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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."
Is the distribution choice. I just plain do not like caldera :) I'd prefer something else (without being specific what).
I am also disappointed that I cannot buy lindvd yet, separate from the laptop.
And the winmodem...well, ok, fine, it works, but geeez. How much more is it per unit to just use a normal modem?
-- Who is the bigger fool? The fool or the fool who follows him? --
Ugg, talk about speaking out of your ass. Because the gui is the same means that everything else will be? Why would that be again? Speaking from first hand experiance (I was on the lsdvd team) the underlying code is entirly differenet. Heck other then the "skin" on the gui it to is probably a re-write too. There are many many spisific things that Linux is a part of that affects the end result that have nothing to do with the fact that it "has the same ui" The entire unerlayer (unless they ported direct show) is different then what was there before.
Where are the test disk? Motion menu's? Subpics? Stream tests? This is not a DVD player review by any means.
There is bit all about scsi vs ide. This is a very very moot point. It may be an issue under windows, but not linux. There is nothing special about saying that it can do both. Kinda like me saying I can boot off of both. Woopie.
The all important LinDVD performs quite well but not perfect. With most DVDs you will notice no difference from that of a standard hardware decoder but there are a few points on some "action-packed" movies that will skip a bit. Keep in mind that this is still a software DVD player on a laptop and the first iteration of the Linux version.
This is no excuse. They are running 2.4, A 900mhz machine and they are using video acceleration. Cough my 450 cough... Unless the problem is with pthreads (which it might be if they didn't fix that) I would say that they have some work to do.
So here are some real questions that I want to know about. How about macrovision? Is it there? Can you take screenshots? Is there an video out? How about the kernel. Does the dvd player use a spesific kernel to run? Can I upgrade to 2.4.9 without it blowing up? What about changing distrobution? Will it blow up then? Are only Cakdera linux 2.4 binaries provided? What about the defacto red hat 6.x?
What about CSS, I presume it is kernel mode. Does that app barf when you run gdb on it? Did you test out the player with a large number of dvd's to see if any of them would fail? What about region changing. How well does it support that? Do you have to mount the drive before playing? How much cpu does it use while watching your average film? Can it play files? Can it play vcd's? How about SVCD? Does it do Kariokee mode? Can it play regular pcm (wav) file streams? How does the audio sound on the laptop? Can you pump it out to real speakers? Can you run more then just the DVD player at once? Does the ui play frendly with the rest of the desktop (kde, gnome, etc) How fast can you fast forward it? Can you make it go slow? Can you frame advace? Do multiple angle's work? Can it handle cool things like the Ghostbusters msk3000 subpic overlay and not loss performace? Can it handle non-css content (i.e. porn). Can you use 2 cpu's?
Sigh this isn't a review this is just a add for linuxhardware.org
Do you changes clothes while making the "chee-chee-cha-cha-choh" transformation sound?
Eric
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
Right! And to add insult to injury the reviewer says that the buyer isn't being punished for their choice of Linux. While I understand that the meaning is that the price isn't higher than the Windows equipped laptop, the fact is you're being charged Windows prices for something that's available for $0.00.
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
If they are using the same codebase as the windows team then they had to have ported Direct X to linux. Under MS's OEM clause all DVD players that want to be certified have to be using Direct X. An OEM wouldn't use one that isn't certified. If they did in fact to this and did it in a clean room way then they could release it open... But that is another topic. On the SCSI thing I am ruff on this ( my systems are now ide ), but I recall having no issues with working with SCSI or ide to access the drive. (But I could be wrong on this and if so then I can be spanked with a thousand nodles...)
Hehe, looking at the article again you are right, I guess I should have thunk about it for a sec. My appologies, sorry. It is much more a hardware review then a lindvd review. The title on the slashdot article made it to be a lindvd review more then a laptop review. I would be happy to write a review of of the lindvd player for you. I have about 400 dvd's I can test with(i.e. I cover all of the different things a dvd can do) here to test out the system fully. Just about anything you would want to test out on a dvd player with. Combined with my previous dvd development experiance I can dig up quite a bit for even the hardcore linux folks.
Do you changes clothes while making the "chee-chee-cha-cha-choh" transformation sound?
So the table says Caldera openlinux 2.4 and the paragraph on software says Corel openlinux 2.4. I think there is a typo, I think it shoudl be Caldera.
Unfortunately for me right now it is priced a little to high. I need a laptop for under 1000. Preferably around $500 would be awesome, and I could live without dvd for now.
Only 'flamers' flame!