Clevo/Sager hardware + AMD/NVIDIA compatibility with linux

I'm looking to get a desktop replacement laptop, and one requirement is that it must work well with linux (Ubuntu, mainly). Specifically, I'm looking at Sager NP9370 / Clevo P370EM. Have people have gotten most or all of the hardware to work in linux?

Also, in choosing a graphics card, how viable is an AMD (7970M) option these days? Are the drivers installing and functioning reasonably well? In the past I've avoided AMD/ATI as NVIDIA's driver support was relatively great and made for much less hassle. I'm hoping that situation has changed by now.

EDIT: To answer my own question, from reading around more it seems that most of the hardware works well in linux out of the box. http://forum.notebookreview.com/linux-compatibility-software/689639-eurocom-scorpius-part-1-a.html

As for the ATI drivers, getting 3D acceleration working still seems quite iffy.

 

It's kind of a rough time right now. AMD/ATI can be a bit sketchy with hardware acceleration for running games and offloading video decompression. My AMD lappy works well for most other things.

Nvidia Optimus hybrid graphics can work okay as long as you're not expecting to ever use hdmi out! I learned the latter the hard way.

I suspect the Optimus problem to be resolved within the next year and they are probably going to offer the best support in the long run with Steam moving to Ubuntu and such.

It might be wise to wait a year or so to see how things shape up.

 

I don't need HDMI out at the moment, but not having such core functionality is pretty appalling. Have you found a workaround? Optimus and especially Enduro seem to cause a lot of problems, especially so in linux. Fortunately the P370EM does not use Optimus/Enduro. The driver issues with ATI still concern me.

EDIT: Are there new mobile graphics cards and/or drivers due to be released soon?

 

Yeah, no hdmi stinks. I've tried to find a workaround. The only workaround involves using a second monitor which is a no go for my htpc.

A new graphics driver was just released that improves support but no hdmi functionality as of yet.

 

NVIDIA is officially supporting Optimus on Linux systems now. Expect it to come soon.

 

Right, but even with the beta there is no support for hdmi video or audio although it is a fantastic improvement over the existing driver.

Again, with Steam moving to Linux I think it will come. One of the problems is that there has been a reorganization of how x works with the kernel (i.e. Ubuntu 12.10 for example) so that Nvidia is still playing catch up.

I still think we're 6 months to a year from seeing optimus fully supported. I can't wait because I'm already sick to death of Win7 on my htpc.

 

Yes, it's the prime reason why I am holding off in making the currently owned Clevo my backup computer and buying a new Clevo (Reason: Optimus support on Linux is still sketchy). There's been a couple of times where I almost bit the bullet and bought a system with Win7 pro... Yeah I know, pitiful .

At least NVIDIA is officially supporting Optimus on Linux now (after a few "words" and hand gestures from Linus towards NVIDIA, as they say, when Linus sneezes, the world of Linux freezes). This is a much better situation than last year around the same time when NVIDIA was officially stating that Optimus will never come to Linux.

To the OP, wait another year until Optimus is more stable and streamlined on Linux, otherwise save yourself the time, trouble, and headache and just buy a Clevo with Win7 Pro.

 

The Clevo P370EM does not have Optimus/Enduro, so that hassle is avoided. Of course it comes at the cost of power savings, but on a desktop replacement, it's not as important.

It seems to me that the ATI 7970m is the better value, so I'm leaning quite heavily towards getting that. The only concern is with the ATI drivers, which have been rather bad in the past. From reading around, it sounds like the restricted fglrx drivers work alright, although not as well as nvidia's proprietary drivers. The open source drivers are also available from ATI, and work well for 2D tasks, but not for 3D. Right now, I'm tempted to go with the 7970m and fglrx drivers, but I hope I'm not setting myself up for regret and frustration. Seeing the 7970m's OpenCL performance totally destroy the 680m make it clear that the ATI has the more balanced overall performance.

I will also install Win7 in dual boot. My university department's MSDN account is great for getting free legit copies of almost any MS software including Win 7/8, Visual Studio, etc.

 

The only problem with betting on ATI is that, even when they support their cards in Linux, they often drop support as the cards age. It sucks when you want to breathe some life back into that older laptop. Case in point is my old Gateway that is no longer really useable as support for XP is dropped.

I'm impressed with Optimus on Win7. My hope is that they support HDMI video/sound in the next year.

 

That's a good point, especially since I keep my computers for a long time. Are the last drivers which support your card not sufficiently functional?

 

Same problem here. The Acer Ferrari 4005WLMi in my sig used to run Ubuntu up until 11.10, but has major problems even starting up the LiveUSB of any distro I try nowadays. The main reason is because it's running on an ATI MOBILITY RADEON X700 graphics card. It ran perfectly with the open source drivers on Ubuntu 9.10, but as of now it's on the OS it came with, WinXP.

I am also biased towards ATI as every card I have owned from them eventually stopped working except for the one in the acer laptop .

 

good thread.

i was looking at the p370em uk and i can literally get two 7970m's for the price of one 680m !

its still a tough decision though, quality V quantity if ever there was a case. on a good day a CF 7970m would walk a desktop 680 gtx for example but general poor linux support, CF profile woes, lack of 120hz models on the ATi evens the playing field.

it just erks me to spend £250 (300$) more on a GPU when you know its all just a mark up for 10% more power

 

I have a P150EM with Optimus and I use hdmi out all the time with Linux. It just worked. I use bumblebee/optirun to play a couple of games. KDE even tells me a monitor is connected/disconnected when I plug in/unplug an HDMI tv.

 

Same here, just tried it again. Just played Trine 2 on my TV (connected over HDMI) with sound and everything. I used primusrun.
I also have a Clevo P150EM (my dGPU is a Nvidia 670MX). Besides installing bumblebee and primus the HDMI-out worked out of the box.