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IBM ThinkPad T22 w/Linux Review
Augustus writes: "LinuxHardware.org has just posted the first review of IBM's ThinkPad T22 with the LinDVD software DVD player that was mentioned on Slashdot back in April. The T22 should finally be available to consumers and it's a fine piece of hardware at a decent price. The review covers the basics: software, support, price, and especially the hardware."
What, me worry?
IBM's support on their laptops really only entails the hardware. If you have a problem the first thing they ask is "have you reimaged the laptop" If not then they really can't help you.
I have pretty mixed feelings about IBM.. I bought an IBM laptop (390) about a 18 months ago and within 2 months, the hard drive failed. I got it replaced on warranty but half a year later, it failed again. Meanwhile, I had bought an IBM hard drive for my desktop computer, and a few months ago, that one failed too. So three IBM drives in just over one year. I know I've had extremely bad luck, but with an experience like this, you can understand that I won't recommend IBM laptops and/or drives to anyone. Well, the laptops themselves are *very* nice, but the hard drives.... :/
The most ironic thing is that I bought an HP 6000 Omnibook to replace my IBM laptop about half a year ago, and guess who the maker of the hard drive in it is; IBM. DOH! If that one fails within a year or two, I'll never buy IBM again.
For those of you wondering as to whether the site actually goes down during a slashdot effect or not, I just thought that I'd let you know that the server has never died during a slashdot posting and that I simply do not have enough bandwidth on the site. We are currently looking for a hosting site to increase the available bandwidth from the measily 500kb connection we have now to at least enough to handle a slashdot. If you know of a hosting faqcility (preferably in the Atlanta area) that would be willing to donate bandwidth to the site please have them contact me at augustus@linuxhardware.org.
Thanks,
Augustus (LH.o Site Manager)
PowerDVD exists for linux.
It works. It's faster than anything else I've tried, including PowerDVD under Windows (which, in turn, is as fast as I've seen for that platform). The interface is clean, and everything works as expected.
Hopefully, some day, Cyberlink will get around to actually releasing it so that I can pay them some money. Until then, I'm happily using the copy that I war^H^H^H found somewhere...
Hi,
Can't vouch for IBM notebooks, but I bought a Dell Inspiron 4000 back in December 2000. Fitted with a 3Com Mini-PCI Ethernet/V.90 modem combo, it works flawlessly in Windows 2000.
Under Linux, the Ethernet part works great, but the software modem is not supported due to a lack of suitable driver (it's one of the very few hardware issues left to be resolved in my opinion).
The modem turns out to be a software modem, but yet, it works fantastically. Both the connection speed and robustness is on par with a NetComm hardware modem I use in the other room. Even though the notebook's 3D board isn't too leading edge (ATI rage 128 8MB M3 Mobility), it plays Half-Life Counterstrike over a 50kb connect very well.
So from this experience, I'd have to saw that some software modems may be bad, but some others may not be.
Cheers,
Joseph Tan
The reviewer is obviously an idiot. John Carmack himself has done extensive testing with winmodems. He says that winmodems give better network performance than hardware modems. Mainly because the host CPU is thousands of times faster at computing the stuff needed for the communication. Hardware modems are nothing special. and ALL pci modems have problems in linux (because they don't interface through the standard serial port, it is emulated, and linux doesnt do that yet).
In the end, someone needs to just write a software modem driver that can be applied to all modems. They are all basically the same, once you learn how to communicate with them, you need to write software that does everything a modem does. Nobody has written software that does this yet (that is opensourced anyway) so everyone is SOL. I am not up to the task, but I think mainly its just a lack of interest. Nobody uses modems anymore.
On the same note, software ethernet really hasn't been a problem in linux either. As long as the drivers are working decent (ie, not buggy) in the kernel, then i dont mind having software ethernet on a laptop (laptops come with 700MHz CPU's now minimum, so not too big a deal) The cpu time for a modem or ethernet card that is software is somewhere around 1%. much less than any other device will take up.
if anybody disagrees, please give me info on the parts that you think are wrong in teh above.
thanks
Two infinite things: your stupidity and mine. But I'm not sure about the latter. If my sig offends you, I'm sorry.
