Centrino?

barlad · l33t Joined: 22 Feb 2003 Posts: 673

Hey there,

I am considering buying a laptop in the near future. I have more or less a "high" budget. That laptop will be running under full gentoo (no dual boot). I must admit I am not really sure what to buy. I need something with a good battery durability (sp?) - more than 1:30, not as high as 3-4hours - but also powerful.

Thus I am hesitating between going for a good old regular Pentium IV laptop or going for a Pentium IV centrino (or maybe even M?). I remember reading that there were some problems with Centrino not being supported.

Any hint, idea or notebooks to recommend please?

drakonite · l33t Joined: 02 Nov 2002 Posts: 768 Location: Lincoln, NE

The Centrino isn't really a cpu as much as it is just a "solution." ... Centrino is just a mobile p4 (p4m) with the rest of the laptop having builtin wireless capabilities (keep thinking it's bluetooth but I'm sure it must be 108.11b)

Buying a laptop with a p4 mobile cpu and adding a wireless net adapter to it would essentially be the same thing.

Anyways...

If you are concerned about battery life, then definatly make sure to get a mobile processor (i.e. P4 M or "centrino") they use far less power and produce less heat than a normal processor, which leads to much longer battery life and less likely to burn your lap (or have problems during long compiles)

For specific brands...

IBM ThinkPad -- Both I and everyone I know how has ever had a Thinkpad has had great luck with them. I'd definatly recommend taking a look at a Thinkpad before you buy anything.

Sony Vaio -- I've personally not been able to try one, but I've heard a lot of people praise them (one of which works for Sony, so judge if they should believed for yourself

) Just like the thinkpads, definatly take a look at one.

Compaq -- Avoid them. I hate this company. I've seen nothing but bad luck with any HP/Compaq machine I or anyone I know has owned. Plus, their "tech support" (i.e. fixing their faulty hardware or sending you the _right_ recovery cd) is horrendous and I have yet to see them actually fix anything.
Laptops in general tend to have heat problems, but in my experience Compaq seems to be far worse for heat/cooling than any other brand of laptop. With Gentoo, adequate cooling is quite important due to all of the compiling.

Apple iBook -- If you have no need for windows, check and see if all of your favorite linux software will work on PPC... If so you should definatly take a look at an iBook. I've only messed with one of these for a few minutes, but even x86 fanboys tend to admit the iBook is some good hardware.

Dell/Gateway -- I haven't heard much about these two brands... That could mean they are solid hardware but nothing exceptional, or just that none of my geeky friends have one

Either way, in the interest of shopping around you should probably at least look at them... I'd recommend either one against a Compaq any day.

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Anior · Posted: Wed Nov 26, 2003 10:37 am Post subject:

Toshiba should be avoided (more on that here...). Thrust me on this, I bought a Toshiba... ;-)

Linux-laptop is a nice site to find out more info about compability when your considering a laptop.

eee · Posted: Wed Nov 26, 2003 10:46 am Post subject:

drakonite · l33t Joined: 02 Nov 2002 Posts: 768 Location: Lincoln, NE

ozonator · Posted: Wed Nov 26, 2003 5:49 pm Post subject:

In general, in x86-land, the Pentium M is the way to go -- as eee mentioned, it's much different from a P-IV, which results in it being significantly faster per MHz, and much stingier on power. (Even if you don't normally need a long battery life, it might come in handy sometimes, so it's not a bad thing to have a laptop with good battery life.) The 'Centrino' label only applies to machines with a Pentium M, a matching Intel chipset, and a matching Intel wireless card, as far as I know; a machine can have the same Pentium M and chipset, but if it doesn't have the wireless, it won't get the Centrino brand.

