vendor.

Umm, I have no issues at all with the video out port ;-) Watch DVDs and 
all. Just use tpctl 
(http://tpctl.sourceforge.net/http://tpctl.sourceforge.net/) to enable TV 
out, then hit the Fn-F7 key.

What bit me was the fact that you need to short two pins on the SVIDEO
cable if connecting to a TV without TV without SVIDEO in. Once I figured 
that out, everything worked just fine, as long as you remember to drop 
your resolution to something supported by teh TV (typically 800x600 for 
PAL users).

BTW - I had no issues using TV-OUT even on my stone-age 770 ;-)

> With the redhat kernel suspend-resume sometimes failes to properly
> wake the HD, power-button required.  Hand compiled stock kernel works
> better.

Yep, suspend-resume does have issues at times. Straight suspend/resume 
works most of the times, but hibernation is still flakey. I had similar 
issues initially on my 770, but they got resolved eventually. All I can 
say is "faith!" ;-)

> With phoebe the redhat provided kernel crashes (=freezes) frequently.

Yes, phoebe has serious issues, but it isn't the distro - it's the kernel.  
Just use regular phoebe3 with the -50 (or later)  kernel from rawhide, and
it works fine (and performance shoots up because of native support for the
845 chipset). But frankly speaking, mjust hold your breath anotehr 4 days 
and then install RHL 9 instead.

> Finally, IBM should be flamed for not allowing us to buy ThinkPads
> without a pre-installed OS.  If my work hadn't paid for it, I would
> have selected a model from the only suplyer in this country that sells
> laptops whitout a pre-installed OS.

I have no arguments there - IBM is being extremely double-standard about 
its cavalier approach towards Linux on thinkpads (while at the same time 
openly supporting Linux on their servers).

But given that no one is willing to sell me a Linux notebook without 
attached MS tax, I guess I can only say "IBM sucks less" ;-)

Atul

-- 
-------------------------------------------
Atul Chitnis       | achitnis@exocore.com
Exocore Consulting | http://www.exocore.com
Bangalore, India   | +91 (80) 344-0397
-------------------------------------------