Gentoo on Alienware M5750/M9700?

[n3r0]

Hey all,

After a long deliberation I'm considering ordering the m5750 or the m9700 for use at work and personal use afterwards.
I would prefer the dual core setup of the m5750 however I have always dealt with AMD and Nvidia, so the m9700 is a little more comfortable (any X2 laptops?).
I’m not new to gentoo where I’ve been running it on three machines exclusively; a desktop, a router and a laptop back at home for the past 8 years.
I'm after other user experiences with the m5750 obviously running gentoo, as to any hardware problems or any other compatibility issues they faced.

I’ve seen this laptop running Fedora with most if not all hardware working (so gentoo shouldn’t be a problem) but not much else.
Ideally I’d like to be running kde with beryl.

The specs of the laptop are pretty standard with:

[breakerfall]

Everything seems fine with that hardware setup, apart from the sound and wifi. Both work, kind of. The ALSA drivers for the intel high definition audio aren't very mature yet. If you do a forum search, you will see a range of issues. Thankfully, the worst issue I've had, is that my microphone doesn't work and the PCM doesn't control anything. Master controls all volume, it's the only volume control that works.

The WIFI has drivers, the 3945 drivers, but again, they're a pain in the butt, but then, so is WIFI in general on linux. You can get them working, using the built in ieee80211 stack (in the kernel) and the latest ipw3945 drivers (1.2.0). If you use a lower version, you need to install the ieee80211 driver from portage.

There's a new intel project for this chipset however, called iwlwifi. It's in early development, maybe you can check it out.

http://intellinuxwireless.org/?p=iwlwifi

Good luck =]

[n3r0]

Thanks for your reply,

I'm not too worried about having any wireless drivers for the time being; as there are no wireless networks at all where I work and when I am home it will get a cable connection to the network. I've briefly looked into the iwlwifi drivers previously for another laptop and they do sound promising.

The audio however is a bit more of a concern, but like you've stated the driver is still young and that support will come. I'll probably just use a pair of headphones most of the time anyway so it shouldn’t be a problem.

I'm fairly heavily heading towards the m5750 at the moment, and from what I've checked out the X1800 card is fairly well supported with ati's proprietary drivers, although past experience with using their drivers was poor to say the least.

I'm not sure how much flex I will get with Alienware Australia, but I've emailed them to see if I can get it bundled with no OS and possibly an Nvidia graphics card.

I'll post my progress here as it develops.

Thanks again

[breakerfall]

Even if they don't bundle the laptop with no OS for you, there's another way you can get the refund for Windows. There's a documented case of a linux user taking photographs of himself disagreeing with the EULA during the initial boot of his dell laptop. He was refunded by dell, maybe it's worth giving that a try, if they don't send you a naked machine.

http://www.linuxworld.com/news/2006/110706-dell-windows.html

[n3r0]

Well that was long, drawn out and somewhat painful. Long story short, Alienware won’t bundle it with no OS. They won’t even acknowledge the EULA. The sales rep that I was dealing with was very patient and helpful and even seemed sympathetic at times. However as far as their legal department is concerned their own contract with Microsoft supersedes the EULA contractual obligation with myself.
When I contacted Microsoft Australia and asked them which takes precedence, I was told (after reading the EULA to him, turns out even they don’t read them normally) that if Alienware wont honour the EULA that he can recommend a company that would be happy to sell me a laptop with no OS.

Anyway I have now purchased an XPS M1710, which will probably work out easier as I was able to use my companies EPP which cut the price significantly, and with Salary Sacrifice it makes the laptop relatively cheap.
The final specs of the system are similar to the Alienware model with the notable difference of an 512mb Nvidia graphics card.
I know of other users with this laptop and gentoo installed and the laptop at nearly 99% functional (Media direct seems to be a bit hit and miss).
The other bonus is that dell is able to deliver it within a week, which I received for free as well.

Good luck to anyone that tries this same path, I’m fairly sure that I could have come to some sought of arrangement with them to satisfy both our needs however ultimately didn’t have the time to prosper one. Finally thanks breakerfall for your help in this matter.

[Phk]

[i'm not here. i just passed by to say: Alienware Rocks, you lucky bastard hehehe.. sorry for the greediness ]
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