AMD64 laptop recommendation?

[arnaudsj]

Hi, I need to get myself a new laptop by the end of June. I have been running Gentoo on my AMD64 3000+ desktop since christmas, and I think I might have trouble to give up the speed gain on a sweet 64 bit os, specially with all the development I do and compilation.

Any recommendation for a well supported laptop with a AMD64? I want to make sure that the wireless, sound card, and display hardware work well and on some solid hardware that can take being carried around without breaking in 6 months (FYI, right now my laptop is a powerbook, so I know it might be hard to match the quality feeling in the pc laptop world

Thank you in advance for sharing your experiences!

Cheers!

Sébastien

[Sadako]

Maybe hold out till some more Turion 64 notebooks become available?

Acer is supposedly upgrading it's ferrari model to a turion with a SXGA+ screen. Should be sweet.
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[RaZoR1394]

I've heard very good reports of the Sager notebooks. Other than the linux support they are one of the highest performing and quality notebook types out on the market. Maybe the Sager 4750 could be of interest?

[wetkitty]

I have a Mayhem G3 for sale that works well with gentoo. I bought two but only needed one, Gentoo works very well with it, wireless, cpu throttling. Never did try the modem though. Post for Gentoo questions on it or PM me for sale questions.
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2x Sony VAIO FX-215's w/Stage1 installs

[Pax-UX]

You might find the following topic interesting from Tech Report forum:

http://www.techreport.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=30181


In short the ASUS Z81K look like a good one, but I couldn't find it anywhere

[ChipChopChippy]

I have an Acer Aspire 1524 i.e.

[Voyageur]

Acer Aspire 1525 here (as you can see in my sig )

It has the same specs as the 1524 but with an athlon64 3700+ and 100GB of HDD

The inprocomm wifi module is indeed the only troublesome one, there is some investigation under way to make it work with ndiswrapper, see:
http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=327
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Routinely breaking NX, GNUstep, net-ftp, miscellaneous (llvm, filezilla, rdesktop, chromium, ...) packages

[ChipChopChippy]

i was following the thread that you listed - i was just too impatient to wait

seriously though, the new wireless card works flawlessly, and i would recommend it to other impatient aspire 152x users.

[Voyageur]

Yes, it looks like AP scan works now, but emission/reception is not operationnal yet. Finding a prism54 card is the best thing, but it's sometimes hard/tricky to find... the same model can be built on a prism54 or on another (unsupported) chipset depending on the time you buy it!

So I patienty wait for the ndiswrapper salvation, at least I'm sure of the chipset...
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Routinely breaking NX, GNUstep, net-ftp, miscellaneous (llvm, filezilla, rdesktop, chromium, ...) packages

[arnaudsj]

Thanks to all for sharing your wisdom.

I think I may have found a winner... The ACER Ferrari 4000. It looks like sweet laptop, the only thing I don't know yet is if the wireless card will be supported. Hard to tell yet...

I have found one site that is starting to take pre-orders it already. It looks like the official availibity date is end of June.
http://www.bytewizecomputers.com/products/9/42/403/9437

$2K does not seem that bad for a fully loaded laptop with hopefully a kick-ass processor (I have to say that the benchmark available today are not the best ones to go by... I am hoping that this chip is at least as good as the Pentium M!)

[stevenaleach]

Save some money. I've had no problems with an eMachines M6805 (Other than having to flash the bios before installing Linux, but I knew about that before I bought it). The 68xx's are a pretty awsome bargain. The M6811 is a 2.2Ghz Athlon 3400, 512Mb memory, 80 Gb hd, DVD RW. Tiger direct has them refurbished for $1039.00. Hell, my 6805 was $590 on eBay

The included wireless card is junk, though I understand some people have persuaded it to work with ndiswrapper and the Windows driver. Battery life could be better but I think it might be improved by setting power management when using wireless. Screen is awesome 1280x800, bright, viewable from any angle. The sound card is good and the built in speakers aren't bad. using the ATI drivers, I'm seeing 2058 FPS on glxbears though the snazzier models might do better. Synaptics touchpad works fine. Screen brightness adjustment function keys work. CPU frequency scaling seems to work though I haven't been able to get it to switch with load, just with battery/ac... maybe I haven't taxed it enough though.

The built in multi card reader is known to work though I haven't tried mine out yet.
The same with firewire, It is known to work but I don't have anything to test it with.

Oh, the one glitch: The screen dims to the lowest level as soon as the kernel begins to load and must be adjusted with the function keys.

[Voyageur]

Ah the Ferrari line of products... The 3400 was a close second to the aspire 1525 for me.

