Dangerous running linux on laptops?

Hi,

before i install Suse 10.1 i would like to know if its any dangerous to run it on (new) laptops. I heard of such things like fan doesnt rotate / rotates all the time.

Or what if its overclocking my gpu and thus damaging it - unintending because it doesnt know the component?

And is it possible to set the CPU speed?

I know linux doesnt want to kill my laptop but my laptop was designed to run on windows xp, so do i have any warranty left if i run linux on it 1 time and something explodes? Also does The function keys for Screen brightness, volume, hibernate work? In windows xp some strange overlay pops up on top of all (but it flickers in hl2), will that work in linux too?

 

All I no of linux is that u get some eroor messages in when u want 2 run som programs. I don't think it will b that serious as ur fan won't spin or anything like that. I think ur laptop is safe. I got a friend who installed Linux Ubantu on a supported win xp system and everything worked fine 4 him.

 

The fan may spin all the time if ACPI (power management) is of a broken design on your laptop. I suppose it may not spin at all, but it should always spin when it's not recognizing ACPI events. ACPI is one of those things that makes running Linux on a laptop significantly more difficult than on a desktop. You can hack around with it, but a lot of the time it won't work straight off the disc. Also due to ACPI you're likely to have suspend problems. That is, when you close the lid your system may not always wake up properly.

It won't overclock anything, don't worry. It leaves hardware settings alone unless you issue a command.

Yes, you can set CPU speed.

Usually screen brightness and volume will work as BIOS functions. Hibernate too, maybe. You can usually get a utility to rebind some of the function keys that aren't BIOS functions. Regarding the overlay, probably not unless you or someone else codes it in. But if it happens to be in hardware like a monitor's OSD, then it should.

 

Hibernate is usually one of the hardest things to get working in Linux, in my experience. But running it on a newer laptop should be better now than it was a few years ago. Linux supports current hardware much better.
But for the fan going all the time, it depends on what Linux's support for your chipset, etc. is. If you're all all curious, just search Google for "<your chipset> linux" and see what turns up, or even better, "<your laptop model> linux". I just searched for your A6JA and got a pretty nice page about what's supported. Google is your friend with everything Linux.

 

As for the fan not spinning at all, typically the way it works is overheating causes immediate shutdown (no software interaction, just no more power) and hardware doesn't get damaged. Some desktop systems (the original Athlon design for one) had severe heat issues and I'd heard of plenty of people that toasted the processor...normally that was mostly their fault as they hadn't installed the heatsink/fan/paste properly or at all before they tried testing it. If you have questions about compatibility, look around on forums and make sure you're comfortable with the pros/cons of Linux (sounds like you're a new user).

As far as the function keys you are referring to, it depends on whether they are hardware keys or not. So you need to look up info specific to your notebook. Speedstep (and AMDs version) work under Linux (of course you need acpid running I believe for that to work). Strange overlays??? Are you running Google Desktop in the minimized format so the little boxes w/ news popup every once in a while?

 

First of all, thank you very much for allt he answers.

With the popup flickering: If i browse the web with firefox for example or are just on the desktop, and then use the function key for increasing creen brightness, a blue/yellow box will pop up on the top left of the screen, and on the top of all windows that shows me how much screen brightness is on.

If i play a game for example, Half life 2 that uses DirectX, and then press the function key, the box shows up and flickers so hl2 and then box are fighting for beeing on the top of the screen so i wondered if that works in linux.

Again: do i loose warranty if i run linux on it?

 

The popup is probably just some software popup so it won't happen in Linux. Warranties are a little different between sellers, so I'd just read your warranty. Of course, I'm assuming you've bought already, if not, I'm sure you can look on Asus' website for the warranty.

EDIT: I looked, the warranty is pretty ambiguous, it doesn't seem to explicitly forbid it, but that doesn't mean much. So I'd actually email Asus directly about it.

 

Ah okay, does IBM allow to run linux on them, i heard Thinkpads are very linux-friendly.

