Linux Friendly Netbook?

[Oron Peled]

On 04.05.2009 Hetz Ben Hamo wrote:
> Well, I read the Link you provided, and I suggest you should read the
> update here:
> http://www.happyassassin.net/2009/03/19/news-from-the-poulsbo-front/
> 
> Basically the driver is being changed to full open source style

Yeh, I've read it at the time, but note that it "is being changed"
so it's not there yet -- the original poster wanted to buy a product
working today.

> xorg-x11-drv-vesa-2.2.0-3.fc10.i386.rpm which supports GMA-500 pretty

Even after this work is done, we will get VESA! No 3D acceleration.
So, for the time being, it looks safer to go with the traditional
Intel chipsets.

> As I wrote in my blog about Netbook graphics chipsets
> (http://benhamo.org/wp/?p=1423), soon there will be some netbooks
> using the ION chipsets with nVidia 9400M which fully supports all it's
> features under any Linux distribution.

With binary only drivers... no thanks.

However, I'm optimistic because the general situation in graphic chipsets
is improving rapidly -- Intel works hard to get supported drivers into
upstream kernel, and AMD/ATI are keeping their promises so far and
add the missing pieces as well.

> On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 11:23 PM, Oron Peled <oron at actcom.co.il> wrote:
> > On 03.05.2009 Hetz Ben Hamo wrote:
> >> All the netbooks that are in the market today will work with any
> >> modern Linux distribution (Ubuntu 8.X, 9.X, OpenSuSE 10.X and up,
> >> Fedora 9 and above, RHEL 5 and above, Debian Lenny, etc) since those
> >> netbooks all use the same Intel crappy chipset which has Linux support
> >> for few years now.
> >
> > Making sure you have a crappy Intel chipset is normally a good way
> > to have good Linux support out of the box.
> >
> > However, there are exceptions. Specifically, the GMA-500
> > currently sucks big-time and unfortunately it is used by Dell
> > Mininote (and maybe others).
> >
> > For some gory details (long URL):
> > http://www.happyassassin.net/2009/01/30/intel-gma-500-poulsbo-graphics-on-
> > linux-a-precise-and-comprehensive-summary-as-to-why-youre-screwed/
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > --
> > Oron Peled                                 Voice: +972-4-8228492
> > oron at actcom.co.il                  http://www.actcom.co.il/~oron
> > Ignore Your Rights And They'll Go Away
> >
> >
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Skepticism is the lazy person's default position.
> my blog (hebrew): http://benhamo.org
> 
>