[linux-audio-user] linux preinstalled laptops for audio

On Tuesday 12 September 2006 23:33, Ken wrote:
> Check out these laptops with pre-installed Ubuntu...
> No hassles!?!
> http://system76.com

I can't speak for System 76 (going to their site and
seeing "ultralight" and "starting at 5 pounds" together just
made me laugh), but I'm typing this on a Thinkpad X41 with
Ubuntu preinstalled from Emperor Linux. They have a reputation
as being one of the oldest and best surviving Linux laptop
dealers.

Here's my experience: I ordered the thing on the Friday before
LinuxWorld, which may explain some of the following. Their
website indicated that the laptop was in stock. A week and a
half and a ton of emails and phone calls later, it turned out
that not only was the laptop not in stock, but had been
discontinued. They bumped me up to the next higher model, which
I guess was nicer than just cancelling my order out from under
me. I finally got it after not quite 3 weeks of trying to make
do with an old, cranky Via C3 laptop since my own laptop's IDE
had died. (Meanwhile, the web site still indicated, right up
until the day before my replacement model arrived, that the one
I ordered was "in stock, order now".)

There were some issues with the preinstalled stuff. This
Thinkpad is a tablet, and they preinstalled Wacom support (which
is... or was... really nice) and two different handwriting
programs. One was Jarnal, which was apparently hardcoded to use
a newer JRE than they had installed. The other was Rosetta,
which is more like Graffiti on a Palm than handwriting
recognition. They neglected to include the trainer program for
it, so it doesn't do anything. They also included a driver,
seemingly written by a non-English-speaker, for the thumbprint
scanner on the edge of the screen. I don't really believe in
that stuff, but I tried it out anyway.... it works at console
login prompts but not the normal Ubuntu gdm login screen.

Naturally, since their main distro is Fedora and they have only
recently started supporting Ubuntu, they installed everything
in /opt and just seem to have dumped the files out there rather
than making and installing packages. I mention this because
this is my first Ubuntu experience and it sure would have been
nice if as many files as possible were owned by packages so I
can figure out what depends on what.

More seriously, they neglected to mention that the version of
X.org they included (needed for the xrandr stuff so you can flip
the lid around and use it as a tablet) had no GLX support, and
the custom kernel they rolled had no snd-usb-audio module
(making it kinda hard to use my Midiman 1x1 or my Roland PCR-30
or Edirol UA-30), nor did it have the Ingo Molnar patch. I
requested that patch, but told them to never mind when they told
me that applying it would add 3-4 days to my delivery time.
Judging by the fact that their Ubuntu rescue instructions make
reference to installing RPM's, I get the sense they don't like
to stray too far from the script.

They gave me a fix for the Jarnal thing, though I'm sure I would
have figured it out eventually. All the other problems are
still outstanding, and when I asked whether I would get the
X.org update that provides GLX free of charge, they clammed up
and I haven't heard from them since. If you google around a
bit, Emperor Linux has a reputation for ignoring emails but
answering the phone right away.... that is, if you call during
business hours. My "dick around with my notebook" time is
pretty much right now, at 2 in the morning, since I can't
exactly call when I'm sitting there at a client site. Anyway, I
can confirm that that reputation is deserved.

So then, when I built the snd-usb-audio module and did make
modules_install (long after a member of their target market
would have thrown up his hands in frustration), the laptop's
wireless card stopped working (dmesg says it wouldn't take the
firmware.) I switched to a stock Ubuntu kernel, and now I have
wifi and MIDI with no compiling or hand-tweaking needed --
meaning they actually DISABLED the USB audio stuff on their
custom build -- but no tablet functions whatsoever.

On the plus side, I love the Thinkpad itself.... much nicer than
my old Dell X200, though I wish I could mute the console beep
since it's far louder than the sound card output. When the
tablet stuff works, it's sweet to be able to open up the GIMP
and just draw something, or fire up Jarnal and jot down network
diagrams and notes and stuff. And now that I'm running a stock
kernel, MIDI is plug-and-play.

But was this experience worth the $800 markup over the stock
Thinkpad tablet ($1000, if they hadn't given me the upgrade for
nothing?) Ummm.... no. No way, no how. Do I have time to
demand my money back and then buy and wait for another laptop?
I hate to say it because they're really nice and all their help
speaks English and I want Linux laptops to be a viable
market.... but, I kinda wish I did. (Going back to the plus
side, at least I still haven't been tempted to boot the thing
into XP.)

In conclusion, I'd go with a Linux laptop dealer if you want all
the builtin stuff to work and never plan to hook up another
device to it.... but if you want to do Linux audio, you'll
probably spend more time trying to get it to work without
wrecking all their custom stuff (or recovering from it when you
do) than you would have spent just buying your laptop of choice
and installing your distro of choice and rolling your own kernel
with your choice of patches and modules.

Hassle-free? Not even close. No one is serving our market yet,
and it may be a while before anyone does. I actually think
Ubuntu (or something else, but it sure is looking like ubuntu)
is going to have to become the worldwide standard before things
like universal "it just works" peripheral support and actual
hassle-free notebook preinstalls start happening.

Sorry for the rant, but when it costs a grand more to get free
software preinstalled, I think people should see what they're
getting into before they do it.

Rob
Received on Wed Sep 13 12:15:07 2006