[TriLUG] Laptop Linux

[Roberto J. Dohnert]

I would actually like to know, what is a good Laptop for Linux?  The 
Laptop I had before battery life wasnt that great and sound didnt work.  
On the Toshiba Satellite that I use now I am having to use Windows XP 
because my TrackPad doesnt work and sound doesnt work.   Can someone 
point me in the direction of Satellite drivers for Linux?

Mike Mueller wrote:

>On Saturday 13 December 2003 09:56, Jon Carnes wrote:
>  
>
>>On Fri, 2003-12-12 at 19:50, Phillip Rhodes wrote:
>>    
>>
>>>>Anybody have measurements on how long a battery charge lasts using
>>>>Linux on a laptop?
>>>>
>>>>What I conclude from reading this is that Linux control of ACPI ...
>>>>well ... er ... sucks right now.  I'll continue to research this, but
>>>>if anyone has information to the contrary I'd like to see it.
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>Mike,
>>>
>>>I don't have any data for you at the moment, but if it's really
>>>important to ya, I could generate some. I've got my laptop configured
>>>to dual-boot RH 9 and Win2K Server, so I could easily do a comparison
>>>and chart out the battery life times...  As it happens, I can't really
>>>speak to the battery life under Linux, as I'm usually near an AC source,
>>>and have never let my battery run all the way down...
>>>
>>>TTYL,
>>>
>>>Phil
>>>      
>>>
>>I have an interesting story that is along those lines.  I bought some
>>old Laptops for $25/each (old Toshiba P233's) and to test/retrain the
>>batteries I charged them up and then ran them out a few times using the
>>current OS, Win98.
>>I thought the batteries were in fairly bad shape as they wouldn't hold a
>>charge for longer than about a half hour.
>>
>>I installed Mandrake 9.1 and RH9 on the laptops, and while at a clients
>>ended up having to run them off batteries - they each lasted over 2
>>hours... which I found to be fairly amazing.
>>    
>>
>
>Agreed.  For that class of machine - probably using APM.  4-6 hours is my 
>expectation for brand-new laptops.
>  
>
>>From the very beginning the BIOS settings have been set to use maximum
>>power for CPU, disk, and screen.
>>
>>My guess is that the Win98 was hitting the disk quite often (for reasons
>>unknown) and that ate up the power.  The apps I was running on Linux
>>basically read the hard drive on start up and then ran fairly well right
>>out of RAM.
>>
>>Anecdotal evidence...
>>    
>>
>
>My old Presario was running ME when the new replacement battery would not 
>last more than 45 minutes.  I wish I had paid more attention to battery 
>charge management when I was running Mandrake 8.1 with the original equipment 
>battery.
>
>I noticed that the Knoppix distro on my new Toshiba used and found the APM 
>routines.  I don't think APM can control screen brightness so the screen 
>stays on high intensity all the time. With the Toshiba Power Management tool 
>under XP I see controls for display intensity, display on/off, cooling 
>scheme, CPU speed, HD, sleep, and hibernate. It's reasonably predicable that 
>the new Toshiba running XP will last longer than the same machine running 
>Linux. 
>
>The Toshiba Toolset also had a configurator that distinguished 3 user groups: 
>road warrior, student, SOHO.  Those distinctions got me thinking.  If Linux 
>lags in the battery charge management arena, then that critical student group 
>which values maximum charge preservation will opt away from Linux and that's 
>not good for Linux on the desktop bacause the desktop class is being replaced 
>by laptops.  
>  
>

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