pseudoberries random thoughts about life, hacking and open source

Somebody cares!

Finally Lenovo released a BIOS update for the ThinkPad X61 which fixes the bug which causes unexpected interrupts from the USB controller (#8853)

Getting the BIOS update is easy, just download it from Lenovo's site. Upgrading without an optical drive however, was a bit tricky.
After a lot of searching around for how to do this, I found a guide on ThinkWiki which described how to upgrade the BIOS through an USB stick. Instead of creating a virtual machine through VMware, I created a boot floppy on my windows computer. Oh, and since this can only be done on a floppy disk, I first had to create a virtual floppy drive as I had no floppy disks laying around

After that I just followed the guide and booted up my X61 with the USB stick. After that it complained about missing some 'command.com' file and asked me to locate it. Just typing 'command.com' then booted up the update utility and after 3-4 minutes it was done! Finally, somebody cares!

X61 page updated

I've updated the X61 page with more information. Specifically regarding an issue with the right side USB ports and a quick fix for the problem where wakeup from suspend leaves the screen very very dark.

Stumbled upon a very interesting article about the sound quality of today's music and how today's records are mixed so that the sound is always loud. Recommended read - I'm glad I only listen to FLACs, although that doesn't help with the loudness issue.

New Laptop: X61!

Today I got my new laptop: a Lenovo ThinkPad X61. My first thoughts? "Oh my god it's small!" combined with "And so light!". My old powerbook surely feels like a brick now...

I wrote a page about my experiences with installing and running Ubuntu 7.10 on it. I can tell you, the experience is phenomenal!

New Laptop

As I've mentioned previously, I've grown extremely tired of my feb-2005 Apple PowerBook:

• It's very slow - regular delays of several seconds between mouse clicks and the click actually happening. OS X is very resource hungry. I would love to run linux on it, but there's no flash support on ppc yet.
• It gets very hot - so hot that it's impossible to have on my lap and it's now the main source of heat in my room.
• It leaks current through the chassis, resulting in high-frequence noise when I plug in my firewire sound card and frequent small electrical shocks / sensations when touching it.
• The battery now lasts for 5 minutes.

I really use my laptop a lot more than my stationary PC, since I have the ability to carry it with me to lectures etc. Thus I've decided to purchase a new one: an ultraportable. Here are my requirements:

• 13" or smaller
• Must weigh under 2kg
• Should have a touchpad
• Should have a DVD-burner
• Must run a Dual Core CPU, Intel Core 2 Dui preferred
• Must have decent performance
• Battery must last > 4hrs
• Should have at least 2GB RAM
• Hard drive should at least be 80GB

And some bonus features I'd like:

• Widescreen
• Dedicated GPU, preferably NVIDIA
• 7200rpm HD

These are the 3 most promising candidates and their pros (+) and cons (-) aswell as the price (=):

Toshiba Portege R500:

+ 12.1" (1280x800 LCD widescreen)
+ 1kg
+ ~4hrs battery
+ Intel Core 2 Duo U7600 1.20GHz
+ 1GB / max 1.5-2GB RAM?
+ Amazingly light and slim
+ Quiet

- Integrated GPU
- Poor screen: leaks light and bad viewing angles
- Fragile construction
- Gets hot
- Bad performance: only 1839 PCMarks
- Only 4-pin firewire

= 14 750,- NOK @ NetShop

Lenovo ThinkPad X61/X61s:

+ 12.1" (1024x768 LCD)
+ 1.3kg
+ 4-5hrs battery
+ Intel Core 2 Duo T7300 2.0GHz
+ 2GB / max 4GB RAM
+ Solid construction
+ Posibility for a 7200rpm HD
+ Good performance: 4153 PCMarks

- Integrated GPU
- No DVD-burner/CDROM
- Poor screen viewing angles
- No Touchpad, only a Touchpoint
- Poor speakers
- Gets a bit hot
- Only 4-pin firewire

= 12 955,- NOK @ Computerland (1GB RAM, more expensive with my requirements) [Half the price in the US]

Dell XPS 1330:

+ 13.3" (1280x800 widescreen)
+ 1.8kg
+ Intel Core 2 Duo T7100 2.2GHz
+ 2GB / max 4GB RAM
+ Posibility for 200GB 7200rpm
+ Dedicated GPU: Nvidia GeForce Go 8400M GS (although weak: 1336 3DMarks06)
+ 2 Headphone outputs
+ DVD-burner
+ Amazing screen brightness and viewing angles
+ Good performance: 4300 PCMarks
+ Does not get very warm

- Only 2xUSB ports and 4-pin firewire
- Poor battery: 4-cell (default) = 2-3hrs, 9-cell (large) = 3-5hrs
- A bit heavy

= 14 065,- NOK @ Dell.no (2GB RAM, 2.2Ghz, 7200rpm, ...)

Anyone got any advice? I'm going to run Linux on this laptop aswell, so linux-compatability is important. I'm more and more thinking about discarding the R500 because of it's very poor performance.