System 76 Gazelle Professional compatible with Trisquel ?
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Hello Everyone,
I hope any technically advanced, "Veteran" Trisquel users
will excuse the "newb" nature of my question,
But I'm just getting started on a transition to GNU / Linux
and would very much like to adhere to the practice of "free computing".
I'm wondering if anyone may have had any experience with the
System 76 "Gazelle Professional" laptop as a platform for Trisquel ?
http://www.system76.com/laptops/model/gazelle
I'm looking for a laptop suitable for 3D content creation & rendering.
The Gazelle is available pre-configured with Ubuntu
but am concerned that the inclusion of the following hardware:
- Intel Core i7-2670QM Processor ( 6MB L3 Cache, 2.20GHz )
- 16 GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1600MHz
- 500GB 7200rpm SATA Hybrid Hard Drive with 4GB SSD
- 1.5 GB nVidia GeForce GTX 560M
May be problematic or incompatible without the use of Binary / Proprietary
NON-FREE drivers ?
Thank You in advance for your attention and patience...
- Rick
I am a translator!
The Intel wireless chip requires non-free firmware. According to Nouveau's website your card isn't well supported (it appears under NVCF (GF116)) so you might not get 3D acceleration :
http://nouveau.freedesktop.org/wiki/CodeNames
The core i7 uses free drivers but it requires compilation of drivers and software for full functionality (such as HD playback via hardware acceleration).
My recommendation would be not to buy cutting edge hardware with GNU/Linux as it takes a while for it to be supported out-of-the-box. If you buy supported hardware that is 2 years old everything will work great as the kernel shipped will include all the needed drivers.
Thanks very much for your response, Aloniv, I appreciate your advice.
TYVM for the link to the Nouveau Wiki, I wasn't aware of it, looks like a good resource.
I guess I'll have to continue looking for a laptop,
I'm going to need some considerable horsepower, as I'm going to be working with
photorealistic rendering of 3D content.
... The search continues,
-Rick
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On 11-12-28 02:16 PM, name at domain wrote:
> [...]
> The core i7 uses free drivers but it requires compilation of drivers
and software for full functionality (such as HD playback via hardware
acceleration).
> [...]
Any source for the above ?
I have two i5 systems running Trisquel without problems, although I
understand their hardware implements features that are essential to some
DRM systems:
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1934536/intels-sandy-bridge-sucks-hollywood-drm
Non-DRM'ed content plays very well, accelerated on those, BTW.
Cheers,
F.
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I am a translator!
http://intellinuxgraphics.org/h264.html
http://www.splitted-desktop.com/en/libva/
If you want hardware acceleration decoding of H.264, you need to compile all the software from source to support VAAPI such as MPlayer, gstreamer and Gnash.
The choice of an nVidia video card is not wise: it costs a lot and the performances of its free driver are not on par with the cheaper Intel integrated chipsets.
The component that is the most likely to raise issues is the Wifi card. Ubuntu includes, in the kernel it distributes, firmware that are proprietary, hence excluded from Trisquel that uses linux-libre.
The safest option probably is to buy a laptop from ThinkPenguin. It can even be shipped with Trisquel installed. The guy behind this business is committed to freedom. He often contributes to this forum.
Given the high requirements of the laptop you desire, the closest laptop, on this site, is to be customized from this page: https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/penguin-international (however the maximal amount of RAM, which is proposed, is 8 GB). Notice a commercial on the Trisquel website that makes your purchase on ThinkPenguin generate a donation (25% of the profits) to the Trisquel project.
Unless you really need a horse power for some specific tasks (which ones?), I would recommend you to stick with cheaper hardware so that you can afford to change it more frequently.
Thanks for your informative response "Magic", I appreciate your time & attention.
The idea of purchasing from Think Penguin is attractive, especially since they will
donate to support Trisquel !
My concerns about the "international" center on wether or not I'll have the
required horsepower to perform advanced 3D rendering with that system -
It seems to only be offered with an Intel integrated graphics system
and maxes out at 8 GB of RAM, which may not prove sufficient.
TYVM for your help !
If you wish to do any 3d related work on a fully free system then Intel graphic cards are the only choice right now. The newer intel cards like the i5 and i7 have a new technology called Sandy Bridge which places improved graphics support in the CPU itself instead of a Northbridge. These processors are well supported in newer versions of the Linux kernel(you can use the fsfla repo to upgrade your Linux-libre kernel). I dont have such a system or I could test it for you.