 

You mean will IBM come to a person home with a baseball bat if he runs linux on thinkpads ?
Nah, I think they are fine with it.
I have been running linux on laptops for 7 years now, dell, sony vaio, and T30.
Linux indeed runs great on the T30, modem, wireless, ethernet etc all work, pretty much out of the box.
Fonts are also gorgeous (better than windows XP I think).

 

I believe you shouldn't have to much trouble getting your Fn keys working under linux, they're covered by the acpi4asus kernel module.

Installing linux on your Asus notebook shouldn't violate your warranty, just don't expect their tech support to be able to help with any software issues you may be having.

 

I've been running Linux on laptops for over 5 years without any real problems, other than it being hard sometimes to get the right drivers going. Especially wireless networking is a bit of a (*&^& to get working.

The fan is controlled by the bios. Sometimes, not always, Linux through a special program *can* override it, but not always. By default, normal Linux distros, eg. Red Hat, does not tinker with the fan. They do tinker with the cpu-speed though. But that's a good think. They try to make the cpu run slower when it's not so much needed, and run it full speed when needed. Depending on the amount of heat that it produces, the temperature sensor inside your laptop is read inside the bios and it decides to run the fan to cool it off.
If Linux makes a mistake and runs the cpu too long at too high a speed, the consequence is more fan action, but it shouldn't break.
If you know the normal behaviour of your fan, then you should be able to recognize if things are off.
In Linux, you should be able to 'cat /proc/cpuinfo' which reveals the current cpu frequency. Try it, cat it, both with things mostly idle, and with something heavy grinding away in the background, some infinite loop in some program somewhere. A video playing in a webpage or something, something to keep the cpu really busy. /proc/cpuinfo will reveal a higher frequency.

 

cool, i try that later as i have got ubuntu to work now hehe

 

The issues with Linux and FreeBSD on laptops is ACPI. Many ACPI implmentations are buggy. IBM's Thinkpad ACPI implmentation is pretty solid. My 3623 has a slow embedded controller which required me to tweak the acpi_ec.c module in the FreeBSD kerenel. In Linux you need to boot with burst mode on (that turns on burst mode when communicating with the EC). My mods to the FreeBSD kernel add tunables to allow one to tune how often the kernel polls the EC for information about the state of the battery and temperature (even though I added code to enable burst mode transfers to the EC, that didn't seem to help but slowing down the poll rate did). You can get more information at acpi.sourceforge.net. They even post repaired ACPI for various laptops there.

One last datapoint. Decompiling and recompiling the ACPI in my machine using the Intel ACPI compiler indicated many bugs. I've been told that ACER and other companies use the more forgiving Microsoft ACPI compiler to compile their ASL into DSDT.

 

Fine with it? Heck, with the right service plan, that guy will come to your house and INSTALL *nix FOR you.

As for the fans, a lot of motherboards have some basic cooling control built into the hardware, they can be set on some boards right from the bios.

 

I had problems with GRUB bootloader. It's seems impossible to get rid of and wouldn't let me change partition. I send in the harddrive and got a new one.

I tried FEDORA CORE 2. Now I just play around with DSL (50MB).

I never got my wireless to work yet on linux.

But again I'm new to linux

 

well, if you were dual-booting the system with windows xp, you can simply insert your windows CD, enter the recovery console, and issue the "fixboot" and "fixmbr" commands. That will get rid of GRUB.

Try a more modern version of Linux, there have been a ton of advancements since FC2 (!)

 

And most distributions these days will allow you to boot an installation from the install CD with it's kernel. So if you accidently toast grub you can recover it fairly easily.

Try Ubuntu. If your wireless is going to work with Linux without some rather dirty hacks (ndiswrapper), then it will probably work on the Ubuntu live cd.

 

Well as for as ACPI functions are concerned, my work friend (programmer) needed to somehow reprogram the BIOS on his ASUS A6Km. He said there were actually lots of buggs in it. New BIOS he made fixed any ACPI errors he got. Yes he's running Ubantu too./ and XP.

He wants to put it on mine... I'm a little unsure... might throw in on my spare HDD.
Insane

 

Ubuntu looks good, I'm going to download it now and see if my wifi works with live cd.

