[ltp] What to take care of when buying a Lenovo?

[Petr Praus]

There's just one problem with Intel GPUs: It's very difficult to buy
recent ThinkPad (*61) with WSXGA (1680x1050) non-glossy display and
Intel GPU (not to mention T61p with 1920x1200). So unfortunately, I'm
stuck with nV Quadro 140M :/ in my R61. Fortunately Suspend-to-RAM
works almost flawlessly, only issue is power comsumption (I can't get
it under 16-17W).

Peter

On 3/9/08, Henrique de Moraes Holschuh <hmh@hmh.eng.br> wrote:
> On Sat, 08 Mar 2008, Tobi wrote:
>  > Is there anything I should take care of, when buying a Lenovo notebook
>  > for Linux? Any trouble with specific hardware components, unsupported
>  > features or missing drivers? Any trouble running a 64-bit Linux?
>
>
> Speaking as one of the people who look at ThinkPads *very* closely from a
>  kernel point of view:
>
>  1. Prefer ATI over nVidia on the GPU, at least for the next three years.
>    We should press nVidia to release docs, like ATI is now doing.
>
>  2. Prefer Intel over anything on the GPU if your needs have extreme 3D
>    performance anywhere below "required".  It will work better than ATI,
>    extremely better than nVidia, and it will save a LOT of power over
>    ATI and nVidia.  Buying Intel GPUs and WiFi is a "vote with your wallet"
>    issue, as they provide *FAR* better support, documentation and resources
>    for open drivers than ATI (some docs, getting better) and nVidia (no help
>    whatsoever).
>
>  3. Get one with the better FlexView-like displays, non-glossy.  It is worth
>    every cent.
>
>  4. Non-Intel WiFi in Lenovos means Atheros radios, which are good, but the
>    open Atheros driver is not anywhere close to stelar quality yet (and the
>    madwifi driver with that binary-only HAL is a nightmare).
>
>    Unfortunately right now the drivers for new Intel WiFi are not stable
>    yet, but they should get there in less than one year.
>
>    Again, it is a vote with your wallet issue.  I'd buy Intel, at least they
>    are writing the open driver for their hardware, unlike Atheros, which
>    won't give documentation, let alone open drivers.
>
>    Intel 4965 doesn't do 802.11b, but it does 802.11n (I don't know which
>    pre-release version of 802.11n, though).
>
>  --
>   "One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring
>   them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond
>   where the shadows lie." -- The Silicon Valley Tarot
>
>   Henrique Holschuh
>
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