11 Nov
2008
11 Nov
'08
10:51 a.m.
Greetings,
My local WalMart is selling off some HP notebooks for drastically
slashed prices. One has an AMD turion and nVidia graphics, and it looks
like it would fit my needs.
Is there any particular reason I should *not* buy an HP notebook for
running Linux audio apps ? I won't be using the internal sound hardware,
so that's a non-issue.
Best,
dp
11 Nov
11 Nov
11:20 a.m.
Dave,
I own one but have never set Linux up on it. I have to have Windows
on it for my options trading and with only 80GB there just isn't
enough space left after putting some music in iTunes.
I will say that I like the screen a lot. It's a 17" wide screen and
looks quite nice playing movies. It's an AMD/nvidia box like the one
you're talking about, although likely not the same model as I got mine
18 months ago.
I would personally NEVER buy a laptop without first at least
booting a Gentoo install CD, and likely 2 or 3 others, to ensure that
it can see all the hardware. Once the install CD has booted you can
run something like lspci and get readings on what hardware is in the
box. Check to see that you're getting full speed from the disk drives
as that's probably the most critical for making the machine useful
early on. If you don't get full speed disks don't buy it unless you
are certain you can get chip set support later on.
Most likely everything will work great. I have had to send my
machine back once. The motherboard died. they replaced it for free but
the unit itself came back badly scratched. Frustrating, but not
critical. There's no resale value in these things and I don't see the
scratches day to day so it only bugs me when I move the unit around.
If you want or need clarification on any of this contact me online or off.
Hope this helps,
Mark
On Tue, Nov 11, 2008 at 6:51 AM, Dave Phillips <dlphillips(a)woh.rr.com> wrote:
Greetings,
My local WalMart is selling off some HP notebooks for drastically
slashed prices. One has an AMD turion and nVidia graphics, and it looks
like it would fit my needs.
Is there any particular reason I should *not* buy an HP notebook for
running Linux audio apps ? I won't be using the internal sound hardware,
so that's a non-issue.
Best,
dp
_______________________________________________
Linux-audio-user mailing list
Linux-audio-user(a)lists.linuxaudio.org
http://lists.linuxaudio.org/mailman/listinfo/linux-audio-user
11:49 a.m.
Mark Knecht wrote:
Dave,
I own one but have never set Linux up on it. I have to have Windows
on it for my options trading and with only 80GB there just isn't
enough space left after putting some music in iTunes.
:)
I will say that I like the screen a lot. It's a
17" wide screen and
looks quite nice playing movies. It's an AMD/nvidia box like the one
you're talking about, although likely not the same model as I got mine
18 months ago.
Pretty close though. The hd is much larger on the machine I'm considering.
I would personally NEVER buy a laptop without first
at least
booting a Gentoo install CD, and likely 2 or 3 others, to ensure that
it can see all the hardware. Once the install CD has booted you can
run something like lspci and get readings on what hardware is in the
box. Check to see that you're getting full speed from the disk drives
as that's probably the most critical for making the machine useful
early on. If you don't get full speed disks don't buy it unless you
are certain you can get chip set support later on.
Ah, that one has me stumped. How do I check for full speed operations ?
With hdparm or something else ?
I figured I'd slip a Dyne live disc in the thing to see if everything
works. I also have a 64 Studio live disc to take along.
If you want or need clarification on any of this contact me online or off.
Many thanks (again), Mark. :)
Best,
dp
12:26 p.m.
On Tuesday November 11 2008 16:49:54 Dave Phillips wrote:
Hi Dave,
the NVIDIA thing could cause some trouble.
I own a Packard Bell notebook that has NVIDIA graphics adapter onboard. The
problem is the driver for it. You can choose from either an x-org driver (nv)
which does not support dual head (so one screen only) and does not support
3D. The latter might not be an issue for You, but You can get 3D only while
using a proprietary binary NVIDIA driver. And that is something that might
cause trouble with real time for audio, though I myself have not noticed any
issues related to that so far.
Other than that it would be interesting to see what kind of onboard sound the
HPs have (we all remember long intel-hda threads), even if You say You will
not need it.
You might want to give sidux a try. It is a debian sid type distro that comes
as a live-CD/DVD version and can be installed on harddisc really easily. It
is fast and there is a guy nicknamed makke who prepares RT kernels that can
be installed via apt-get, so no hassle with kernel finetuning. And another
guy has prepared dssi-vst packages ;-)
Sidux comes with everything You need, boots really fast and You can check the
HP notebook's hardware with it as well.
Kind regards,
Crypto.
