Mailing List Archive

On Fri, 1 Oct 2004, Zhang Weiwu wrote:

> Hello. Just wanna taste some of the non-x86, non-ppc notebook running
> Gentoo, my current PIII 700MHz thinkpad is too slow and I wanna upgrade.
> I heard of naturetech has several modules of notebook that use
> UltraSparc chip.


Not strictly non-x86, but you could look at the Athlon64-based laptops out
there now.

You can also run Linux on various MIPS-based WinCE notebooks such as the
NEC 780 or 880. (I have a 780 but Im currently running NetBSD on it).



--
nude adj.

Said of machines delivered without an operating
system (compare bare metal). "We ordered 50 systems, but
they all arrived nude, so we had to spend a an extra weekend with
the installation disks." This usage is a recent innovation
reflecting the fact that most IBM-PC clones are now delivered with
an operating system pre-installed at the factory. Other kinds of
hardware are still normally delivered without OS, so this term is
particular to PC support groups.


--
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

On Fri, 01 Oct 2004 16:39:22 +0800 Zhang Weiwu <zhangweiwu@realss.com>
wrote:
| Hello. Just wanna taste some of the non-x86, non-ppc notebook running
| Gentoo, my current PIII 700MHz thinkpad is too slow and I wanna
| upgrade. I heard of naturetech has several modules of notebook that
| use UltraSparc chip.

The best source for ultra laptops is Tadpole. Except... None of the
Ultra laptops will run linux cleanly. We could probably get them working
pretty quickly if we had access to the hardware, but Tadpole won't lend
us one no matter how many of their customers ask for linux support.

--
Ciaran McCreesh : Gentoo Developer (Sparc, MIPS, Vim, Fluxbox)
Mail : ciaranm at gentoo.org
Web : http://dev.gentoo.org/~ciaranm

Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> On Fri, 01 Oct 2004 16:39:22 +0800 Zhang Weiwu <zhangweiwu@realss.com>
> wrote:
> | Hello. Just wanna taste some of the non-x86, non-ppc notebook running
> | Gentoo, my current PIII 700MHz thinkpad is too slow and I wanna
> | upgrade. I heard of naturetech has several modules of notebook that
> | use UltraSparc chip.
>
> The best source for ultra laptops is Tadpole. Except... None of the
> Ultra laptops will run linux cleanly. We could probably get them working
> pretty quickly if we had access to the hardware, but Tadpole won't lend
> us one no matter how many of their customers ask for linux support.
>
Thank you for the information. So what's the best Linux non-x86/ppc
laptop anyway? Tadpole is NG, how about naturetech?

--
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Ajai Khattri wrote:
> On Fri, 1 Oct 2004, Zhang Weiwu wrote:
>
>
>>Hello. Just wanna taste some of the non-x86, non-ppc notebook running
>>Gentoo, my current PIII 700MHz thinkpad is too slow and I wanna upgrade.
>>I heard of naturetech has several modules of notebook that use
>>UltraSparc chip.
>
>
>
> Not strictly non-x86, but you could look at the Athlon64-based laptops out
> there now.
>
> You can also run Linux on various MIPS-based WinCE notebooks such as the
> NEC 780 or 880. (I have a 780 but Im currently running NetBSD on it).
>
I am afraid NEC 780 or such things are very slow? How about running
Mozilla (fullset) with Gnome/KDE? Impossible? So do you run WindowMaker
or anything?

--
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

On Fri, 01 Oct 2004 17:46:03 +0800 Zhang Weiwu <zhangweiwu@realss.com>
wrote:
| Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
| > On Fri, 01 Oct 2004 16:39:22 +0800 Zhang Weiwu
| > <zhangweiwu@realss.com> wrote:
| > | Hello. Just wanna taste some of the non-x86, non-ppc notebook
| > | running Gentoo, my current PIII 700MHz thinkpad is too slow and I
| > | wanna upgrade. I heard of naturetech has several modules of
| > | notebook that use UltraSparc chip.
| >
| > The best source for ultra laptops is Tadpole. Except... None of the
| > Ultra laptops will run linux cleanly. We could probably get them
| > working pretty quickly if we had access to the hardware, but Tadpole
| > won't lend us one no matter how many of their customers ask for
| > linux support.
| >
| Thank you for the information. So what's the best Linux non-x86/ppc
| laptop anyway? Tadpole is NG, how about naturetech?

Uh... amd64 stuff maybe? UltraSparcs *really* aren't suitable for
laptops, the best you could hope for is a sort of luggable box really.
sparcv9 is pretty much aimed at high end workstation / server use where
you've got several scsi drives, interleaved RAM and a reasonable amount
of space, it's not an appropriate technology for laptops.

