[PD] It really works!,,and laptops

[marco trevisani]

I can/t really say how many companies are already following the legacy free 
standard.
If you can find a computer without this "features" (and more important a 
company who will tell you that) i would buy it.

Even Linus Torvald is working on this BIOS issue.
for instance -on my laptop for sure dont know ,again, how many of the new 
models have already this- APM is out of buisiness, it will be replaced by 
ACPI. ACPI for Linux (even if Intel itself is releasing the linux port) is 
still far from being a serious working tool.
You could say what APM and ACPI has to do with IRQs? In legacy free computer 
you must be able to assign IRQ from the OS itself. No way to disable PnP in 
the BIOS.
None of the traditional known ways to set up IRQs  work...

I must say that beside the possibility of working with the internal sound card 
and speaker for testing porpuses, we dont really want to work with it 
professionally, so i guess PCMCIA cards should work (once driver exists...), 
then the problem it is solved as wellas USB cards.

Of course all recent models tend to avoid "useless" outputs like: parallel 
port serial ports. Only USB, USB everywhere...

AH and be carefull about internal modems....

Due to a new born...:-)) in the family i dint have time for much work a part 
for changing diapers...but as far i know pratically all the features seem to 
work with the toshiba satellite 5005-Sxxx.
DVD, CD writer, USB, PCMCIA, last one with different results. Also video 
camera output and firewire are reported to work...
(not 100% sure about camera output and firewire)

The nice thing about the internal sound card would be the optical output 
(supported by alsa...) but...untill the IRQ problem is solved there is no way.
I got the CD-Rom (audio) working by hadcoding the irq in the kernel 
itself...and wav sound would play for a fraction of sound then it dies, 
interrupts problems.

If i had to buy a linux laptop -right now- i would buy with a company that 
support linux officially.


	marco

On  Wednesday, 23 January 2002 13:28:10 Nick Fells wrote:
>    Hi,
>       Just wanted to follow up this little thread of a couple of months ago
>    (see marco's message below)
>       Marco (or anyone) - d'you know of any progress on this issue of laptop
>    BIOS?
>       Anyone bought a laptop recently & running PD smoothly under Linux?
>       Looking to buy...
>       Nick
>       --
>    Dr Nick Fells,	    Music Department,
>    University of Glasgow,		Tel: +44 (0) 141-330 4096
>    Glasgow G12 8QQ			Fax: +44 (0) 141-330 3518
>    UK.				http://www.music.gla.ac.uk/~nick
>          -----------------------------
>    from marco trevisani.... 11/12/01....
>       Laptops:
>       Unfortunatelly i must say i would not run to buy a laptop right 
> now...as
>    i
>    did...:-(
>       Due to a new policy introduced (let say imposed) by Microsoft...all new
>    laptops (and soon i guess also all desktops), do NOT allow anymore
>    access to
>    the BIOS at booting time. This means (briefly) that you are not able for
>    instance to disable PnP and other things and the Linux is not able to
>    assign
>    IRQs to "non vital" devices..i.e. PCMCIA, Sound cards, video (TV)
>    output,firewire...etc.not a very pleasant situation.
>       All these functions, now, must be controlled and set by and from within
>    the OS.
>    ACPI (that is going to replace APM) will be the way to gain access to
>    the BIOS
>    from the OS but has not reached yet a level of sofistication to make
>    this
>    process easy (if even possible).
>    The only ultra ugly solution right now is to hard link IRQs in the
>    Kernel
>    itsefl....(no comments)
>    Right now even power management is really limited to the minimal.
>    This is a work in progress, and i guess (hope) that will be solved in
>    few
>    months (also because i wiped out W_XP right away from my laptop so i
>    really
>    hope is just a matter of months...).I'm myself working on it (at least
>    as far
>    it concerns my specific laptop).
>       For record:
>    I got a Toshiba Satellite 5005-S504 which features seem promising:
>    - DVD- CD-RW - CD
>    - Sound card with ADC DAC line + headphone + SPDIF optical
>    - Firewire
>    - Video (TV) output RCA
>    - a bouch of USB (neither serial nor parallel)
>    -Smart Card
>    - And another card slot i now forgot what is supposed to be for...
>    - PCMCIA
>    - 512MB, 1.1Ghz, 30Gb
>       A part for CD and an external USB mouse, none of these features are
>    working
>    right now....
>    Hopefully very soon, since the card is supported by alsa, firwire should
>    be
>    and video (tv) out should be as well.....
>    So after this legacy free problem will be solved should be a great
>    machine.
>    (BTW: 2000USD....:-( now you can find it cheapper...already)
>       What i found good for now (in this bad situation) is that even if
>    Toshiba does
>    not support officially Linux, they have a very active and helpfull linux
>    deprtament (i dont know if "department" is the right definition) in
>    Europe and
>    Japan, and they really help and they do their best to solve problems
>    (like
>    this one).
>    (they have mailing list and they are very responinve and quick)
>    ..and by consequence also the Linux Toshiba community ( i mean toshiba
>    owners)
>    is very alive and efficient...
>    After this experience i had (this is my fist laptop), i would reccomend
>    to put
>    this as FIRST priority when you think about getting a laptop. Also, even
>    if
>    you will find a bit more expensive i would consider to buy from a
>    reseller
>    that ships computer already with Linux...if you dont want to spend about
>    a
>    month (with no problems such as mine raising on the way) to tune it
>    up....
>       Sorry for this long and almost off topic message, but i think it is 
> also
>    important to share these issues amongst us,because many of us, like me,
>    they
>    have the dream of going to a concert with thier laptop, their PCMCIA or
>    USB
>    professional sound card, and give the concert....with battery only, in
>    order
>    to avoid the "Guenter-effect"...:-))
>               ciao,
>            marco
> 

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