[clug] Dreambook Laptop.
Nigel Cunningham
ncunningham at cyclades.com
Mon Jan 9 07:21:11 GMT 2006
Hi everyone.
A few weeks ago I replied to an email, saying I was thinking of buying one of
the 'Dreambooks' from Pioneer Computers. It arrived just after Christmas, so
I thought I'd give you a rundown on my experiences:
I didn't find getting hold of a Dreambook to be trivial. They're apparently
sold through Harvey Norman, but I don't see any indication of that on their
web site. I purchased mine through a small Brisbane firm (I can provide the
details to anyone who is interested).
I purchased the 8350 model, primarily because I really wanted to get a Turion,
so as to provide better suspend-to-disk support for 64 bit. Pioneer allow you
to customise, so I got mine with a M-34 processor, 1GB of RAM, a spare 9 cell
battery and a DVD drive and without the M$ tax or a hard disk, for $1925
incl. I was very pleased with the price.
I wanted no hard drive because I had purchased a new 7200RPM one a year or so
ago, and wanted to put it in. (PATA).
I was a little dubious about buying the laptop. Googling provides very little
information at the moment. There was one very positive but also very brief
comment on Whrilpool.
Unpacking the Dreambook was trivial. There was the notebook itself, the spare
battery and a small clear plastic bag with cds and a couple of small books.
Oh, and the freebie laptop bag.
Installing the hard drive was trivial. Two screws on the bottom of the laptop
cover a drive bay, which contains a 2.5in frame that holds the drive in
place. The frame is secured by one more screw in the middle, and the
connector is a simple, standard 2.5 in adapter, requiring no special
adapters. (Unlike my old Omnibook).
I had obtained Ubuntu's 5.10 AMD64 release, and so proceeded to install it on
the spare partition I had prepared. This turned out to be very slow, because
the ACPI implementation caused continual APIC errors and of course filled the
partition. This ruined my initial impression - I began to fear that I had
bought a lemon. Once I figured out what was going on, however, things
improved drastically. Killing the log daemons while the installer ran made
the machine feel more like an AMD64 than a DX-25.
After installation was complete, I installed the most recent kernel
(2.6.15-rc7 at the time), and the APIC errors went away.
My next problem was X. The Dreambook has a 200M card - relatively new and
therefore requiring XOrg 6.9 to have any real support. Ubuntu sources were
thus changed to Drapper and downloading began.
So, I'm now running Drapper on a 2.6.15 kernel.
Now for the quirks:
- The Function key is on the bottom left. I keep hitting it when I want
Control. Maybe I'll get used to it. Maybe I'll find some nifty tool to swap
them.
- There are some kernel issues - the uli526x ethernet card has no power
management support yet (yes, I'm planning on giving a fix a go); the screen
drivers sometimes put the display in the wrong state when switching from X so
that you have to switch to and from X a couple of times before you can see
anything useful, there's no hope for DRI at the moment, and hotplug needs
some coercion with a hammer to set up the Synaptic touchpad right.
Having said all that, I'm really quite happy with the Dreambook. I have real
power management for the first time (cpu at 800/1600/1800MHz), and the
battery technology looks like it had been well designed so that I won't have
to buy a new battery every year.
I'm really looking forward to the drivers getting up to scratch, so I can see
what the machine is really capable of.
And yes, I have managed to get Suspend2 running fine on it. Improved AMD64
support will be in 2.2, due out shortly.
I'll see if I can set up a web page somewhere with more details.