I will say
that I like the screen a lot. It's a 17" wide screen and
looks quite nice playing movies. It's an AMD/nvidia box like the one
you're talking about, although likely not the same model as I got mine
18 months ago.
Pretty close though. The hd is much larger on the machine I'm considering. I would personally NEVER buy a laptop without
first at least
booting a Gentoo install CD, and likely 2 or 3 others, to ensure that
it can see all the hardware. Once the install CD has booted you can
run something like lspci and get readings on what hardware is in the
box. Check to see that you're getting full speed from the disk drives
as that's probably the most critical for making the machine useful
early on. If you don't get full speed disks don't buy it unless you
are certain you can get chip set support later on.
Ah, that one has me stumped. How do I check for full speed operations ?
With hdparm or something else ?
I figured I'd slip a Dyne live disc in the thing to see if everything
works. I also have a 64 Studio live disc to take along. If you want or need clarification on any of
this contact me online or
off.
Many thanks (again), Mark. :)
Best,
dp
5:42 p.m.
Other than that it would be interesting to see what
kind of onboard sound the
HPs have (we all remember long intel-hda threads), even if You say You will
not need it.
I bought a Tascam US-122. Very quiet mic preamps with phantom, and
a hardware monitoring. Very nice for a laptop.
Toby
3:52 p.m.
On Tue, Nov 11, 2008 at 7:49 AM, Dave Phillips <dlphillips(a)woh.rr.com> wrote:
Mark Knecht wrote:
Yeah, that's what I've done. First look at dmesg to figure out how the
distro is identifying your drive - hda, sda, etc., and then hdpam -tT
/dev/hda, etc.
Note that if you don't get full speed operation it doesn't mean Linux
doesn't support it - just that the boot kernel on your CD didn't do
it. At that point you probably have to do some study to determine how
to proceed. This is all chipset stuff so jot down some PCI ID's and
chip name/numbers and retire to Google or the LKML to get more info.
Dave,
I own one but have never set Linux up on it. I have to have Windows
on it for my options trading and with only 80GB there just isn't
enough space left after putting some music in iTunes.
:)
I will say that I like the screen a lot. It's a 17" wide screen and
looks quite nice playing movies. It's an AMD/nvidia box like the one
you're talking about, although likely not the same model as I got mine
18 months ago.
Pretty close though. The hd is much larger on the machine I'm considering.
I would personally NEVER buy a laptop without
first at least
booting a Gentoo install CD, and likely 2 or 3 others, to ensure that
it can see all the hardware. Once the install CD has booted you can
run something like lspci and get readings on what hardware is in the
box. Check to see that you're getting full speed from the disk drives
as that's probably the most critical for making the machine useful
early on. If you don't get full speed disks don't buy it unless you
are certain you can get chip set support later on.
Ah, that one has me stumped. How do I check for full speed operations ? With
hdparm or something else ?
I figured I'd slip a Dyne live disc in the thing to see if everything works.
I also have a 64 Studio live disc to take along.
You're welcome,
Mark
If you want or need clarification on any of this contact me online or
off.
Many thanks (again), Mark. :)
Best,
dp
12 Nov
12 Nov
2:21 p.m.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
Mark Knecht wrote:
On Tue, Nov 11, 2008 at 7:49 AM, Dave Phillips
<dlphillips(a)woh.rr.com> wrote:
Check if you can re-assign PCI IRQ's in the BIOS and have a look at `cat
/proc/interrupts` & compare with `lspci -v`, `lsusb` - you'll want to
have a dedicated IRQ for your external audio-device(s). ieee1394 is easy
enough, USB requires a bit more digging:
Some laptops have internal USB-hub(s) rather than multiple
controllers/busses. If you can boot the laptop in the store, also take
eg. a memory stick with you, plug it into all ports and check the
bus&device id with `lsusb`.
Wifi is sth. to test as well.. I'd not recommend nvidia but that's a
whole different story..
robin
Mark Knecht wrote:
Yeah, that's what I've done. First look at dmesg to figure out how the
distro is identifying your drive - hda, sda, etc., and then hdpam -tT
/dev/hda, etc. Dave,
I own one but have never set Linux up on it. I have to have Windows
on it for my options trading and with only 80GB there just isn't
enough space left after putting some music in iTunes.
:)
I will say that I like the screen a lot.
It's a 17" wide screen and
looks quite nice playing movies. It's an AMD/nvidia box like the one
you're talking about, although likely not the same model as I got mine
18 months ago.
Pretty close though. The hd is much larger on the machine I'm considering.