--
Ciaran McCreesh : Gentoo Developer (Sparc, MIPS, Vim, Fluxbox)
Mail : ciaranm at gentoo.org
Web : http://dev.gentoo.org/~ciaranm

Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> On Fri, 01 Oct 2004 17:46:03 +0800 Zhang Weiwu <zhangweiwu@realss.com>
> wrote:
> | Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> | > The best source for ultra laptops is Tadpole. Except... None of the
> | > Ultra laptops will run linux cleanly. We could probably get them
> | > working pretty quickly if we had access to the hardware, but Tadpole
> | > won't lend us one no matter how many of their customers ask for
> | > linux support.
> | >
> | Thank you for the information. So what's the best Linux non-x86/ppc
> | laptop anyway? Tadpole is NG, how about naturetech?
>
> Uh... amd64 stuff maybe? UltraSparcs *really* aren't suitable for
> laptops, the best you could hope for is a sort of luggable box really.
> sparcv9 is pretty much aimed at high end workstation / server use where
> you've got several scsi drives, interleaved RAM and a reasonable amount
> of space, it's not an appropriate technology for laptops.

Hey man, don't you think having an RISC notebook is worthy simple
because it's cool? I got some friends who love to play with all
equipment, I just wanna take the notebook all around and say "hey guys,
you think you are hardware guys but you can only play with x86 because
you mess up with micros~1. I am running RISC and you either learn Linux
or be away from it, it's everything you don't know blah blah." Okay, I
know I won't really say that, but even if I say nothing it's cool
enough! Consider the fact *everybody* play with x86 in China:)

I'm trying to think what I gonna loose using UltraSparc notebook. Flash
comes to my mind first, perhaps I'll have to use unstable gplfalshplay.
However I can live without flash okay. The next I think I'll lose is
acroread. Perhaps GSview would be enough. Would my Xorg run just fine?
Let me think. Is there other important packages that could not run on
UltraSparc?

--
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

On Mon, 04 Oct 2004 22:33:33 +0800 Zhang Weiwu <zhangweiwu@realss.com>
wrote:
| Hey man, don't you think having an RISC notebook is worthy simple
| because it's cool?

If anyone made cool RISC laptops, then yeah, I would.

| I'm trying to think what I gonna loose using UltraSparc notebook.
| Flash comes to my mind first, perhaps I'll have to use unstable
| gplfalshplay. However I can live without flash okay. The next I think
| I'll lose is acroread. Perhaps GSview would be enough. Would my Xorg
| run just fine? Let me think. Is there other important packages that
| could not run on UltraSparc?

Uh, a Linux kernel is one rather important thing that wouldn't run on
these laptops... If you fixed that up, audio support probably wouldn't
work, but xorg is mostly ok. mplayer is flaky with certain codeds. We've
got xpdf for PDFs...

--
Ciaran McCreesh : Gentoo Developer (Sparc, MIPS, Vim, Fluxbox)
Mail : ciaranm at gentoo.org
Web : http://dev.gentoo.org/~ciaranm

On Mon, 04 Oct 2004 23:02:26 +0800 Zhang Weiwu <zhangweiwu@realss.com>
wrote:
| >Uh, a Linux kernel is one rather important thing that wouldn't run on
| >these laptops...
| >
| What? So you mean Linux kernel for sparc is not so very stable? Emm
| it's a big disadvantage. You know I am far from know kernel so good as
| you do:)

Linux runs just fine on *some* sparc hardware. It runs at least
reasonably on most sparc hardware. It does *not* currently run on the
newer non-Sun laptop models. We could *probably* fix this if we had
access to the hardware. As far as we know, it's just a case of the PROM
being slightly different to the extent that Linux won't boot off it.

| >If you fixed that up, audio support probably wouldn't
| >work, but xorg is mostly ok. mplayer is flaky with certain codeds.
| >We've got xpdf for PDFs...
| >
| So, how do I know when there will be a good ultrasparc notebook or a
| bad ultrasparc notebook will be supported well by Gentoo? Or BSD is
| okay too, I used to BSD in the early years. Thank you for the
| information and warning!

Well, you buy one and try it. If it doesn't work, either fix it yourself
or buy a couple more and donate them to your local friendly kernel
hackers.

As for BSD... Their support for modern sparc kit is kinda... uhm... bad.

--
Ciaran McCreesh : Gentoo Developer (Sparc, MIPS, Vim, Fluxbox)
Mail : ciaranm at gentoo.org
Web : http://dev.gentoo.org/~ciaranm