Who has got a Dell laptop with Ubuntu?

If you got one, what do you think?

Did Dell fix their crappy ACPI? I'm asking you, because I would like to get one and install PC-BSD on it if they fixed the ACPI.

 

??? I'm confused. I thought the ACPI is software (OS) related. For example, the ACPI on Windows isn't broken because Microsoft configure it properly. Whereas in Linux it is because it isn't configure properly?? Although the driver needed to run it properly is proprietary, as such Linux developers couldn't configure it to work properly, that is why it is broken in Linux?

Then how, if it is fixed by Dell (for Ubuntu specifically), are you going to install PC-BSD and expect it to run properly?

 

Read more about ACPI here Advanced Configuration & Power Interface (ACPI)

Q1. What is ACPI?
A1. ACPI stands for the Advanced Configuration and Power Interface specification. ACPI defines hardware and software interfaces that enable OS-directed configuration and Power Management (OSPM) to enumerate and configure motherboard devices, and manage their power. ACPI, in conjunction with OSPM, replaces APM and PNPBIOS, as well as the MultiProcessor (MPS) specification. ACPI 1.0 was released in December of 1996. The ACPI 2.0 Specification has been released and is available for download from the ACPI Web site. A lot of effort has been spent improving spec readability in 2.0. The introduction and overview chapters should be helpful.

Q2. What was wrong with APM?
A2. Using APM, the BIOS controlled power management without the knowledge of the operating system. For example, the user would configure screen and hard drive idle values in the BIOS setup program, and when these were exceeded, the BIOS would turn off the screen, or spin down the hard drive. There were three major flaws with APM.

Power management policy had to be re-implemented for each platform, and therefore tended to be buggy.
The BIOS had an incomplete picture of the platform's actual usage, which led to imperfect power management.
The BIOS didn't have enough room to implement a sophisticated power policy.

Q4. How does ACPI help these issues?
A4. ACPI fixes these issues by moving the power management responsibility to the operating system. The operating system has the most knowledge on a running system's state, and so is in the best position to perform power management. For example, a presentation application can tell the OS the display is in use, and the OS can change its power policy accordingly. Finally, the OS does not have the size limitation of the BIOS.

There are still firmware requirements with ACPI, however. OSPM still needs platform-specific information. The ACPI system firmware describes the system's characteristics by placing data, organized into tables, into main memory. These tables have names like RSDT and DSDT. The DSDT (Differentiated System Description Table) is the biggest and arguably the most important, because this is where the system's devices are described.

Sure it will run smoothly

 

Ah I'm such a noob. I'm still confused. I thought the firmware part is fine, working fine in the BIOS. That is why ACPI works fine for Dell laptops in Windows. The problem is the impementation in Linux is not perfect. That is why it won't work in Linux?

ACPI has two parts, the firmware part, and the OS part. The firmware part is obviously working well since ACPI in XP works fine. So the problem is the implementation in the OS. So if Dell fixed the ACPI in Ubuntu, that is for Ubuntu, and maybe Debian. Somebody still has to fix it in BSD, no?

 

Their ACPI implementation in the bios for Laptops with windows OS runs alright, because they made it for it, like there are no other OSes in the world, and assuming users will only run windows OS.

They should make every OS controls the ACPI and give it the power to control it, which isn't implemented per ACPI standards, so to ship laptops with Linux preinstalled, that means they are using the ACPI standards, so Linux, BSD and even Windows will work with no issues.

Look @ IBM Thinkpad, they have the best ACPI standards in the world which has no problems with BSD, Linux or Windows.

I hope this helps.

 

I see it better now. So Dell's ACPI implementation on the firmware part is not perfect yet, or non-conforming to the standard. I thought the problem is on the Linux side. I didn't realized that other notebooks have no problem with ACPI with Linux.

Thanks.

 

ACPI was supposed to be a standard, but most manufacturers just work to the windows side because they're lazy. They probably think "Oh, those Linux guys are smart, they'll figure it out."

 

Yes, standard is all what we are looking for

 

The actual problem is not that the Windows implementation is correct but rather that the Windows implementation is the buggy one! See this page for information on why there are often problems with ACPI when trying to use Linux...

 

I didn't buy one but I sure as hell configured it to the same specs as my current Dell I bought in January. $1375.88 shipped and with the dell coupon from this site compared to my 1970 in January.

 

I just noticed that they are now offering the E1505N with the nVidia Go 7300. Not the greatest, but certainly a great solution for those needing a dedicated card.

Personally, I haven't had a whole lot of problems with ACPI on my system. The biggest issue is suspend to disk and RAM. Suspend usually works fine, but hibernate with Feisty sends high voltages to the screen for some reason, which makes it flash white before it goes to hibernate, so I don't use it. But the Precisions are designed to work with Linux (since they're Red Hat and Novell certified), so perhaps this is why.

 

I've got my i9300 running Ubuntu (Edgy Eft) with a go 6800. The only problems I've had were getting the screen to work with nvidia drivers and getting the media buttons working correctly. Other than that, I read somewhere that Michael Dell himself runs Ubuntu off a laptop at his house.

 

Do you think HP will follow DELL in this matter?

 

I mean I haven't got one but I agree with f4ding.

 

What exactly do you agree with?