8 ms·

I love seriously over-powered "luggables" and these machines might have impressive specs, but there's a big problem; a lot of open source folks won't buy NVIDIA

by jcr 11y ago

I love seriously over-powered "luggables" and these machines might have impressive specs, but there's a big problem; a lot of open source folks won't buy NVIDIA gear due to the need for non-free binary-blob drivers. NVIDIA makes some impressive products, but they seldom play well with others, and they seem to have a real vendetta against supporting open source efforts by simply providing the necessary documentation. With luck, other vendors will also implement the mobile Xeon chips, but make a more friendly and compatible decision about graphics hardware.

SamReidHughes 11y ago
That's not a big problem, because most people aren't "open source" people. The "open source" people won't even get wifi working. The real problem for Linux users is that the Linux drivers aren't good, or don't support Optimus (do they now?), and you get poor battery life or poor performance or you have to manually do configuration just to get a basic working system.
- vetinari 11y ago
  When did you see the Linux distribution like that? In 2000? Specifically Thinkpad laptops are known to work out of the box with popular Linux distributions.
  - SamReidHughes 11y ago
    The rule of thumb for Thinkpads and Linux is that you'll be fine as long as you get an Intel wifi card (or some other known quantity) and integrated graphics. For example, the NVS 4200M gpu hasn't really worked out of the box for me even on Ubuntu on a T520, nor the Quadro 2000M on a W520, without having to do some fiddling, or (later) knowing what specific packages to install. Optimus or certain multi-monitor setups was a lost cause, so when you do get it to work, the battery life hurts. (I've read things have improved since a couple years ago.) Wifi drivers (such as Intel's) carry proprietary blobs, which you have to install manually on Debian, but they work reliably -- that's only a problem for true open source radicals, or normal computer users that were tricked into using Debian.
    - vetinari 11y ago
      Maybe we got lucky, but unless we do BTO, we won't get other than Intel wifi there. Maybe the local Lenovo representatives really like our market :) The last time I've seen something unsupported was T400 with ATI/Intel hybrid graphics. I disabled the ATI part, as Intel was good enough and ATI was crappy under Windows too. (the ATI part worked under Linux, but the switching between ATI and Intel didn't. So it was use one or another until reboot.) For your NVS4200M gpu, didn't Ubuntu offer you an installation of restricted drivers? I vaguely remember that when you booted on such configuration, there was an icon in upper right tray that did exactly that. The T403s (yes, Intel wifi and Intel graphics) that I'm using right now works out of the box in both Ubuntu and Fedora. On the other hand, when installing Windows 7, it's good to have ethernet driver and tvsu ready at usb stick. (Windows 8 works out of the box too).
      - SamReidHughes 11y ago
        > For your NVS4200M gpu, didn't Ubuntu offer you an installation of restricted drivers? I vaguely remember that when you booted on such configuration, there was an icon in upper right tray that did exactly that. Yes, I mean, I vaguely remember that, too. But often that didn't work, and when it did, you still didn't get Optimus, and multi-monitor stuff was still annoying to set up (until you learn to install some nvidia-settings package, but even then you're manually configuring the monitor mappings in a GUI every time you start up). Now it looks like the official drivers let you turn on/off the discrete GPU, but only after restarting X. Maybe using Bumblebee is simpler too now. > On the other hand, when installing Windows 7, it's good to have ethernet driver and tvsu ready at usb stick. (Windows 8 works out of the box too). Lucky. On some Latitude I had to put that on a DVD because the USB support wasn't there.
        froward 11y ago
        All of the Ubuntu distros have full support for many of Nvidia's cadillac video cards and it's drop in. I was literally playing CS:GO 5 minutes ago on my Xubuntu box I built to game on. I also haven't had to install a driver for any peripheral or other component in any of machines for at least 8 years now. The very few times I do have to do tier 1-2 support for someone on a Windows machine at work, it requires some driver related bullshit for even the most basic devices.
  - paulmd 11y ago
    That's the ideal at least. I tried to install Lubuntu 15.04 on my Thinkpad W510 workstation about two months ago. No display, when I tabbed to console no WiFi or Ethernet. Poked at it for a while, couldn't make it work.
gambiting 11y ago
If you love over-powered mobile solutions, have you by chance heard of Eurocom? They make a portable server called Panther, and you can configure it with 12-core/24-thread Xeon, 32GB of ram, 4x1TB SSD in RAID 5 config and dual Quattro cards. In that config you have to use two(!!!) 300W power supplies though. http://www.eurocom.com/ec/configure(1,234,0)ec http://www.eurocom.com/ec/configure(1,234,0)ec

by jcr 11y ago

SamReidHughes 11y ago

That's not a big problem, because most people aren't "open source" people. The "open source" people won't even get wifi working. The real problem for Linux users is that the Linux drivers aren't good, or don't support Optimus (do they now?), and you get poor battery life or poor performance or you have to manually do configuration just to get a basic working system.

