laptop and wireless
in [Linux Hardware]
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From: Richard Kimber on 26 May 2010 16:13 On Tue, 25 May 2010 01:54:46 +0000, Dan C wrote: > Not true about Broadcom. I have it in this laptop, and am using this > driver supplied by Broadcom. Works great. > > Here: http://www.broadcom.com/support/802.11/linux_sta.php > > Please don't make claims about something you don't know about... But it doesn't "just work". My Acer has Broadcom. It clearly doesn't work without some sort of effort, and I've not been able to get it working, and I have limited time to spend researching it. The CD writer "just works", my graphics card "just works", I want a machine where the wireless "just works". - Richard -- Richard Kimber Political Science Resources http://www.PoliticsResources.net/
From: Richard Kimber on 26 May 2010 16:16 On Tue, 25 May 2010 15:31:37 +0000, Dan C wrote: > Understood. My point was that there are still other choices as well, > that work perfectly. Also, the OP claimed that there was "no vendor > support", which I responded to because that simply isn't true. I didn't say that. - Richard -- Richard Kimber Political Science Resources http://www.PoliticsResources.net/
From: Richard Kimber on 26 May 2010 16:28 On Tue, 25 May 2010 17:33:54 +0200, Frank Steinmetzger wrote: > Many recent Samsung models have issues with their Fn-keys. My 3 year old > P50 works nicely for the most important stuff, but a friend's portable > (a few months old) doesn't allow for the background brightness to be > changed via Fn+up/down. Said brightness is done via hardware in mine, it > even works during POST. But the newer stuff seems to do this via > software response only. If this is important to you, you should check > that, too. Thanks. Thanks to everyone for all the comments. It seems that I should look for a machine with an Intel chipset. Is there a website that lists brands by chipset, or (at least) are there brands that are known to use Intel? I find that vendors in the UK never list the chipset, they just say 802.11b/ g/n, and manufacturers are mostly similarly lax on their websites. - Richard -- Richard Kimber Political Science Resources http://www.PoliticsResources.net/
From: General Schvantzkoph on 26 May 2010 17:22 On Wed, 26 May 2010 15:28:29 -0500, Richard Kimber wrote: > On Tue, 25 May 2010 17:33:54 +0200, Frank Steinmetzger wrote: > >> Many recent Samsung models have issues with their Fn-keys. My 3 year >> old P50 works nicely for the most important stuff, but a friend's >> portable (a few months old) doesn't allow for the background brightness >> to be changed via Fn+up/down. Said brightness is done via hardware in >> mine, it even works during POST. But the newer stuff seems to do this >> via software response only. If this is important to you, you should >> check that, too. > > Thanks. > > Thanks to everyone for all the comments. It seems that I should look > for a machine with an Intel chipset. Is there a website that lists > brands by chipset, or (at least) are there brands that are known to use > Intel? I find that vendors in the UK never list the chipset, they just > say 802.11b/ g/n, and manufacturers are mostly similarly lax on their > websites. > > - Richard If you buy online from HP or Dell you can specify the chipset at least for some models. I bought an HP because I was able to specify an Intel chipset, unfortunately that meant that I had to pay for a copy of Windows that I threw away. Curiously the Dell Ubuntu models didn't offer Intel wireless chips when I was looking, although they offered them on Windows models. Even though Dell sells Linux laptops they have a Windows mindset, which is that they sell a preconfigured OS that includes the necessary drivers even if they are binary drivers. Dell doesn't understand that most Linux users are going to install their own favorite distro and throw away anything that they get from a manufacturer. If you are buying from a store you should walk in with Fedora 13 Live on a USB stick and boot the machines that you are interested in. If it the WiFi is automatically configured then you know that it's a truly Linux compatible chipset, if you don't see WiFI in the NetworkManager then try a different box.
From: Baho Utot on 26 May 2010 19:21
Richard Kimber wrote: > On Tue, 25 May 2010 01:54:46 +0000, Dan C wrote: > >> Not true about Broadcom. I have it in this laptop, and am using this >> driver supplied by Broadcom. Works great. >> >> Here: http://www.broadcom.com/support/802.11/linux_sta.php >> >> Please don't make claims about something you don't know about... > > But it doesn't "just work". My Acer has Broadcom. It clearly doesn't > work without some sort of effort, and I've not been able to get it > working, and I have limited time to spend researching it. The CD writer > "just works", my graphics card "just works", I want a machine where the > wireless "just works". > > - Richard > I don't understand all the angst over the broadcomm chipsets? I have one in a dell laptop and one I purchased on purpose for my desktop. The only thing I needed to get them to work on Slack, Arch and my own custom built system was to "install" the broadcomm firmware from this site. http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/b43 which goes into /lib/firmawre/b43 and it works on both systems. |