I would personally NEVER buy a laptop without
first at least
booting a Gentoo install CD, and likely 2 or 3 others, to ensure that
it can see all the hardware. Once the install CD has booted you can
run something like lspci and get readings on what hardware is in the
box. Check to see that you're getting full speed from the disk drives
as that's probably the most critical for making the machine useful
early on. If you don't get full speed disks don't buy it unless you
are certain you can get chip set support later on.
Ah, that one has me stumped. How do I check for full speed operations ? With
hdparm or something else ? Note that if you don't get full speed operation it
doesn't mean Linux
doesn't support it - just that the boot kernel on your CD didn't do
it. At that point you probably have to do some study to determine how
to proceed. This is all chipset stuff so jot down some PCI ID's and
chip name/numbers and retire to Google or the LKML to get more info.
I figured I'd slip a Dyne live disc in the
thing to see if everything works.
I also have a 64 Studio live disc to take along.
You're welcome,
If you want or need clarification on any of
this contact me online or
off.
Many thanks (again), Mark. :)
Best,
dp
Mark
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11 Nov
11 Nov
8:13 p.m.
Hi all,
First, thanks again for the helpful replies.
The machine at WalMart was gone by the time I got there, so I went over
to Best Buy to check what they had in stock. I wound up purchasing a
very similar machine (with a better price), an HP G60-125NR. Since Best
Buy has a 15% restocking fee I thought I'd do some fact searching before
I open the box. What I found was some rather mixed reviews, but only wrt
Windows. I haven't found a Linux review yet.
Here are some of its specs:
AMD Turion 2 GHz Dual-core CPU
250 GB hd
3 GB memory
nVidia 8200M video
15.6" widescreen display
LightScribe 8X DVD drive
built-in webcam et cetera
Hardware-wise it looks right for me. Alas, the reviews gave it a rather
poor rating, compared to other machines at the price point, but the
reviews refer to a ~$800 price tag. My bill came to about $580.
So I'm at a bit of an impasse. I can open the box, try it out, and if it
doesn't work for me I can take it back and pay almost $100 for the
restocking fee (which IMO really sucks), or I can take it back unopened
and start over. Btw, if I open it I'll keep it for 13 days. 14 days is
the limit for returns, so I might as well get something out of it for
the hundred bucks.
What's the tribe think ? Any & all opinions/recommendations are most
welcome.
Best,
dp
8:37 p.m.
Did you look on here:
http://www.linux-on-laptops.com/hp.html
I looked, but didn't find your laptop number. HP has SO MANY laptops,
that it's hard to keep up. They're like Japanese companies that
regurgitate every few months ;-)
Maybe you could find your laptop, or similar laptop, on the site.
A few more resources:
http://www.thelinuxlaptop.com/
Dell's opensource laptops:
http://www.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/nseries_nb?c=us&cs=0…
--
Brad Fuller
9:07 p.m.
Is there by any chance another number on the HP box? My HP/Compaq
laptop had a funky number like that but it also had a more simple
number - in my case F600US. This turned out to be the machine name
where as the complicated on was the one that indicated the machine
coupled with the disk, memory, etc. (Or so I think...)
The first review I found wasn't overly kind:
http://review.zdnet.com/product/laptops/hp-g60-125nr/33360964
but I wouldn't personally care too much about that.
I guess based on the way you purchased that you weren't able to boot
it with an install disk?
My guess is that the specs will turn out to be 'ok'. Not great, but
ok. That's pretty similar to mine when I bought it a year and a half
ago. Probably your machine is an nvidia chipset and probably it's
going to work fine in Linux. Possibly the nvidia video card will be a
problem with the real-time kernel, but possibly not. I think lots of
people use nvidia and do fine. In my mind, for what little I know
about what you really do Dave, I'd guess the video chip issue is the
risky thing, and then ONLY if you use the nvidia driver. Probably not
much of an issue at all if you can get by with the Xorg nvidia driver.
http://reviews.cnet.com/laptops/hp-g60-125nr/4505-3121_7-33360964.html
This page say the chipset is the AMD RS780M. That means it's really an
ATI chipset. (ATI is now owned by AMD) I couldn't easily find anyone
writing in English that's used it for Linux. There doesn't seem to
have been any posts about this chipset on the LKML.
The 2GHz Turion might be part of what makes it pokey. Possibly the
memory isn't the fastest memory the machine can use. I tried looking
up the memory specs at http://www.Crucial.com but I couldn't find the
machine. They have a nice enough system scanner but that requires that
you open and boot the system.