UGH...at limit bandwith downloads Thank god for torrents

UPDATE: Ubuntu works PERFECTLY with my WIRELESS. It also one of the smoothest Linux I tried out so far. Thanks alot Ethyriel, for recomending Ubuntu.

Now I must choose whether or not to install on my harddrive. Will I be able to choose BTWN two OS at boot?

 

note on that. you want to install windows then linux. Its just much better that way, trust me.

 

Yeah, Windows will overwrite your mbr (master boot record) if you install it after another OS. You can sometimes get ntloader to boot a Linux kernel, but it's more trouble than it's worth. With some distributions you can also choose to leave your mbr in tact for Windows, and then use a boot floppy to boot your system. That's probably not going to be an option on most modern laptops, though.

 

I did notice that Ubuntu gives you the option to load kernel in another place besides the MBR. Is that safe to do?

I'm already running XP and just want to be able to choose btwn the two at boot up. I keep hearing about people doing this. Also you said windows will overwrite mbr. Is that Vice Versa too?

Don't mean to bug ya'll with all the questions.

 

The kernel doesn't get loaded in the mbr, the boot loader does (grub or lilo.)

I'm not sure, I've never used that option. I suspect it works in conjunction with setting a partition bootable. I look at it more as an option to get a configuration file so you can copy and paste the entry for that OS when you use a grub install on another OS.

 

if you do plan to run linux and opensuse. and have any problems with anything. use any irc client connect to niven.freenode.net or whatever freenode server you like and /join #suse and #opensuse. many people there and willing to help you out. they are a great bunch of guys!

 

Yes. GRUB or LILO load a bit of program data into the MBR, and then give you the ability to choose between OS's to boot when you start. On a Linux install, it will typically put Linux first, and Windows second. I know Ubuntu on my home desktop boots off my SCSI drive, and when I installed it, it detected the WinXP install on my IDE drive and added that as an option. It should be pretty safe for you, as long as you understand partitioning. If you don't, you need to research using gparted/qtparted and possibly ntfsresize.

 

A few years ago, I noticed that the Mandrake install could automatically shrink the windows partition, and make room for another Linux partition. I did that once, and it just kind of worked. I could shrink it further than a certain amount as I recall, but it cut my 40GB in half leaving me 2 20GB partitions. This was about 3 1/2 years ago.
Mandrake is no longer, and kind of lives on as Mandriva. I know nothing about Mandriva really.

I now do mostly RedHat Fedora, which works ok overal, but I didn't see anything in the install that will let me resize the windows partition. This leaves people having to research themselves how to shrink it.

One of the many evil things that Microsoft does now, is they make laptop vendors store a windows recovery mechanism on the harddrive, instead of giving you CD's or a DVD.
This means that people might be reluctant to try to install linux, because now they have to overcome the hurdle of trying to make windows backups somehow. They then get afraid that if they screw up, they will not be supported by the laptop vendor.
It's just one of those darn evil little stunts that microsoft pulls from time to time.
I really wouldn't be suprised if microsoft would make ntfs even more proprietary, and stuff some unmovable blocks to the end of the partition, to prevent a linux distro from shrinking it. That's the kind of tactics that that company pulls, and people just have to swallow it.

Does anyone have a way, or know of a way, some sort of windows harddrive reshuffle CD people can boot from? Perhaps a CD people can boot from that will let them repartition and also backup the layout and contents, somthing better and easier and lighter than just Ghost?

 

I don't think you can fairly blame Microsoft for notebook manufacturers going to recovery partitions rather than discs... I'd say the (admittedly minor) cost savings and easier updates during production have more to do with it.

I can't think of an application that will allow you to repartition AND make an image of the current drive contents, but the GParted liveCD will allow you to back up your partition tables, if nothing else. I've used it a few times and it appears to be an excellent replacement for Partition Magic.

 

Ubuntu allows you to resize partitions. It will also automatically partition a contiguous stretch of free hard drive space.

I haven't tried it, does having a recovery partition at the end of the drive cause problems with resizing?