vetinari 11y ago
When did you see the Linux distribution like that? In 2000? Specifically Thinkpad laptops are known to work out of the box with popular Linux distributions.
- SamReidHughes 11y ago
  The rule of thumb for Thinkpads and Linux is that you'll be fine as long as you get an Intel wifi card (or some other known quantity) and integrated graphics. For example, the NVS 4200M gpu hasn't really worked out of the box for me even on Ubuntu on a T520, nor the Quadro 2000M on a W520, without having to do some fiddling, or (later) knowing what specific packages to install. Optimus or certain multi-monitor setups was a lost cause, so when you do get it to work, the battery life hurts. (I've read things have improved since a couple years ago.) Wifi drivers (such as Intel's) carry proprietary blobs, which you have to install manually on Debian, but they work reliably -- that's only a problem for true open source radicals, or normal computer users that were tricked into using Debian.
  - vetinari 11y ago
    Maybe we got lucky, but unless we do BTO, we won't get other than Intel wifi there. Maybe the local Lenovo representatives really like our market :) The last time I've seen something unsupported was T400 with ATI/Intel hybrid graphics. I disabled the ATI part, as Intel was good enough and ATI was crappy under Windows too. (the ATI part worked under Linux, but the switching between ATI and Intel didn't. So it was use one or another until reboot.) For your NVS4200M gpu, didn't Ubuntu offer you an installation of restricted drivers? I vaguely remember that when you booted on such configuration, there was an icon in upper right tray that did exactly that. The T403s (yes, Intel wifi and Intel graphics) that I'm using right now works out of the box in both Ubuntu and Fedora. On the other hand, when installing Windows 7, it's good to have ethernet driver and tvsu ready at usb stick. (Windows 8 works out of the box too).
    - SamReidHughes 11y ago
      > For your NVS4200M gpu, didn't Ubuntu offer you an installation of restricted drivers? I vaguely remember that when you booted on such configuration, there was an icon in upper right tray that did exactly that. Yes, I mean, I vaguely remember that, too. But often that didn't work, and when it did, you still didn't get Optimus, and multi-monitor stuff was still annoying to set up (until you learn to install some nvidia-settings package, but even then you're manually configuring the monitor mappings in a GUI every time you start up). Now it looks like the official drivers let you turn on/off the discrete GPU, but only after restarting X. Maybe using Bumblebee is simpler too now. > On the other hand, when installing Windows 7, it's good to have ethernet driver and tvsu ready at usb stick. (Windows 8 works out of the box too). Lucky. On some Latitude I had to put that on a DVD because the USB support wasn't there.
      - froward 11y ago
        All of the Ubuntu distros have full support for many of Nvidia's cadillac video cards and it's drop in. I was literally playing CS:GO 5 minutes ago on my Xubuntu box I built to game on. I also haven't had to install a driver for any peripheral or other component in any of machines for at least 8 years now. The very few times I do have to do tier 1-2 support for someone on a Windows machine at work, it requires some driver related bullshit for even the most basic devices.
- paulmd 11y ago
  That's the ideal at least. I tried to install Lubuntu 15.04 on my Thinkpad W510 workstation about two months ago. No display, when I tabbed to console no WiFi or Ethernet. Poked at it for a while, couldn't make it work.

gambiting 11y ago

If you love over-powered mobile solutions, have you by chance heard of Eurocom? They make a portable server called Panther, and you can configure it with 12-core/24-thread Xeon, 32GB of ram, 4x1TB SSD in RAID 5 config and dual Quattro cards. In that config you have to use two(!!!) 300W power supplies though. http://www.eurocom.com/ec/configure(1,234,0)ec http://www.eurocom.com/ec/configure(1,234,0)ec