Don't know what to tell you. Maybe you can still go back to the store,
or another store, with the Linux install disks and try things out
without opening this box. I suspect that with the economy being so bad
that you're going to see LOTS of laptop deals over the next few
months. If you need something this week that won't help but I'm sure
there will be lots of low price machines out there.
Wish I could help more. My end message is that if you like the price
and features then go ahead and open the box but be forewarned I once
had a compaq laptop with an ATI chipset. It worked great for Linux
audio but I didn't get full speed disks for about 3 months after I
bought it and it had an ATI chipset so I'm always a bit more careful
about these things.
Good luck. If you decide to keep it you can be assured that you're
going to get LOTS of support from LAU members, but we can't fix real
problems with support by the kernel if it isn't there.
cheers,
Mark
On Tue, Nov 11, 2008 at 4:13 PM, Dave Phillips <dlphillips(a)woh.rr.com> wrote:
Hi all,
First, thanks again for the helpful replies.
The machine at WalMart was gone by the time I got there, so I went over
to Best Buy to check what they had in stock. I wound up purchasing a
very similar machine (with a better price), an HP G60-125NR. Since Best
Buy has a 15% restocking fee I thought I'd do some fact searching before
I open the box. What I found was some rather mixed reviews, but only wrt
Windows. I haven't found a Linux review yet.
Here are some of its specs:
AMD Turion 2 GHz Dual-core CPU
250 GB hd
3 GB memory
nVidia 8200M video
15.6" widescreen display
LightScribe 8X DVD drive
built-in webcam et cetera
Hardware-wise it looks right for me. Alas, the reviews gave it a rather
poor rating, compared to other machines at the price point, but the
reviews refer to a ~$800 price tag. My bill came to about $580.
So I'm at a bit of an impasse. I can open the box, try it out, and if it
doesn't work for me I can take it back and pay almost $100 for the
restocking fee (which IMO really sucks), or I can take it back unopened
and start over. Btw, if I open it I'll keep it for 13 days. 14 days is
the limit for returns, so I might as well get something out of it for
the hundred bucks.
What's the tribe think ? Any & all opinions/recommendations are most
welcome.
Best,
dp
_______________________________________________
Linux-audio-user mailing list
Linux-audio-user(a)lists.linuxaudio.org
http://lists.linuxaudio.org/mailman/listinfo/linux-audio-user
11:26 p.m.
Mark Knecht wrote:
Is there by any chance another number on the HP box?
My HP/Compaq
laptop had a funky number like that but it also had a more simple
number - in my case F600US. This turned out to be the machine name
where as the complicated on was the one that indicated the machine
coupled with the disk, memory, etc. (Or so I think...)
The only other number that seems relevant is the part number FS185UA.
Google turned up some mentions on Spanish sites, but they weren't really
informative. However, they did indicate that Linux runs on the machine,
so there's some good news.
The first review I found wasn't overly kind:
http://review.zdnet.com/product/laptops/hp-g60-125nr/33360964
but I wouldn't personally care too much about that.
Yep, I read that one. It got me wondering, hence the email.
I guess based on the way you purchased that you
weren't able to boot
it with an install disk?
No, they weren't very amenable to the idea at Best Buy. I don't usually
purchase stuff there, but I was happy enough with the Westinghouse
monitor I bought there (soon to be replaced by another one of those
Samsungs you recommended).
My guess is that the specs will turn out to be
'ok'. Not great, but
ok. That's pretty similar to mine when I bought it a year and a half
ago. Probably your machine is an nvidia chipset and probably it's
going to work fine in Linux. Possibly the nvidia video card will be a
problem with the real-time kernel, but possibly not. I think lots of
people use nvidia and do fine. In my mind, for what little I know
about what you really do Dave, I'd guess the video chip issue is the
risky thing, and then ONLY if you use the nvidia driver. Probably not
much of an issue at all if you can get by with the Xorg nvidia driver.
Alas, 3D is essential to my current work with the AVSynthesis program.
I'm using nVidia cards in both my desktop machines, and they're running
rt kernels. Not the most recent kernels, but I've had little or no
tangential problem with the nVidia closed-source driver. From other
reports it would seem I'm a lucky guy.
Btw, I plan to check out Arch and Ubuntu 8.10 with this machine. Geoff
Beasley swears by Arch, and I liked what I saw when I did some reviews
of software running on Ubuntu 8.04. IIRC you're a Gentoo user, but
please opine on either of those systems if you know them.
Don't know what to tell you. Maybe you can still
go back to the store,
or another store, with the Linux install disks and try things out
without opening this box. I suspect that with the economy being so bad
that you're going to see LOTS of laptop deals over the next few
months. If you need something this week that won't help but I'm sure
there will be lots of low price machines out there.
