Re: Prospects for finding Linux compatible Laptops?

["Bryan J. Smith" <b.j.smith@ieee.org>]

On Sat, 2004-01-31 at 23:01, Jonathan wrote:
> Thanks Mike:
> I guess my biggest concern is: Are the newer laptops becoming less
> Linux compatible ? 

Yes.  The recent PC'0x standards remove the PC BIOS and relies 100% on
ACPI.  And in the case of ACPI, there are a _lot_ of undocumented
interfaces that aren't part of the full standard.  As I previously
mentioned, most Linux enthusiasts reverse engineer them within 6-12
months.  So it's best if you don't buy the latest models.

It's all Microsoft.  Intel isn't doing much about it, because they've
learned they can't cross Microsoft at the PC OEM.  The best one was when
Intel _required_ Dell to sell Linux as a standard OS option on _all_ of
its desktop lines.  Dell is the _only_ PC OEM who is more funded by
Intel than Microsoft.  So what did Microsoft do?  They made Dell agree
that Linux only supported the slowest CPU, 128MB or less of memory,
etc...  It was totally outrageous!  So Intel has learned.

So, at this time, there is only *1* major designer/OEM that is
supporting 100% Linux compatibility.  That vendor is ViA with their C3
platform(s).  You may have seen these systems, they are often seen as
the "LindowsOS Notebooks," but they are available from other sources as
well.

Although everyone complains about the C3 as being "lackluster," the fact
remains that they are a sub-10W (yes 10W) x86 processor capable of upto
1GHz operation.  Yeah, a 1GHz C3 is more like a Duron or P3 at only
600-700MHz, but in reality, for that power consumption, it's very good. 
Most 2-3GHz P4 or Athlon notebooks "slow down" to 800MHz at 20-30W, so
it's not that much slower for the same battery life.  So the only "loss"
is that you just don't get the option to run high-speed when you're
running on A/C.

> From these sites all that I can tell is that the newer laptops have no
> drivers for there winmodems and that in many cases ACPI is not working.
> Furthermore, the 9XXX series ATI video cards seem difficult to
> configure. Will this situation improve in the next 18 months?

Everyone bitches about nVidia, but the reality is that nVidia _does_ put
a _lot_ of people on the Open Source XFree/2D drivers -- far more than
ATI.  That's why nVidia's cards are supported in 2D _before_ ATI, _even_
with the Open Source XFree drivers.  And nVidia _does_ release the specs
for its TV/VIVO and other interfaces.

The issue with nVidia's 3D drivers is a licensing issue that I will not
go into.  nVidia *DID* release Open Source drivers back in the XFree 3.3
days, and then almost got their @$$ sued off by Microsoft and others. 
With XFree 4.x, nVidia was technically able to create binary drivers --
the nVidia legal issue was why the XFree consortium made this design
change (remember, XFree is MIT licensed, not GPL).

The only part that is non-GPL compliant is the low-level interface. 
nVidia has recently GPL'd is AGPgart (which was due to Intel, not nVidia
-- long story short, AGP is going away in favor of PCI-Express x16, so
Intel doesn't consider it "proprietary" anymore), and will probably get
to GPL a few other things shortly (as Microsoft's hands are starting to
be exposed by Mass.).  It all depends on how much their lawyers can do. 
But nVidia's 3D accelerated XFree drivers will stay binary for a long
time, that will not change.

It's a trade-off.  nVidia releases binary-only drivers that are
"unified" across Windows, Linux and MacOS X.  They can't Open Source
them.  But this also means the release drivers with both 2D _and_ 3D for
_all_ the "latest'n greatest" cards, and get equivalent or better
performance than other platforms.  And they _still_ release Open Source
2D drivers for XFree in addition.

I have to give some kudos to ATI though.  They _do_ try to work with the
community on UtahGLX/DRI for 3D, but they really are _way_behind_ in
releasing support.  It's not their fault, it's frustrating, and I
personally know both an XFree and an ATI engineer who say "we should
just do what nVidia does."  The ATI also readily admits that ATI doesn't
want to pay for the level of Linux development that nVidia does.  The
community ends up doing a lot in the case of ATI.  nVidia puts more paid
people on the Open Source 2D drivers, hence why they come out for their
cards much sooner than ATI.

That's in addition to all the people nVidia puts on the binary-only
drivers with 3D.  nVidia is 90% Linux in-house (ATI is around 70%).

BTW, if you're really looking for a "true-standards" video card vendor
to support, ATI is _just_as_proprietary_ with extensions as nVidia --
even for OpenGL.  Matrox is a bit too, but not as bad anymore.  No, the
vendor you want to support is 3DLabs, who strives for "pure OpenGL 2.0"
adoption in the industry, and their chips do it.


-- 
Bryan J. Smith, E.I. -- Engineer, Technologist, School Teacher
b.j.smith@ieee.org



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