Thanks for your response "grvrulz", I really appreciate everyone's efforts to answer my questions.
I'm glad to hear that the new i5/i7 Sandybridge processors are supported,
but my real concern is that the Nvidia Graphics cards will require Binary / non-free software to run.
I would use alternatives if they were applicable, but an intel "integrated" video system
will not be effective for the work I need to do : (
Would you know if I'm correct assuming that Trisquel would support 16 GB of RAM
I'm thinking that any modern 64 bit OS doesn't have a problem with RAM limitations ?
Thanks Again !
- Rick
I am a member!
Trisquel 64 bit won't have any problems with 16GB of ram.
Don't go with an NVidia chipset as it won't have any free software support. An ATI chipset is your best bet. ATI released the specifications and code needed for good support of its graphics chipsets. The current version or next version of Trisquel should see acceptable levels of support for at least some graphics cards.
That is not the only thing to worry about though. You also need an Atheros wifi chipset.
Those are at least the two main things you need to be concerned with.
Also, be aware that Dell, Tosbia, Lenovo, and HP ship laptops with digital restrictions on the Mini PCIe slot so you may not be able to replace an incompatible wifi card with one that works. I am not aware of any others that may be a problem at the moment. I believe most other laptops shouldn't present a problem in this area though.
Hey Chris! You seem like a knowledgeable person when it comes to hardware. Do you know any resources for more information on the Mini PCIe restrictions you mention? Sure sound awful.
Happy new year to you!
I am a member!
The list of manufacturers which are a problem is uniquely ours developed from reports by others. We see the issue frequently enough too. IBM and HP are probably the ones we have encountered most although this is just coincidence. I think Dell may have only recently started doing this and Toshiba just doesn't have much market share.
Not all the Mini PCIe network card issues you will come across are specifically because of this though. Generally our experience is the system won't boot or will otherwise pop up an error message when there is digital restriction in place. It is clear with the Lenovo/IBM laptops as they pop up a "unauthorised" message.
There is extensive documentation for Lenovo/IBM at the URL below and there are some complicated solutions to the problem too for some models. Applying such fixes though can be disastrous though as they often (?almost always?) involve modifying the BIOS. You could end up with a system that does not boot.
http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Problem_with_unauthorized_MiniPCI_network_card#Problem_description
Thanks alot for the info and the pointer.
Hello Chris.
I have a question for you(and anyone else who could answer this). I have attached a picture of my wireless adapter for my Sager NP2096 laptop. According to the breakdown at ThinkPengiun--it looks like I have a full-height Mini PCIe wireless adapter. Could you confirm that with the pic I sent?
One other question, if I may. Are the black and white, gold capped wires in the pictures typically easy to take off and put back on? I tried to (gently) remove them from my adapter and they really did not budge. I did not want to damage them, so I figured I would ask first.
If so, I would I would most likely end up purchasing the full height Atheros available at the store(again, many thanks for the link--I like this store!). I know I just purchased a dongle, I will probably keep that as a "just-in-case".
Thanks for all of your help!
Edit: I have tried attaching the pic to this post several times, but nothing shows up when I "preview" or "save" the post. Am I doing something wrong?
I am a member!
I found a picture of the laptop. The NP2096 does support a full-height Mini PCIe wireless card from the looks of it. The difference between the full-height and the half-height card is the full-height comes with a bracket attached. If for some reason you didn't have a full-height slot you would definitely have a half-height and so you could just unscrew the bracket.
The wires are easy to connect and disconnect. They just pop on and off. Don't be afraid to use a little force. We did have one customer who managed to damage a card this way although it was likely that the card itself was defective and not the fault of the customer. I believe we replaced the card and he hadn't any further trouble.
Great to hear!
I just went ahead and bought the full-height Atheros. If I run into any issues(and can't find a solution anywhere), "I'll be back!".
Anyhoo, thanks for the help again.
I am a member!
:)
Definitely. I'll personally try and visit the forums more frequently to help people here although there is no guarantee. If you need support for one of our products use the contact link to email at http://libre.thinkpenguin.com/ or call (US/Canada).
I just received the Atheros wireless card in the mail today. I just sent this message using the card(which works great)! Absolutely no issues installing or connecting to the network. Every page loads up quickly.
Thanks again for everything.
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