Firebird -> Firefox -> veer to left: Athlon

[Collins Richey]

On Fri, 13 Feb 2004 15:46:55 +0100
Roger Oberholtzer <roger at opq.se> wrote:


> Happy with the Athlon? I guess it is in a desktop box and not a
> laptop, right?
> 

Desktop.  Runs great, but it's a VIA chipset motherboard with an nvidia
gforce2, and nvidia has never bothered to learn how to program agp so
that it's compatible with VIA, so I have to disable agp to use the
nvidia drivers.  It's got 512M, so it's fast as a daemon.

> I have a laptop with an Athlon XP-M  that is not fully happy. It is
> running SUSE 9 with all the latest SuSE Athlon updates. I have the
> following problems:
> 
> #1
> 
> I cannot switch virtual terminals from a graphic one. So, I can get a
> GUI login and can log in. However, If I do anything that does a
> virtual terminal switch the system stops dead. This includes trying to
> configure the display, starting another session, trying to switch to
> another text VT, or logging out.
> 

I would suspect that has nothing to do with Athlon, and everything to do
with video drivers.  nvidia drivers, for example, are infamous for this
type of behavior.  It's really great that they make the effort to
provide drivers for linux, but they need a few lessons in writing kernel
modules.  Earlier versions of nvida drivers had constant kernel memeory
management errors logged as well as the X - switch - switch back black
terminal and/or lockup feature.
> 
> #2
> 
> I cannot use any power management or the system stops cold after some
> minutes. So I have to run the kernel without it and not start any
> programs to do so. So I do not get a peep when the battery is low. I
> also suspect that in the absence of power management the CPU is
> running at its slowest speed. 
> 

linux has a lot of weaknesses in this area, which is not surprising
because the manufacturers don't often provide much documentation.  I
don't have a laptop, but I've heard that 2.6 kernels do a much better
job with the power management functions.

The only drawback to Athlons I've ever heard is heat dissapation.  You
need a case with good cooling.  Interestingly enough, I read somewhere
that the new Athlon/64 units draw less power and run cooler than the
earlier Athlons!

I'm quite happy with mine (a brand X case), but the system is a little
noisier than the PowerSpec P4 box I icked up for less money.  To top it
off, it has my oldest, slowest, smallest drives left over from a couple
of older machines.  Sigh!

HTH,

-- 
Collins - Denver Area - 
Gentoo stable kernel 2.6.2-rc1