[LAD] How well do thinkpad notebooks work for audio?

hollunder at gmx.at hollunder at gmx.at
Wed Jul 29 08:01:20 UTC 2009


On Wed, 29 Jul 2009 09:52:48 +0200
Frank Barknecht <fbar at footils.org> wrote:

> Hallo,
> hollunder at gmx.at hat gesagt: // hollunder at gmx.at wrote:
> 
> > It feels like my several year old PC will crap out soon for one
> > reason or another, so I need a replacement, better sooner than
> > later. This time it should be a laptop and I heard that formerly
> > IBM and now Lenovo thinkpads are of good build quality, even if
> > they only come with intel CPUs and cost an arm and a leg.
> 
> The Thinkpads seem to have a pretty active net community doing sites
> like www.thinkwiki.org, which are very helpful. There's nothing bad
> about Intel CPUs, actually I consider them the best choice ATM for
> laptops, especially if you get a device with an Intel gfx chip
> inside, they have excellent FLOSS drivers.  Personally I agree that
> Thinkpads are a bit overpriced, you can get equivalent laptops
> cheaper from manufacturers like Acer or MSI, which are the two
> companies I have first hand experience with: I have an MSI S260 which
> currently gets replaced by an Acer Timeline 3810T. Both are well
> supported by Linux. The new one requires bleeding edge software, i.e.
> Debian unstable in my case. On the ACER, no interrupts are shared
> when AHCI is enabled, but I guess, that's normal for AHCI:
> 
> $ cat /proc/interrupts 
>             CPU0       
>    0:      31601   IO-APIC-edge      timer
>    1:       7186   IO-APIC-edge      i8042
>    8:         99   IO-APIC-edge      rtc0
>    9:      13850   IO-APIC-fasteoi   acpi
>   12:      25164   IO-APIC-edge      i8042
>   16:          0   IO-APIC-fasteoi   uhci_hcd:usb3, uhci_hcd:usb7
>   18:          0   IO-APIC-fasteoi   uhci_hcd:usb8
>   19:         24   IO-APIC-fasteoi   ehci_hcd:usb1, uhci_hcd:usb6
>   21:          0   IO-APIC-fasteoi   uhci_hcd:usb4
>   22:        182   IO-APIC-fasteoi   HDA Intel
>   23:          0   IO-APIC-fasteoi   ehci_hcd:usb2, uhci_hcd:usb5
>   26:     138998   PCI-MSI-edge      i915
>   27:       8011   PCI-MSI-edge      ahci
>   28:      61621   PCI-MSI-edge      iwlagn
>  NMI:          0   Non-maskable interrupts
>  LOC:      15229   Local timer interrupts
>  SPU:          0   Spurious interrupts
>  RES:          0   Rescheduling interrupts
>  CAL:          0   Function call interrupts
>  TLB:          0   TLB shootdowns
>  TRM:          0   Thermal event interrupts
>  ERR:          0
>  MIS:          0
> 
> I didn't yet do any hardcore audio tests on that laptop, it's running
> an upstream large latency kernel. With laptops, I think, it's
> important to know your ways of using it. For example, the Acer is not
> the fastest device around (it's just a single Core CPU), but it's
> very light (1.65kg) and has an amazing battery life (up to 8h with
> dimmed display), so it's great to take on the road which is where I
> will be using it the most and where I can deal with a slower CPU, but
> not with a huge and heavy monster. The other extreme would be a
> netbook, but I prefer the 13" screen of the Acer - my eyes don't cope
> well with 10" screens, and Atoms just don't cut it in the long run
> for audio work. So to me, the Timeline is a good compromise, but your
> compromise will probably look different.
> 
> Ciao

Thanks Frank,
I had a look at thinkwiki but couldn't find what I'm looking for.
I also thought about netbooks but they won't cut it in the long run and
I'll need a laptop eventually anyway.
Could you post a lspci of your new acer as well? It's not quite what I'm
looking for but it might be helpful anyway.

Thanks,
Philipp



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