notice how many specify "32 bit".
this is a joke for engineering laptops that need more RAM.
I have a T510, which is listed. it definitely doesn't work out of the box, and not all of the hardware (nvidia optimus for example) is fully supported.
this is a joke for engineering laptops that need more RAM.
I have a T510, which is listed. it definitely doesn't work out of the box, and not all of the hardware (nvidia optimus for example) is fully supported.
Personally, I'd rather see lots of 32-bit systems than a handful of 64-bit. :)
Another answer is that it would lengthen an already long process.
Why is 64-bit not the recommended option?
PAE [1] is reported to work very well, so there's no RAM problem. Plus, things like ndiswrapper go a long way to highlighting Ubuntu's famous 'ease of use', and i imagine it's a huge hassle to get that working on x86_64.
64-bit is a higher number, but it's not instantly better in all situations. Larger pointers = effectively smaller cache, and the extra registers don't always make up for that.
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Suggestions (beside testing every possible combination, which simply doesn't scale) are welcome. :)
First benefit: The user could check that hardware against what he purchased or is purchasing and have a moderate amount of confidence that it's the "same thing" and not a SKU with something significantly different.
Second benefit: If you implemented a search, someone wondering whether an unlisted laptop is OK could make a good guess by searching for the presence of tested laptops with the same sound card, graphics card, etc.
I'm currently working on displaying the 'core' (processor, network, display) components in the main listings to a) help differentiate between SKUs and b) stop you having to view each model to find the one you're interested in.
EDIT: Are you sure you didn't mean to type "T520"? The T510 came out before Optimus was around, accoring to my recollection and a quick check on ThinkWiki.
If you click on the link under the name of the laptop they specify which hardware configuration they used, and the T520 very noticeably isn't certified for use with NVidia graphics, unlike the T510. http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/hardware/201102-7229
The laptop works very well in Ubuntu, which is my primary OS. There definitely were some setup hassles when I got the laptop a year ago, but I believe the support is more streamlined today.
As far as I know, Optimus is pretty much solely a drivers feature.
Admittedly this is 10.04 - I haven't tried the newer versions on it yet - and I didn't try to get Optimus working.
I do wonder why they're so careful about specifying 32-bit - I guess driver availability. Hopefully this shows Canonical and/or the laptop makers themselves are putting a higher priority on compatibility, so maybe 64-bit support won't be far off.
dual monitors where one is the onboard LCD and the other is a monitor connected via the VGA port? fine
three monitors, where one of them is the onboard LCD and the other two come from the DVI ports? nope! (this works in windows).
going from windows to ubuntu, there are three big things that i ran into: no 3 monitor support, less battery life, and wifi issues (google for ubuntu iwlagn, all kinds of awesome ways to get it work like iwconfig wlan0 mode 1M, welcome to 2001, and turning off g/n support)
also, suspend/resume has a 1/10 chance of not resuming. this is worse than window's 0/10 chances of not resuming (every. time. i pulled my windows T510 out of my bag and opened it, it was there. with linux? i cross my fingers)
* Triple monitor: like you, I couldn't get this to work.
* Battery life: it's not been as good as in Windows, but it's been very acceptable if I tweak a bit using powertop. (Of course, I'd like it to be as good as in Windows.)
* Wifi: I have had no issues whatsoever; this worked perfectly out of the box, even with WPA, G/N, etc.
* suspend/resume: I've never had a problem with resume. About 1 time in 100 it will fail to suspend (which is just as bad, since I have to hard reboot to turn it off). It's been nowhere near 1 in 10 for me though. Easily reliable enough for me to not worry about.
my primary computer is a notebook and I routinely run processes that large (vmware, mathematica, matlab, IDA, binnavi, my own programs, etc).
"why do you run these programs on your laptop instead of sshing to a server somewhere?"
sensitivity, responsiveness, I don't always have internet, the hardware can do it (8-16GB of RAM in a notebook is almost commonplace)