The big thing to check and double-check for any laptop is driver support in Linux. For example, the wireless card that's part of the Centrino-labelled units doesn't have a native Linux driver, and Intel, though suggesting there will be one someday, has been coy about when it will appear. Dell's 802.11g wireless cards ('truemobile', I think they're called) also don't have Linux drivers. On the other hand, there's the 'driverloader' thing from Linuxant, which is supposed to let you use the Windows driver in Linux; it apparently works well enough, at least with the Centrino wireless. In any case, the message here is to double-check hardware support before getting the thing, particularly wireless and video card support, typically the main sticking points for Linux on laptops.

If it were me looking today, I'd definitely give the greatest consideration to laptops from IBM and Apple, who, from what I've seen, consistently seem to put the most care and thoughtfulness into design and build quality. ThinkPads are remarkably solid machines, and people who have them tend to be satisfied with them (people particularly seem to love the keyboard quality). If money's no object, a T or X series model would be great, though the R seems nice enough, too, if you decide to save a few bucks. If it were me, I'd prefer an X series one, since portability (small, light) means most to me in a laptop. IBM also has a Cisco wireless card option on some configurations, which I think may have a proper Linux driver.

The iBook is definitely a terrific laptop -- when I was shopping about 6 months ago, that's what I chose (an 800 MHz iBook), and I've not been disappointed at all. Small and light (the 12" one, at least), great battery life, plenty fast (though a Pentium M would, I think, be faster than my G3), and very inexpensive given the quality of the thing. OS X is nice, but I use Gentoo on it all the time now, without a hitch. Since I got mine, Apple has bumped the iBook specs to include a G4, faster RAM, and a combo drive on all models, so it's an even better machine now. The only unfortunate change for us Linux users, however, is that the iBook now uses the 'Airport Extreme' card for wireless -- for which there's no Linux driver (Broadcom chipset), and there's no ppc equivalent of driverloader. There's no other card that fits in the Airport Extreme slot, and no PCMCIA on the iBook, either. So, to use wireless with Linux on a G4 iBook today, you'd need to use one of those little USB wireless thingys. For a bit more money, the PowerBooks are also sweet machines in every respect, though with the same wireless limitation in Linux; at least the 15" and 17" ones have PCMCIA, which increases the range of wireless alternatives. Oh, and before anyone shouts, "only one mouse button" -- remap the enter key (next to the space bar on an [i|Power]Book) to right-click, fn-enter to middle click (or, of course, your own preferred keys), and after a few minutes, you won't miss the extra buttons.

Otherwise, of recent laptops I've seen, Dells have been good, but not especially impressive (overall build quality and keyboard seemed a notch below IBM and Apple). Toshibas have not been impressive, though somone I know has one of the tiny, ultra-portable Portege ones running Red Hat, and loves it. Haven't seen any current models from other brands; I tend to see what friends have, and what the students and staff use at the uni where I work. I did see a nice-looking 'build-to-order' laptop in a computer shop recently; if you want to avoid an 'OS tax' embedded in the price, that might be worth checking. Unfortunately, as much fun as a person has shopping for these things, there's only so much time available...

birukun · Posted: Thu Nov 27, 2003 6:20 am Post subject:

Centrino = refined PIII core with wireless / 1MB L2 / Support for 2GB RAM / 400Mhz bus / Runs as low as 600Mhz in stepping fashion on battery
P4M = P4 Core, more power options /512K L2 / Support for 1GB RAM / 400Mhz Bus / Runs at 1.2Ghz on battery regardless of speed rating
Mobile P4 = P4 Core, Hyperthreading /512K L2 / Support for ? Ram / 533Mhz bus / Runs at 1.60 Ghz on battery regardless of speed rating

You Make the Call (tm).
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eee · Posted: Thu Nov 27, 2003 12:58 pm Post subject:

Pentium M is *not* Pentium III. It is an entirely new kind of design. The design is more similar to a Pentium III than a Pentium IV, but it is not related to the Pentium III. The Pentium M was developed independently from the III and IV by a different group (in Israel, I think).