 

I think the best solution for me, is to just buy an external harddrive and install Ubuntu on it. Its almost like a Live CD, but I get to save my files, upgrade, etc: etc:

External drives are getting cheap nowadayz too


What you guys think ?

 

That sounds good, can your computer boot from a USB or Firewire device?

 

I just checked my bios, yup it allows it to boot from usb.

 

It really ought to be possible to make windoze move over half a drive, and relinquish the other half for the better half.
Myself, I did some dd'ing and scp'ing from a rescue CD, after which I nuked windoze, and not a moment too soon.

 

PLEASE PLEASE tell me there is a bios your programmer friend has to fix my Z92M, i have been bugging ASUS and AMD constantly to fix my MP-BIOS bug IO-APIC timer not connected kernel panic, from what ive been told it has something to do with the two cores and linux i tried the SMP kernel but it just doesnt stop freezing, while asus doesnt respond AMD says that its not thier processor, its the BIOS..

"Advanced Micro Devices"
Dear Customer,

I talked to our Linux specialist about this, here is
his comment:

"It means that the 8254 timer (which is part of the
chipset) isn't able to connect to the IO-APIC - and
it's probably not true, just that the connection isn't
listed in the MP-BIOS, so therefore I would classify
it as a BIOS bug. MP-BIOS is the table in the BIOS
that lists the "multiprocessor features" of the
system, such as which devices are connected where.

I don't think it's a serious problem - the 8254 IS
DEFINITELY connected to the PIC, so CPU0 of the dual
core system should be able to access it that way. But
I very much suspect that it's actually just a bug in
the MP-tables in the BIOS, so a new BIOS from the vendor
of the machine would be the solution - unless there's
somethign serious bad design in the chipset of this
machine... [The system can work perfectly fine using
other forms of timers anyway, so if that's the case,
it's quite possible to set it up to use a different
timer. We're not a Linux-helpdesk tho', and I don't
know exactly how to set it to use a different timer
device. Some Linux forum or such would be the right
place to ask that...]"

So it seems you probably need a new BIOS from the
Laptop Manufacturer.

end of email






asus's latest release for the Z92M notebook is 402 and thats what i am using currently. with no new release i cant run ubuntu linux on this beautiful machiene without occasionaly freezing completely.

 

Yes. Use the latest Kanotix live cd. It comes with partimage and the latest gparted that shrinks NTFS partitions beautifully.

 

noahshark,
Nice to meet a fellow Kanotixs user

 

My Windows XP partition is down to 8GB! There's only one program I use it for now: Battle for Middle-Earth 2. Unfortunately, it installs, but doesn't play under WINE. All my other games (Operation Flashpoint, CSS, Silent Hunter 3) run perfectly in Linux! I'm hoping very soon that I can ditch Windows for good.

The more and more I use Linux, the more and more I discover that it is so much more FUN to use.

 

Does runing linux on an integraited GPU present any problems over a dedicaited GPU.

 

Linux runs perfectly fine on integrated. Infact, integrated cards are some of the most well supported GPUs, because of their popularity.

If you use an Intel, a tool called 915resolution does it for you. For ATi there are open source drivers for their 9000 series and the X200. For nVidia, you can get the proprietry drivers for their 6100 series.

 

My laptop has almost been on 24/7 since I bought it, running linux.
Only time I boot into windows is to do a windows update, once in two weeks.
So I shut down linux, boot into windows, do the update, then immediately reboot back to linux

 

Only time I'm in windows now is games. I even do all my uni and work work under Linux now.

 

Why reboot? Why not hibernate My uptime on my laptop was something like 45 days but I hadto reboot for a kernel update...

 

must be one of those highly mobile machines...

 

Wow, that's uber cool. Did you mean 24/7 literally? Are you airconing your laptop in a cosy room? (otherwise it would have been deep fried? )

Linux is definitely safe on laptop, much safer than Windows I'd say. Much more people out there in communities can help if one gets into trouble...

 

Mines on pretty much 24/7, though there are a few reboots in there. There are some pitfalls to running Linux on some laptops though. For example, some versions of Linux don't turn the fans in my 6400 without external help.