[plug] Dell Inspiron 8100 & linux

[craig at postnewspapers.com.au]

On Tue, Nov 27, 2001 at 11:59:52AM +0800, William Kenworthy wrote:
> the similar 8000 model works fine with Mandrake 8.1.  8.0 was a bit of a
> problem tho.  Biggest gotcha with both is the nvidia go card - requires
> manual setup, tho 8.1 did succeed under basic X.  I havent fully sorted
> out the external/internal mouse/keyboard yet, but its "mostly" used as a
> desktop, the switching between problem doesnt occur too often.
> 
> Also power management needs work - its a 1G machine, but when on battery
> starts at 700Mhz, and requires a power off to switch back to full speed
> when back under charge.  Battery life is (maybe) slightly better than
> under win 2000, but I have not done any work on tuning it yet, and I
> suspect win2000 changes clock speed dynamicly - performace vs battery
> life.
How reassuring... I like to hear good things about $5000 hardware I'm
about to fork out for.
Linux ACPI support is improving constantly so I'm not too worried about
PM. Its _broken_ for AMD systems at the moment but apparently works very
well for Intel machines, though I don't have any intel machines so its
only what I've read. (3 1G Thunderbird machines @home).
If only dell had showrooms.