But I did not like two things on it:

- the price: it is quite more expensive than comparable acer laptops, note that the 1525 is around 1100 euros now (compared to the 2400 announced for the new Ferrari)
- the ATI card their drivers do not work as well as the nvidia ones

As for wireless, previous ferrari had a broadcom card, cross your fingers and you may have a working wifi out of the box!
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Routinely breaking NX, GNUstep, net-ftp, miscellaneous (llvm, filezilla, rdesktop, chromium, ...) packages

[arnaudsj]

Yes, the price of the Acer Ferrari is high, but my company will be purchasing it, and compared to the overpriced IBM T series laptop they've bought everybody, the Ferrari will look like a bargain

I agree that I wished it was not an ATI card, but on the other hand since I will be doing at 99% coding on it, I don't need the 3D acceleration, just 2D will work fine for me.

If they include a broadom card in the new one, that will be fantastic, I need to be mobile with this laptop, and carrying along a 10ft ethernet cable is not the best way to do it Also, the weight is really close to my current laptop (17' powerbook) and I know I don't want to get any heavier than that. All the other AMD64 mobile laptop are rather heavy due to proc in itself which takes quite some effort to cool. With the Turion I think it will be welcome to have 6lbs laptop around again!

Actually does anybody have words of wisdom on the comparaison Turion 2Ghz and the current AMD64 Mobile line? Like I said in a previous post I have a AMD64 3000+ desktop running already and I would like to have an idea of the performance comparaison with the Turion chip.

Also, what is a big selling point on the ferrari is that is has a DVI-D connector in the back to connect an external display. I have a very nice 23' LCD at work and I think right now on the market only the Ferrari 4000 and one of the top Dell laptop are able to drive such a large external screen (1920x1200).

[projectle]

I personally have a D470K Notebook.
It is a whitebox that has been OEMed by a large number of companies doing 64-bit notebooks, and it has worked great for me.

It has a 17" 1680x1050 widescreen, ATI Radeon 9700, works with any desktop or mobile Athlon64 including the new 35W models.

Plus, a complete loadout with a 3800+, 2GB DDR333 SODIMM, a UJ-845B Slotloading DL DVD Recorder, and a Hitachi 60GB 7200RPM HD, I was only out $1600 and change.

Overall, it is a great system, and you should take a look at it.

[paulbiz]

I am using Acer Ferrari 3400.

The 802.11g works (ndiswrapper + Windows x64 broadcom driver), gigabit ethernet works, audio works, ATI driver & 3D stuff works, touchpad works (including scroll button), dvd-burner works, USB works, CPU frequency scaling works. I have not configured the extra programmable buttons (e-mail, internet, etc) but from what I've read it should be possible.

Completely untested: Modem, Bluetooth, PCMCIA, Memory card readers, Infra-red, Firewire (I don't have any device to test any of these things)

Battery lasts just over 2 hours in the best case, just over 1 hour when compiling KDE

natural screen resolution is 1400x1050

i got mine for just over USD$1500 new, 1 year factory warranty... Extended warranty for 3 years I think costs another ~$150 from Acer

512mb of ram is a bit thin for Windows but for Gentoo it's plenty for 99% of the time (depending on what you plan to use it for, of course).

lspci:
0000:00:00.0 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8385 [K8T800 AGP] Host Bridge (rev 01)
0000:00:01.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8237 PCI bridge [K8T800/K8T890 South]
0000:00:07.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI4510 PC card Cardbus Controller (rev 02)
0000:00:07.1 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments PCI4510 IEEE-1394 Controller
0000:00:09.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 03)
0000:00:0b.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5788 Gigabit Ethernet (rev 03)
0000:00:10.0 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 80)
0000:00:10.1 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 80)
0000:00:10.2 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 80)
0000:00:10.3 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB 2.0 (rev 82)
0000:00:11.0 ISA bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8235 ISA Bridge
0000:00:11.1 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C586A/B/VT82C686/A/B/VT823x/A/C PIPC Bus Master IDE (rev 06)
0000:00:11.5 Multimedia audio controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8233/A/8235/8237 AC97 Audio Controller (rev 50)
0000:00:11.6 Communication controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. AC'97 Modem Controller (rev 80)
0000:00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration
0000:00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map
0000:00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller
0000:00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control
0000:01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV350 [Mobility Radeon 9600 M10]

The video ID from lspci says Radeon 9600, but it's advertised as a Radeon 9700 ...

I don't have any bluetooth device, but when I press the Bluetooth button (to enable it), I get this from dmesg:

usb 4-2: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 3
Bluetooth: Core ver 2.7
NET: Registered protocol family 31
Bluetooth: HCI device and connection manager initialized
hci_usb: Unknown symbol hci_free_dev
hci_usb: Unknown symbol hci_alloc_dev
hci_usb: Unknown symbol hci_unregister_dev
hci_usb: Unknown symbol hci_register_dev
Bluetooth: HCI socket layer initialized
Bluetooth: HCI USB driver ver 2.8
usbcore: registered new driver hci_usb

So it is at least recognized...

