On Sun, 9 Jul 2006 16:57:43 +0200 Frank Barknecht <fbar@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Hallo, > oz hat gesagt: // oz wrote: > > > I have sympathy for a new notebook with AMD Turion 64 X2 dual-core > > cpu. It would open some new possibilities, like virtualization > > (pacifica, xen etc.), pure AMD64 Debian arch, other 32-bit OS' and - > > and that is the question - good realtime-audio performance? > > I would say be careful with AMD laptops and Linux. Intel machines tend > to be much better supported because there are open source drivers for > the other parts inside these machines like WLAN, gfx card (if it's > Intel) etc. while AMD laptops often use NVidia chipsets and gfx cards > or similar stuff by ATi for which you need to install binary drivers > sometimes, that may mess up other things like power management in > strange ways. 64bit isn't that important for audio anyways. Getting a > laptop to run flawlessly is hard enough, don't make it harder on > yourself by buying hardware without open source drivers. Thanks. I agree in general, but it's a dilemma - feed opportunistic companies like ati or feed quasi-monopols like intel. :-/ So the only thing, that's sure at the moment, is that I choose a AMD Dual-Core for my next computer. And one of its OS' (besides other multi-boots) will be a dedicated 32-bit linux for audio purposes. Because dual-core Turions are very recent, there seems to be not much experience with latencies and realtime-kernels at the moment. We'll see. In reality, I only found one (o-n-e) laptop at the moment, that could work for me (Asus A6T, nvidia/realtek based). At the same time I know, its WLAN-card (Airgo) is not supported. The problem you mentioned. A deal-breaker would be, if dual-cores don't work well with realtime-audio. Gruss, Oliver
