Joshua Boyd wrote: > On Tue, Mar 06, 2007 at 03:35:06PM -0800, Ken Restivo wrote: > >> I may need to sell my Mac Mini and buy a laptop instead, for use live, >> or just for being mobile and being able to make music without being >> chained to the computer and monitor at home. > > Intel Mini or G4? > >> I want to avoid any laptop that requires proprietary video drivers-- >> like NVidia-- so that there aren't interactions between the driver and >> realtime mode. Also I want to avoid any laptop that isn't widely in >> use for linux audio already, using jackd, and ideally using freebob >> too. > > I had a Thinkpad R50. Everything was perfectly supported, except > firewire. Firewire drives worked nicely, but firewire video devices > could be problematic. Never tried firewire audio. The onboard ATI > graphics are well supported by Xorg. Onboard audio is reasonably > clean. I wouldn't call it pro-quality, but running the onboard output > to a PA wasn't embarrassing. > > Now I have a Lenovo 3000 n100. Nvidia graphics. Suspend doesn't work. > Hibernate doesn't work. Wireless doesn't work. Onboard audio is too > noisy for me to consider ever connecting directly to a PA. Stay away > from the Lenovo 3000s. I hear the newer Lenovo Thinkpads are still good > if you go with Intel graphics though. > second that! i945GM on Lenovo X60s works just fine. the laptop worked almost instantly with Linux incl. suspend+hibernate, 2nd Video-Head, wireless, etc. stock debian kernel. - the integrated speaker however is embarrassing! realtime-2.6.20 + hibernate are still somewhat exclusive (see other thread). - jack+ardour+sc+pd+.. work just great with USB soundcard(s). It won't beat a PCI-Soundcard Desktop PC in performance but that's not a point. - I have not yet tried Firewire audio, but ext. 1394-harddisks work fine. (beware it's a 4pin connector only - no power via 1394 connector as with most PC laptops!) > If I was installing the Lenovo again, I think I would go back to 32bit > instead of 64 though. > >> Most of the really good, cheap new laptops seem to have Intel Core >> Duo's, and I'm not sure how many people beside myself are out on the >> bleeding edge with Duo's. Still, whatever I'm going to buy is going to >> be older and used, because that's all I can afford. > > I wouldn't call it all that bleeding edge. Dual core AMD and Intel > chips have been around for a few years, and dual processor a lot > longer. I wouldn't worry about it. Dual Core is quite well supported. I'd rather buy 2x32bit that 1x64bit - at least for another year or so ;) - but Lenovo is not the cheap solution. you might get similar performance with a Latitude D620.