[Morbo]

I use an eMachines m6805 which makes a very nice Linux machine. Everthing works, including wireless (ndiswrapper), pcmcia (yenta module), card reader (standard USB mass storage), Firewire, VGA out, CPU throttling (powernow module), extra keyboard keys (hotkeys package), and even the FN keys function for screen brightness, wireless on/off, etc.

My only compliants are:

1) Screen resolution is only 1200x800.

2) Wireless is not natively supported on Linux but it works fine with ndiswrapper

3) eMachines decided to cut some corners on the hard drive. The 4200RPM drive becomes a performence problem at times. Newer models probably include a faster drive.

4) Mediocre battery life but it is comparable to other amd64 laptops. At most I can get 2.5 hours with my LCD brightness at low and the CPU speed cut down to 800mhz.

[piercey]

Ive a HP zv5000 series laptop and currently speaking its almost 100% supported in linux. There is a great mailing list for the compaq r3000 (zv5000's sister, almost exact same laptop) and even a wiki. Synaptics touchpad, shortcut keys, software support for volume keys, wireless, nvidia card, wxga screen are supported. Everything except the 5 in 1 media reader card which i havent needed anyway.

However, the newer model is out, zv6000 or R4000, but they currently have terrible support down to the ati drivers. Ive heard nothing but bad things.

Worth a look into.
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[ 2008.0 X86 E8400 @ 4.0Ghz ]

[Travers]

I run a HP zv5000, ndiswrapper. Mind pointing me to that compaq thread, piercey? I started a thread for the zv5000 here on gentoo https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-260806-highlight-.html It lacks the hard keys though, which I would love to add to it.

My friend bought a zv6000, against my suggestions. ATI northbrige and southbridge. ATI is just now starting to use the VIA 8237 southbridge paired with their northbridge--they are having tons of dificulty perfecting their southbridges. I don't think HP carries the zv5000 line on their website anymore (which is incredibly stupid, since it's one of ther best selling laptop lines, from what I've seen.)

I would recommend something with a external m-pci slot, in the case that you have to add in a wireless card--that makes it so much easier. Go for a nvidia chipset, or a VIA if you must; stay very far away from ATI chipsets (especially the southbridges) and graphics. 12 cell LiOn battery. If you can find a Turion (good luck, there aren't too many out there) grab one. I think 30 watts is their average TDP. I'm on about 90 TDP, Athlon 3700+, not the mobile chip, the desktop revision that adds scaling. Ack; But with some insanely simple scripts I'm able to pull 5 hours on a full charge (2 and 1/2 hours typical in windows (I don't run windows.)) Check out the Gentoo Power Guide, it's fantastic.

[piercey]

Ah I think I posted the link in that thread before?

Anywho:
The wiki: http://prinsig.se/weekee/index.php/Main_Page

The mailing list: http://lists.pcxperience.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/linuxr3000

In order to get the audio/shortcut keys working you can either use xev which is what i initially used, or just a nice little prog called lineakd which has a map for the r3000/zv5000 keys

Regarding power i get about 2 1/2 hours of watching a movie with cpu scaled to 800mhz from 2.2ghz and the screen put down to its lowest. I had some problems with the cpufreqd app that made my proc "tick". I didnt think proc's were meant to tick lol.
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[ 2008.0 X86 E8400 @ 4.0Ghz ]

[techzilla]

I own a compaq R4000 AND an Asus-Z81k, (Z81ka)

if your primary concern is Compatability the compaq R4000 with its Radeon xpress 200m chipset is very linux compatable. I have booted gentoo live dvd RR64 and others without any problem whatsoever. the only issue is that worthless broadcom wifi chipset, which as we all know is linux incompatable (thnx to broadcom)

the BIOS on the R4000 is also well updated and fairly clean although slightly crippled.

-

the Asus-z81k , z81ka on the other hand is not very linux compatable because of the nforce 150 go chipset combined with the ati radeon 9700. the WLAN is also linux worthless, not to mention also unsupported in xp x64 also. the built in WLAN is actually USB. i had major display problems and artifacts with Suse and ubuntu but thankfully not with the Gentoo Live DVD RR64

these display issues are a result of write combining, which i finally figured out MUST be disababled to stop these type of issues on this strange nvidia chipset/ati grafix combo

also debian AMD64 netinstall did not even reconise my nforce based nic, which irritated me shitlessly.

i am sure that the asusz81k, z81ka and likewise models will be beter supported eventually and hopefully soon. although, as of now the z81ka also has a crippled and buggy bios with no pnp enabled OS option, which also makes the linux installs just that much more difficult. you can see my reports at

http://www.asus-z81k.com

i bought the Z81ka at avadirect for about 1200$ a very resonable and impressive notebook if u ask me. if you are very skilled at Linux the z81ka is soooooo damn tight, its worth the hassle. if you are more of a linux n00b then a r4000 is much better suited for you.
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