Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 13:49:08 -0800 (PST) From: David Wolfskill <david@catwhisker.org> To: mobile@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: SUMMARY [Re: Dell Inspiron 5000e vs. Chembook 3015A vs. Compal N38W2...] Message-ID: <200102232149.f1NLn8Q14311@bunrab.catwhisker.org> In-Reply-To: <200102212029.f1LKTA008941@bunrab.catwhisker.org>
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>Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 12:29:10 -0800 (PST)
>From: David Wolfskill <david@catwhisker.org>
[I promised to summarize re: the Subject:.]
First, it appears that each of the Dell Inspiron 5000e, the Chembook
3015A, and the MTECH30W are retail versions of the same device made by
Compal, and referred to as the N38W2.
As far as my questions (regarding the actual physical resolution of the
screen, and the behavior of the mouse/touchpad) are concerned:
* The screen definitely supports "SXGA+" (1400x1050); whether or not it
also supports a *physical* resolution of 1600x1200 ("UXGA") is not (yet)
clear to me. The screen (at least in the case of the Inspiron 5000e)
is reported to be "sharp and bright". As to the resolution:
>Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 14:44:00 -0800 (PST)
>From: John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org>
>Subject: RE: Dell Inspiron 5000e vs. Chembook 3015A vs. Compal N38W2 (N30
>Cc: mobile@FreeBSD.org
>I am running -current on a 5000e and X 4.0.2 will work at 1600x1200 with
>no problems. For 4.0.2 at least, you have to lie to X in XF86Config to
>get it to setup the screen properly (set bogus horiz and vert refresh
>rates), but I think they just fixed that in the latest X-cvs, and I will
>be rebuilding X and testing that in a bit. I do have the Rage128 with
>16MB of RAM, FWIW, and X is running on it at 24bpp.
>From: "M-Tech Laptop, Inc. \(Sales\)" <info@mtechlaptops.com>
>Subject: Re: MTECH30W: screen resolution & Synaptics mouse/touchpad question
>Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 11:44:56 -0500
>The 1600 Res. is not a true res. it is a scalable res. the true resolution
>for all three laptops mentioned is 1400 X1050. We do not feel it appropriate
>to lead you to believe that the 1600 is the native resolution. The machines
>are all Compals 38.
>Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 11:11:34 -0800 (PST)
>From: John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org>
>To: David Wolfskill <david@catwhisker.org>
>Subject: RE: Dell Inspiron 5000e vs. Chembook 3015A vs. Compal N38W2 (N30
>> This is a rather bizarre-seeming question, but is this a "real" 1600x1200
>> on the display, or is it a "logical" 1600x1200, of which a 1400x1050 window
>> may be seen at any given instant?
>No, I see all 1600x1200 of it at the same time. If you want to see a typical
>screen shot of my laptop's desktop:
>http://www.Baldwin.cx/~john/screenshots/laptop-013101.gif
>Now, maybe it only does 1400x1050 and it scales the pixels or something, but
>the pixels are so small I sure can't tell the the difference if that is the
>case. I know that I can fit 9 80x25 eterms on my screen at least (in a 3x3
>grid) with a little extra room on the sides and bottoms, and that other people
>in the office with 1440x1050 can't do that. :)
Note: I fetched that GIF image of John's, and xv reports that its
dimensions really are 1600x1200. FWIW....
---------------------------------------------------------------------
* As to the mouse buttons:
>Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 12:49:15 +0800 (+0800)
>From: Michael Robinson <robinson@netrinsics.com>
>The two buttons are adjacent, and sprung such that if you press at the
>junction of the two, both go down at the same time. You can "chord" with
>one finger with just slightly more care than you would use for pressing a
>third mouse button. I really don't miss the third button on the 770X.
>From jhb@FreeBSD.org Wed Feb 21 21:44:56 2001
>Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 21:44:41 -0800 (PST)
>From: John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org>
>To: David Wolfskill <david@catwhisker.org>
>Subject: RE: Dell Inspiron 5000e vs. Chembook 3015A vs. Compal N38W2 (N30
>I think mine doesn't differentiate between touchpad and the left button.
>I'll look at your PR though to see if that fixes that in psm(4).
(I wrote back to John to explain that the patch in my PR wouldn't make
the differentiation work; the PR was for a different problem.)
>From: "M-Tech Laptop, Inc. \(Sales\)" <info@mtechlaptops.com>
>Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 11:44:56 -0500
>The touchpad does have double tap capabilities as well as the buttons.