What bothers me the most about all these sort of reviews is the claim that 2.5 hours of battery time is "right up there".
It's not. I assure you. Running my Apple PowerBook with a MachBSD on it, I can easily run 4 hours on a single charge, no problem. In fact, I have often forgotten my charger at home and managed to eek out the entire day at work, about 6 hours. But that is REALLY pushing it.
Typically, when using Mac OS 9.1, I can get 4 hours, with no problem. So, how does 2 hours compare to that?
And, if you want a stable full featured Linux in a Notebook, get one of ther Macintosh Linux distro's. Or, perhaps get a serious business oriented OS, like openBSD.
You don't even need to go the full PowerBook route, you can use an iBook and get the same performance in a sub $2000cdn package.
And lastly, if I pop 2 batteries in, I can easily run 10 hours on a single charge. Enough to do an entire week long mountain expidtion, reviewing the days photos and saving them to a SuperDisk.
Later . . . . . . WebBug
Yah, the video stuff would get ripped out, but the DirectShow stuff is underneith that and isn't hardware dependant. DirectShow is the underlying framework that connects the dvd player system. Direct3d/video is only used to display stuff. You have to either A) write your own compatable direct show for linux. B) Port MS directShow to linux. C) Use one of the current Ditrect show type things currently in linux. I doubt B happend. The only linux alt I know of is Gstreamer's setup and all of the current open source dvd projects systesm. Both probably are missing things that they need. If they did want to keep the same codebase it would be a hell of a lot of work.
-Ben
Do you changes clothes while making the "chee-chee-cha-cha-choh" transformation sound?
I recently purchased an IBM T21 800 MHz with Windows 98. The first thing I did with the machine was remove Windows and installed a linux distro (that I'm sure some of you hate so I won't mention it). I purchased the machine with Windows 98 rather than Linux because I wanted a better model than was available at the time with Linux preinstalled. I wanted that 1400x1050 screen dammit!
.com that bought it for me went broke and I lost my job.
My resoning was that as long as all the hardware was supported by Linux I'd be able to get it to work. I wasn't worried about the DVD player working or not, I've got enough DVD players already. I also thought, perhaps too optomistically, that I'd be able to get someone at IBM to send me a copy of thier Linux distro so that at least I could see how they did it.
As it was I had a hard time getting everything working properly. Video wasn't too hard to setup, I ended up using XFree86 3.3.6 because I found a copy of someone's configuration file on the web after a search and I'm lazy. I wasn't able to get sound working on it because none of the sound tools I looked at which supported the sound chip would work with the 2.4 kernel. I believe that has changed by now. I didn't bother fooling with the modem since I already had a PC Card modem that works like a charm. The NIC was supported by the kernel. No one I talked with at IBM was helpful. Ever. I was a bit suprised by that, but I'm young and idealistic and I believe that hardware vendors should help out the people who have problems with the hardware they purchased.
All in all though, I decided that I loved my Thinkpad anyway. It was fast, rugged, relatively light even though I had two batteries installed and that screen looks great.
I recommend the Thinkpad T series, I've had a number of Compaq, Sony, Dell and Toshiba laptops that sucked in comparison.
I hope that the Linux Preinstalled laptops from IBM and other vendors sell well so that eventually the linux community has a greater voice with Hardware makers. After that perhaps all of the valid concerns expressed in other posts will be dealt with. Of course, I'm young, idealistic and I don't have my laptop anymore since the
Where I work we have purchased a lot of T22's (not my choice). We have had nothing but problems so far. They have a tendency to really overheat. IBM patched the BIOS to make the fan run continuously, still they get damn hot. We use 3Com NICs, they will get so hot in the slot that they shutdown and you have to pull them out until they cool off, VERY hot to the touch, then they will work again. I thought that the Lucent modems that came with ours were hardware, mini PCMCIA, not winmodems, maybe not though. Can't be worse than the MWave IBM previously used. We used the 3Com modems before in our Toshiba's and our users are complaining of slower (sometimes half) the speed the 3Com got. Also the modems will a lot of times not work if the thinkpad is plugged into the port replicator. Also they occasionally stop working if they are _bumped_. Seriously. Not looking so good so far.