gtx 560m and other questions

-has anyone tried using this on linux? im looking to buy the msi 16f2 model offered at xoticpc with the gtx 560m gpu, but i havent heard anything about its linux compatibility. ill most likely be running ubuntu 11.4/11.10.

-msi 16f2 has space for two hard drives, which i plan to utilize. im thinking of getting two 500gb 7200rpm drives, one of which will be a hybrid drive. my question is concerning the raid option- how does this affect a linux install? would i partition one drive? or does raid make it appear as if the two drives are one, which i then partition? bit confused about the whole raid thing.

-im really torn about the whole os/gaming issue. i really despise windows and dont want to support it. but at the same time, i am buying this laptop for gaming purposes. ive spent a lot of time reading about how various games run on linux and it seems like everything (unfortunately) runs better on windows. do i dual boot windows, enjoy the full power of the laptop i just purchased, and wait till linux is better supported by developers so i can lose windows? or do i banish windows from my life forever and see what wine can do? id love to hear some thoughts on this and what others have decided.

thanks for your input.

 

I'm in the same boat looking at the 16f2. Theres not much about it on the web. My understanding is that it doesn't run optimus so the graphics will be linux compatible. I'm looking to dual boot windows and ubuntu because I'm not sure that linux will be able to support some of the programs I will be using, but I don't want to have to deal with Microsoft everyday

If you choose the raid 0 option, your computer will recognize the two hard drives as one storage device. The upside is that it allows for faster performance as your computer can write to both hdd's simultaneously. The downside is that if one drive crashes you lose all of your data. I've never personally had a computer set up with a raid configuration so I can't really suggest one over the other. I assume that you would partition from a singular storage device and go from there. Hope that helps....I'm interested in what others might say because this is exactly the situation I'm in at the moment.

 

Not all games run ok in Wine. Some don't run at all... Better dual boot and try your games in linux/wine, if you're pleased with the result you can always delete Windows.
As to the RAID stuff, are you planning to strip or to mirror ? MSI is most likely a "fake raid"... I played a few times with intel matrix raid under linux and it worked OK. Didn't try dual boot though..

 

i think im going to bite the bullet and dual boot for now. ill just have to wait until linux support improves.

heftyheroes, are you looking at any other options besides the 16f2? it sounds like you are looking for a similar set up as i am. am i mistaken, or did the prices and config options for the 16f2 on xoticpc change in the last few days? id love to hear what else you are looking at.

cri-cri, i was planning to go the stripe route with raid. have you (or anyone else) heard how that works when it comes to dual booting? im wondering if that gets complicated and if i should simply boot windows on one drive, linux on the other.

thanks for the help.

 

Well, there's a guide HERE. Note that grub1-related stuff in the howto is obsolete as many distros now use GRUB 2.

 

I haven't had a laptop with RAID in a year or so, but I dual booted Debian and XP on an ASUS with raid 0. You use the dmraid target if you use a notebook's intel RAID. In the past you had to use the alternate install for Ubuntu, but it should work automatically now.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/FakeRaidHowto