[I think the above is a symptom of a failure to communicate on my part... dhw]
>Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 11:11:34 -0800 (PST)
>From: John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org>
>NP, HTH. If you do manage to get your touchpad to act as a separate button (if
>you get a 5000e) please let me know, as I'd very much like the same
>functionality.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
* Some odds and ends. It seems that there are some issues with
APM/ACPI not being completely functional even under the best of
circumstances:
>Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 14:44:00 -0800 (PST)
>From: John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org>
>Other quirks on the 5000e: APM won't work cause the BIOS is busted.
>In -current the volume buttons for the sound card will work though, and
>the sound will work in both -stable and -current. Cardbus doesn't work
>in current due to a PCI resource allocation bug, but regular old pccard
>works ok under both OLDCARD and NEWCARD. I haven't played with the
>touchpad as far as remapping buttons, so I'm not sure if that will be a
>problem for you. If you want to run -current, then you can run ACPI on
>the 5000e to get some things like battery status and temperature reporting
>(with some patches I hope to commit soon) and also things like the power
>button turning the machine off after performing a clean shutdown, etc.
[in a subsequent message, referring to ACPI...]
>It's still in progress. First, you need
>http://www.FreeBSD.org/~jhb/patches/acpi.patch to fix some bugs in the ec and
>cmbat drivers and to add an ioctl to the tz driver to allow reading of the
>system temp. Then you want to grab the contents of the
>http://www.FreeBSD.org/~jhb/acpi/ directory and build the two commands. The
>'batt' command will tell you the battery status (the time remaning is b0rked
>though casue the i5000e has a bug) and the 'health' commadn currently only
>displays the system temperature.
>Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 12:49:15 +0800 (+0800)
>From: Michael Robinson <robinson@netrinsics.com>
>APM doesn't work. ACPI doesn't work. Everyone is waiting for Dell to
>release a BIOS that fixes the latter problem. Until then, you can suspend
>your computer, but the kernel doesn't know about it. So, for example, your
>system clock doesn't get updated when you resume, the sound drivers don't
>get reinitialized, etc., etc.
>Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 21:44:41 -0800 (PST)
>From: John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org>
>Err, ACPI sort of works. You have to tell ACPI to ignore the Super IO
>controller via this:
>debug.acpi.avoid="_SB_.PCI0.PX40.SIO_"
>However, suspend/resume doesn't really work. :( Most of the rest of ACPI works
>though.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
And for some final comments:
>Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 12:49:15 +0800 (+0800)
>From: Michael Robinson <robinson@netrinsics.com>
>It's a PITA, but the nice screen, fast processor, PC100 bus, dual battery
>bays, CD-RW drive, etc., etc., more than compensate.
>One other niggly little PITA is the PCMCIA slots don't have doors. Dell
>ships with little plastic "filler" cards that you're supposed to insert when
>you're not using the slot. I just leave the bay empty.
[Fine print for one of the other vendors indicates that this is how
Compal makes them. dhw]
>From: "M-Tech Laptop, Inc. \(Sales\)" <info@mtechlaptops.com>
>Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 11:44:56 -0500
>.... I will attach a advance copy of a review that will go out in laptop
>magazine for this unit. The quality of the fax we received is poor but
>readable. Good luck in your search.
At this point, my inclination is to go ahead, that the problem(s) with
the BIOS and ACPI should be solvable. It appears that even though Dell
is claiming a certain degree of Linux support, that the configurations
that most interest me all come with a Microsoft OS, so that's a
significant disincentive for me to do business with Dell. The M-Tech
guy responded pretty quickly, and despite the mis-communication about
the mouse buttons, I get the impression (both from what he wrote above,
and from seeing other posts in comp.sys.laptops from him) that he's a
fairly knowledgable fellow who appears to be trying to be reasonably
competent, and doing better than most at that. :-}
So far, it looks as if I configure a system with a 750 MHz Mobile PIII,
256 MB RAM, the 1400x1050 15.1" screen, a 20 GB disk, and go with a
plain CD-ROM drive, an extra battery, and a port replicator, that should
come to about $2285 + tax, shipping, &c. (That's with the default
1-year warranty. I don't know of any software for making constructive
use of DVDs, so I don't see any point in paying more money for something
that I could only use as a CD-ROM drive anyhow.)
Thanks for your comments (so far),
david
--
David H. Wolfskill david@catwhisker.org
As a computing professional, I believe it would be unethical for me to
advise, recommend, or support the use (save possibly for personal
amusement) of any product that is or depends on any Microsoft product.
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