This is the article that convinced me to buy Pentium M:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/29734.html

barlad · l33t Joined: 22 Feb 2003 Posts: 673

Well, thanks a lot for your help. I am convinced now. I will get an IBM pentium M

.
Not sure which at the moment.

birukun · Posted: Thu Nov 27, 2003 5:14 pm Post subject:

Pentium M began as processor codenamed Banias, the next generation Pentium III, supporting larger cache, higher bus speeds, and low power. This was to be called the Pentium III-M, but due to the release of the Pentium IV-M, Intel dropped the III from the name in a marketing strategy.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/29721.html
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/28775.html

Coupled with a wireless component, this led to the Centrino brand of technology.

Intel has since removed all reference to the PIII at the Centrino website, but the early days of Centrino had it clearly marked as an upgraded PIII core.
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barlad · l33t Joined: 22 Feb 2003 Posts: 673

A last question for all of you notebook gurus

.
I am hesitating between a t40p and a t40. Main difference seems to be the graphic board. Is there really that much of a difference between an ATI Radeon and an ATI FireGL?
I never heard of FireGL before so I have no clue what it's good for.

My question is can I do with a FireGL all that a Radon does PLUS some other things or are those cards for two different kind of applications?

birukun · Posted: Thu Nov 27, 2003 6:47 pm Post subject:

Try these 2 links - info seems scarce on the Radeon 7500, this will be a tough call. The FireGL states Linux support, but I have no first-hand experience with it.

http://ati.com/products/mobilityfgl9000/index.html
http://ati.com/products/mobilityradeon7500/index.html

Good luck and Happy Hunting!
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thundersteele · Apprentice Joined: 30 Aug 2003 Posts: 219

Amoeba · Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2003 9:24 pm Post subject:

ledskof · Apprentice Joined: 22 Oct 2002 Posts: 209

If Centrino is this much faster than other Intel chips, why aren't they pushing them out into the desktop market?

WTH is Intel's issue?
It's like Marketing is all that matters period anymore. Do Marketing depts completely run these large corporations?

birukun · Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2003 9:47 pm Post subject:

I was quoting off of Intel's technical references, they all have the standard disclaimer about everything being subject to change without notice.

Someone in my office said that Windows cannot utilize speed-stepping correctly and asked about Linux. Does anyone have any info on that?

Cheers-
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funkmankey · Guru Joined: 06 Mar 2003 Posts: 304 Location: CH

charlieg · Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2003 11:36 pm Post subject:

Centrino, one of the lamest buzz words ever to grace the face of computing.

Ignore it. Ignore it completely. It is fuck all do to with anything important (ie CPU features / speed / power from an Intel perspective). If you want wireless, go with something 801.11g, not 801.11b which is what Centrino is limited to.
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nukem996 · l33t Joined: 13 Nov 2003 Posts: 776

I have an IBM Thinkpad T40 with centrino. It runs great. You should look at those. I only run redhat linux on it, I may put gentoo on it soon when I get the time. The only thing that does not work is WiFi. Intel says they should be comming out with WiFi drivers soon but I have yet to see them. I have seen a few things floating around that will use the win centrio drivers to make it work on linux but I havnt tried it. If you need WiFi I would just go out and buy a cheap WiFi card and though it in untill the drivers are out.

wilburpan · l33t Joined: 21 Jan 2003 Posts: 977

funkmankey · Guru Joined: 06 Mar 2003 Posts: 304 Location: CH

nukem996 · l33t Joined: 13 Nov 2003 Posts: 776

Ive read stories about people switching the centrino WiFi card out with another one. I would love to do this with my graphics card, but I have no idea how to do this, dont no were to buy the parts, and dont have the time.

timfreeman · Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2003 5:51 am Post subject:

Sequentious · Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2003 6:30 am Post subject:

jasjonrac · n00b Joined: 21 Dec 2003 Posts: 14

going back a bit, Centrino isn't a processor. It's basically a marketing tool. In order to call your laptop centrino, it has to have a pentium M (not P4-M) and intel's wireless chipset. it's a marketing tool becuase Intel advertises centrino, not the pentium M or intel's wireless.