Dell Inspirion 1420N + Ubuntu Linux
- Published September 3rd, 2007 in Tech Comment, GNU/Linux
Canonical and Dell partnered to provide customers with a Linux laptop. One should expect this would mean wholly compatibility between software and hardware. It would mean Linux would be perfectly working on a laptop. At least, that’s what we would expect.
Starry Hope used the Dell Inspirion 1420N for two weeks and showed, yet again, that Linux is definitely not ready for the laptop — at least to the faint of heart or to all those that want to do something else than tinkering with the command line recompiling wireless drivers and such.
What’s not working then? No 3D support for the graphics card, an Intel X3100. Nvidia has FULL support for Linux. Why make things look bad when this could be a non-issue? Also, according to Starry, Hibernation and Suspend were working but then, suddenly, not anymore. Nothing that would surprise me, someone that did everything possible to have hibernation and suspend to ram working on several different laptops running Linux. I managed to do that and still remember the countless times that the laptop crashed when getting back from suspend/hibernate. And when it didn’t, the enormous amount of time required to be up and running again.
Oh yes, he was able to give basic usage to bluetooth. He gave up on using a Sony Ericsson w810i as a modem, as no graphical interface and thorough documentation exists.
All in all, it’s just another sad reiteration of what I’ve been saying: Linux is still long to go on being ready for the laptop. And these words come from a Linux user (not on the laptop though!) that wants people to assimilate that and contribute/help as much as possible. I rest my case by saying that I’ve used Linux on laptops for more than 6 years, including on a HP/Compaq, Asus and, recently, a IBM/Lenovo.
I must say though that this is the way to go. If Canonical wants to have an operating system that works flawlessly (as far as possible) with the hardware then it must partner with an hardware company and collaborate on making sure everything works. I just wish they postponed the launching of the 1420N as it’s clearly not ready.
Because this is a blatant deviation from the truth.
The X1300 driver became available after the feature freeze of the last Ubuntu. The next one, starting in October, has full support for the X1300.
I should know, I installed Gutsy tribe5 on my brother’s laptop just this weekend. *Everything* worked. Including suspend/resume and hibernation and 3D.
As to NVidia… well… they don’t simply support it, they support it *on their own terms* for *as long as they want*, and fix problems *on their own pace*.
This isn’t support, is vendor lock-in.
Rui
So, it is true. The current stable version of Ubuntu that the guy is using does not have support for the X3100.
People are not supposed to use testing/beta versions to have their hardware supported, are they?
But it’s a chicken and egg problem.
I’m sure Windows XP also doesn’t support that video card natively. Maybe even Vista requires external drivers to be installed, as well.
Granted, Dell should have tested better the laptop, but if you notice that guy installed a whole lot of stuff, one of which is hinted to be Skype. Who knows what repository he used, and what was brought through. Also, doesn’t Skype bring some kernel modules?
So there’s loads of possible explanations for some that guy’s problems, many of which completely outside the Dell+Ubuntu support and tested stuff.
For instance, I’m sure they only give support for what Canonical gives support. That pretty much excludes the universe and multiverse repositories… or other repositories.
“As to NVidia… well… they don’t simply support it, they support it *on their own terms* for *as long as they want*, and fix problems *on their own pace*.”
[joke]That sounds like the the open-source model for software support, so I would say that NVidia is adapting very well :-D [/joke]
BTW, most excellent news: AMD/ATI will release specs for R500 cards and onwards.
http://blog.softwarelivre.sapo.pt/2007/09/05/amdati-vao-publicar-especificacoes/
http://lwn.net/Articles/248227/