I've been laptopless (that sounds a bit dodgy, eh?) for a while, and I
do want one asap.
Good luck. If you decide to keep it you can be assured
that you're
going to get LOTS of support from LAU members, but we can't fix real
problems with support by the kernel if it isn't there.
Thanks, Mark, the assistance and encouragement is greatly appreciated.
I'm going to sleep on a decision, but I'm leaning favorably towards
opening it up in the morning. I'll post again tomorrow with the news.
Best,
dp
11:41 p.m.
On Tue, Nov 11, 2008 at 7:26 PM, Dave Phillips <dlphillips(a)woh.rr.com> wrote:
Nahh, I've used nvidia a lot and haven't had any problems at all. that
said I've never depended on 3D so I cannot speak to that.
Mark Knecht wrote:
That's the one:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01533414&cc=us&…
It's got HDMI which is nice if you own a newer TV.
With 250GB you can easily keep a Windows partition and stream NetFlix
to your 60" plasma. ;-)
Is there by any chance another number on the HP box? My HP/Compaq
laptop had a funky number like that but it also had a more simple
number - in my case F600US. This turned out to be the machine name
where as the complicated on was the one that indicated the machine
coupled with the disk, memory, etc. (Or so I think...)
The only other number that seems relevant is the part number FS185UA. Google
turned up some mentions on Spanish sites, but they weren't really
informative. However, they did indicate that Linux runs on the machine, so
there's some good news. The first review I found wasn't overly kind:
http://review.zdnet.com/product/laptops/hp-g60-125nr/33360964
but I wouldn't personally care too much about that.
Yep, I read that one. It got me wondering, hence the email.
I guess based on the way you purchased that you
weren't able to boot
it with an install disk?
No, they weren't very amenable to the idea at Best Buy. I don't usually
purchase stuff there, but I was happy enough with the Westinghouse monitor I
bought there (soon to be replaced by another one of those Samsungs you
recommended).
My guess is that the specs will turn out to be
'ok'. Not great, but
ok. That's pretty similar to mine when I bought it a year and a half
ago. Probably your machine is an nvidia chipset and probably it's
going to work fine in Linux. Possibly the nvidia video card will be a
problem with the real-time kernel, but possibly not. I think lots of
people use nvidia and do fine. In my mind, for what little I know
about what you really do Dave, I'd guess the video chip issue is the
risky thing, and then ONLY if you use the nvidia driver. Probably not
much of an issue at all if you can get by with the Xorg nvidia driver.
Alas, 3D is essential to my current work with the AVSynthesis program. I'm
using nVidia cards in both my desktop machines, and they're running rt
kernels. Not the most recent kernels, but I've had little or no tangential
problem with the nVidia closed-source driver. From other reports it would
seem I'm a lucky guy.
Btw, I plan to check out Arch and Ubuntu 8.10 with this machine. Geoff
Beasley swears by Arch, and I liked what I saw when I did some reviews of
software running on Ubuntu 8.04. IIRC you're a Gentoo user, but please opine
on either of those systems if you know them.
I don't use either and personally had so much trouble with
Redhat/Fedora package management that I'd never go back to systems
that mix libraries. It never worked well for me. Some important
product like Ardour or Rosegarden would release a new version and I'd
find that the binary didn't match my system and building it was a
hassle. Building from source on Gentoo is trivial - it just takes time
which I have lots of so it doesn't bother me.
I looked recently at Arch based on Geoff's comments but couldn't get
up the energy to try it out. Maybe I should and go through it at the
same time you do...
Don't know what to tell you. Maybe you can
still go back to the store,
or another store, with the Linux install disks and try things out
without opening this box. I suspect that with the economy being so bad
that you're going to see LOTS of laptop deals over the next few
months. If you need something this week that won't help but I'm sure
there will be lots of low price machines out there.
I've been laptopless (that sounds a bit dodgy, eh?) for a while, and I do
want one asap.
Good luck. If you decide to keep it you can be
assured that you're
going to get LOTS of support from LAU members, but we can't fix real
problems with support by the kernel if it isn't there.
Thanks, Mark, the assistance and encouragement is greatly appreciated. I'm
going to sleep on a decision, but I'm leaning favorably towards opening it
up in the morning. I'll post again tomorrow with the news.
Best,
dp
5857
days inactive
5858
days old
linux-audio-user@lists.linuxaudio.org
11 comments
6 participants
participants (6)
-
Brad Fuller -
Crypto -
Dave Phillips -
Mark Knecht -
Robin Gareus -
Tobiah