New Laptop questions

[Jarod Wilson]

On Jun 18, 2009, at 3:33 PM, ref wrote:

> Hi folks,
>
> So my trusty workhorse of 3 years is wheezing and stumbling and  
> yearning
> for pasture. As laptops go the HP dv8000t was the best I've ever had,
> and I've had a few (Starting with a side handled Amstrad in hte late
> 80's! ). It survived a coast-to-coast-to-coast Amtrak summer, and  
> about
> a hundred thousand air-miles. My only complaint has been the short
> battery life, but then it is a desktop replacement, not an airbook.
>
> So on to the new. After  looking around I think I will go with an HP
> again, this time an HDX18t, and got a really good price on a quad core
> (my new brother in law happens to work at HP!). Before I buy it, I
> wanted to check and see if anyone has heard good/bad things about the
> below listed CPU/graphics card components, with regard to running  
> Linux,
> specifically Ubuntu and CentOS. I did goole for a bit, but couldnt  
> even
> find mention of a linux driver for the NVidia card on their own
> website ...

That falls under GeForce 100M Series (Notebooks), and in the advanced  
driver search, you can specifically choose "GeForce GT 130M". However,  
it seems the binary driver does not yet support it -- not even w/a  
beta driver. I imagine support can't be all that far out though. Not  
sure if you could limp along with nv, nouveau or vesa 'til then...

> CPU :  Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad Processor Q9000 (2.00Ghz)
> Memory : 6GB DDR3
> Graphics : 1GB Nvidia GeForce GT 130M
> Hard drive : 640GB 7200RPM SATA Dual Hard Drive (320GB x 2
> Display : 18.4" diagonal High Definition BrightView (1920x1080p)

Aside from the graphics card, everything else should work just fine.

> It also states that the Wireless card is a " Intel Next-Gen Wireless-N
> Mini-card with Bluetooth" but I cannot get any other info on it,  
> such as
> model/drivers etc ....

I believe that would be the Intel iwl5150 or similar. Its supported by  
the iwlagn driver (as are all the other iwl5xxx devices I'm aware of  
-- I have a perfectly functional iwl5350 myself).


-- 
Jarod Wilson
jarod-ajLrJawYSntWk0Htik3J/w at public.gmane.org