Regards,
Nigel
lspci output:
0000:00:00.0 Host bridge: ATI Technologies Inc: Unknown device 5950 (rev 01)
Subsystem: Mitac: Unknown device 8350
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 64
0000:00:01.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc: Unknown device 5a3f (prog-if 00
[Normal decode])
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 128
Bus: primary=00, secondary=01, subordinate=01, sec-latency=32
I/O behind bridge: 0000c000-0000dfff
Memory behind bridge: c0000000-cfffffff
Prefetchable memory behind bridge: 0000000090000000-000000009ff00000
Capabilities: [44] #08 [a803]
Capabilities: [b0] #0d [0000]
0000:00:14.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI4510 PC card Cardbus
Controller (rev 02)
Subsystem: Mitac: Unknown device 8350
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 168, IRQ 169
Memory at 44000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
Bus: primary=00, secondary=03, subordinate=06, sec-latency=176
Memory window 0: 40000000-41fff000 (prefetchable)
Memory window 1: 42000000-43fff000
I/O window 0: 00001800-000018ff
I/O window 1: 00001c00-00001cff
16-bit legacy interface ports at 0001
0000:00:15.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications, Inc. AR5212
802.11abg NIC (rev 01)
Subsystem: Askey Computer Corp.: Unknown device 7084
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 168, IRQ 185
Memory at d0000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
Capabilities: [44] Power Management version 2
0000:00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 NorthBridge
Flags: fast devsel
Capabilities: [80] #08 [2101]
0000:00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 NorthBridge
Flags: fast devsel
0000:00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 NorthBridge
Flags: fast devsel
0000:00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 NorthBridge
Flags: fast devsel
0000:00:19.0 PCI bridge: ALi Corporation M5249 HTT to PCI Bridge (prog-if 00
[Normal decode])
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
Bus: primary=00, secondary=02, subordinate=02, sec-latency=32
I/O behind bridge: 0000a000-0000bfff
Memory behind bridge: b8000000-bfffffff
Prefetchable memory behind bridge: 88000000-8fffffff
Capabilities: [c0] #08 [a803]
0000:00:1b.0 Ethernet controller: ALi Corporation: Unknown device 5263 (rev
50)
Subsystem: Mitac: Unknown device 8350
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 128, IRQ 193
I/O ports at e000 [size=256]
Memory at d0010000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256]
Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2
0000:00:1c.0 USB Controller: ALi Corporation USB 1.1 Controller (rev 03)
(prog-if 10 [OHCI])
Subsystem: Mitac: Unknown device 8350
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 169
Memory at 44001000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
0000:00:1c.1 USB Controller: ALi Corporation USB 1.1 Controller (rev 03)
(prog-if 10 [OHCI])
Subsystem: Mitac: Unknown device 8350
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 185
Memory at 44002000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
0000:00:1c.3 USB Controller: ALi Corporation USB 2.0 Controller (rev 01)
(prog-if 20 [EHCI])
Subsystem: Mitac: Unknown device 8350
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 128, IRQ 201
Memory at 44003000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256]
Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2
Capabilities: [58] #0a [2090]
0000:00:1d.0 Multimedia audio controller: ALi Corporation M5455 PCI AC-Link
Controller Audio Device (rev 20)
Subsystem: Mitac: Unknown device 8350
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 128, IRQ 201
I/O ports at e100 [size=256]
Memory at d0011000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 2
0000:00:1d.1 Modem: ALi Corporation M5457 AC'97 Modem Controller (rev 20)
(prog-if 00 [Generic])
Subsystem: Mitac: Unknown device 8350
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 177
Memory at d0012000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
I/O ports at e200 [size=256]
Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 2
0000:00:1e.0 ISA bridge: ALi Corporation: Unknown device 1573 (rev 31)
Subsystem: Mitac: Unknown device 8350
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0
0000:00:1e.1 Bridge: ALi Corporation M7101 Power Management Controller [PMU]
Subsystem: Mitac: Unknown device 8350
Flags: medium devsel
0000:00:1f.0 IDE interface: ALi Corporation M5229 IDE (rev c7) (prog-if 8a
[Master SecP PriP])
Subsystem: Mitac: Unknown device 8350
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 255
I/O ports at 1100 [size=16]
Capabilities: [60] Power Management version 2
0000:01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc: Unknown device
5955 (prog-if 00 [VGA])
Subsystem: Mitac: Unknown device 8350
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 11
Memory at 90000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=128M]
I/O ports at c000 [size=256]
Memory at c0000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
Expansion ROM at 98000000 [disabled] [size=128K]
Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2
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