[Discuss] Dell docking and NVIDIA outputs

[Jay Burrill]

I too find the Precision M4500 to be a good machine.  But our IT is short 64-bit licenses and If I don't run Linux, I have to put up with the limitations of 32-bit XP.  I have used the nVIDIA driver with no issues when my Precision M4500 configuration does not change.  But this IS a laptop. And I cannot require that everyone meet at my desk.  So docking and undocking changes are the real issue for me.  The nVIDIA (and Nouveau) drivers do not seem to behave well when I change from docked/closed with two external monitors at my desk, to undocked and opened to the laptop LGD in meetings.  I am left with no output to the LGD, and have to reboot to use the machine in the meeting.  And the trip back to the desk is no better.  The only solution that some have tried si scripts to toggle the X configuration before suspending to undock or dock.  Or the more manual process of using the nVIDIA driver applet to enable/disable outputs before suspending. I am now looking at Fedora.  I believe that Dell can, in fact, ship with Redhat Enterprise as an option, so I hope the lesser sibling has inherited some of those genes.  And I see that Fedora has yet another default driver, not Nouveau.  So I hope that the behavior is more as expected.  After all, I spend most of my time in Eclipse and other IDEs and not full screen in some game, so 3D performance is not my primary goal.  Jay Burrill 
> Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 10:26:45 -0500
> From: gordon.w.ross at gmail.com
> To: blu at nedharvey.com
> CC: discuss at blu.org
> Subject: Re: [Discuss] Dell docking and NVIDIA outputs
> 
> On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 8:23 AM, Edward Ned Harvey <blu at nedharvey.com> wrote:
> >> From: discuss-bounces+blu=nedharvey.com at blu.org [mailto:discuss-
> >> bounces+blu=nedharvey.com at blu.org] On Behalf Of Jay Burrill
> >>
> >> I have been trying to switch to Linux (openSUSE 12.1 Gnome 3) on a fairly
> >> good Dell Precision M4500 with NVIDIA FX880.  But the driver does not seem
> >> to be very full featured.  My expectations are:a. that if I dock, the
> > driver will
> >> switch to use the external monitors (2); b. that if I undock, the driver
> > will
> >> switch to use the internal LCD;c. that if I suspend while docked and
> >> outputting to the two externals, when I resume undocked, the driver will
> >
> > I am supporting many users on many different types of laptops using many
> > different OSes.  Everything works well, ONLY if your primary OS is either
> > OSX or Windows, and you run your linux as a guest VM.
> >
> > I am sorry to say, I don't consider linux to be a well supported full
> > featured client desktop system, especially for laptops.  It has come a long
> > way, but manufacturers just don't care enough right now to make all the
> > little details work right - such as switching displays and sleep/wake.
> 
> I'm using the nVidia driver with Xorg et. al. on a Dell laptop
> (Precision M6300 - nice machine!) with a dell docking station via its
> DVI port.  All works great.  I should say, this is on illumos, not
> linux, but I'm told nVidia provides this same (closed source) driver
> for sevaral OS flavors.   So, if you're not religious about running
> 100% open source code, this is a very usable solution.  (In this case,
> I'm willing to settle for 99% open source code, at least for now:)
> 
> Gordon
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