[tlinux-users:08204] Re: Toshiba A120 and Linux

On Tue, 2006-09-26 at 13:54 +0200, Mathieu Bérard wrote:
> Richard Hughes a écrit :
> > Anyone tried out a new Satellite Pro A120 with Linux? I'm interested in
> > a pentium duo with really good ACPI.
> Hi.
> Linux support for Toshiba laptops is highly model-dependent.
> For example the BIOS can came from many different vendor
> (Toshiba, Phoenix, ...) resulting is different ACPI implementations
> and different linux modules* required to be able to benefit from all
> the small features the laptop provides.

Urgh.

> For some Toshiba laptops there is still no known way to change the LCD
> backlight in linux for example.

That would be a deal-breaker for me.

> Recent Toshiba laptops tend have a more or less decent ACPI support,
> but there are exceptions, for example the DSDT of my Satellite M70 have
> no thermal zone nor fan device support, and is not ACPI standards
> compliant and thus needs to be "fixed" to avoid ACPICA errors in linux.
> But you should always have support for a least power button,
> ac adapter and battery.
> I think the general situation is improving but things are not perfect yet.

Sure, thanks for the info.

> As a personal advice I would not strongly recommend any Toshiba models
> for which there is no installation reports at tuxmobil or 
> linux-on-laptops (but
> this bring a chicken and the egg problem).

Yes, I want a really new laptop, and no-one has taken the risk yet :-)

> * There are mainly two modules which covers different models: 
> toshiba_acpi and
> omnibook (http://omnibook.sourceforge.net).

Yes, toshiba_acpi seems to be working okay on my A10, but I would be
hesitant to use an out-of-kernel acpi driver in a production
environment.

This is madness. I have nearly £1000 in my pocket for a new laptop, but
Toshiba couldn't even put a single webpage up with "A100 (toshiba bios):
Works with FC5" "A120 (phoenix bios) works with FC5 and the omnibook
driver"

If any toshiba employee is reading this then I'm in grave danger of
buying a IBM thinkpad rather than a toshiba satellite pro.

You would think for a model that they are selling thousands of a week,
they could spare one of each family for some sort of linux-compatibility
test.

> PS: Thanks for g-p-m.

No problem, I hope you find it useful.

Richard.