Sager NP8150/Clevo P150HM Linux Thread

I am starting this thread to let people who want to know about the linux compatability of this laptop before they make a purchase and also to provide a place for linux users to discuss compatability issues and whatnot for this specific laptop. Most of the information here will most likely also be applicable to the Sager NP8130/Clevo P151HM and to some extent the Sager NP8170/Clevo P170HM.

Most things work flawlessly out of the box (or almost out of the box).

Information
Getting the Intel 6230 and Suspend to work on Ubuntu 10.10

Specifications
GPU: 485M
Everything else is Sager stock.

Power

• All the governors supported by cpufreq work.
• Powermizer works when only one display is on (also true for Windows)
• Suspend to disk and ram both work out of the box.

Graphics

• Both the 260 and 270 drivers seem to work.
• Display hotplugging is a standing issue with nvidia drivers. I just use disper to switch between two screens. Nouveau supports display hotplugging but its performance is still suboptimal.
• Playing Starcraft II and Left4Dead thru wine works well.

Sensors

• lm-sensors only detects the motherboard sensors.
• sensors-applet for gnome displays the nvidia card temp thru nvidia-settings
• "nvidia-settings --query GPUCoreTemp" prints the current GPU Temp
• "modprobe coretemp" to get lm-sensors to read CPU temperatures (GeraldNunn)

Webcam

• Works on Ubuntu 10.10 with Cheese (tested by GeraldNunn)

USB

• I don't have any USB3.0 devices so I can't test that but USB2.0 stuff works flawlessly thru the ports.
• (UPDATE April 30, 2011) Newest kernel version (2.6.38-4) breaks input devices through the USB 3.0 ports. Storage devices seem to work.

Networking

• Ethernet works out of the box.
• The default wireless card works with the r8192ce_pci module.
• Intel 6300 card works out of the box with kernel version 2.6.38

Sound

• At least the headphone jack works out of the box.
• Other jacks have not been tested.
• Built in microphone not tested.
• Built in speaker works.

Keyboard

• Keys seem to be mapped properly including the brightness and volume keys. (There were some binding problems on the NP8690)

Touchpad

• It's a synaptics so it works perfectly out of the box. Might need to configuration to turn on two finger scrolling etc.

Fingerprint reader

• Works with fingerprint-gui after some configuration (need to modify pam settings at least on Arch Linux).

Feel free to ask any questions, make suggestions, or supply information.
I'm going to have to find a better way to organize this information hm.

 

What version of linux?

 

Nice to see this thread, getting my 1511 from Mythlogic on Friday and will be installing Ubuntu 10.10 on it and would be happy to contribute my findings on the 8130 range.

 

fix for the audio (outher jacks than the normal out):

Can't see audio controllers(s) (Fedora 14 + Clevo P170HM laptop) ... - Linux Forums

since the sound in the p170hm and p150hm seems to be the same

 

Arch Linux. Theoretically everything should work on every distro although some might require some tinkering. Ubuntu also worked well out of the box.

 

great, considering this machine myself - plan to install only Linux so good to hear that everything works!

Do you have any battery benchmarks?

 

Nope, haven't tested the battery yet. I can anecdotally say that you should get around 1.5-2 hours while browsing the web on the machine since I had it unplugged for about an hour yesterday and the battery was at 50%.

 

Have you yet tried to suspend the laptop ? that was an issue I had with an asus n61jq, it couldn't suspend properly, according to the ubuntu forums because of the USB 3.0. Does it work flawlessly on the sager?

 

I was thinking about changing my current laptop over to Ubuntu Linux, when I get my new Win7 machine. I was just wondering what's the biggest pros and cons of switching form Vista to Ubuntu?

 

I just got the P150HM with Ubuntu 10.10 installed, since GGSData (Sweden) let you choose what OS you want when you order it. It works perfect so far.

 

Suspending has worked flawlessly so far.

The easiest way to found out is to just try out yourself but you're going to have to dual boot if you want to game (which is what I do, and it doesn't bother me too much but it bothers some people).

I like using unix-based machines mainly because the shell is so much nicer, I get workspaces, I get to use tiling window managers etc.

 

Pros:

-Better resource's management: things use to work faster and better on any unix based OS than on windows, in fact, I usually set the processor power manager to the lowest setting (900 Mhz on a 720qm) and applications work as they should -no hiccups.

-Workspaces, scale (exposé), etc: Switch between opened applications on windows is a nightmare once you're used to this.

Cons:

-No games... well there are some games and you could try to run windows games using wine, but anyway, those games are made for windows and work better on it.

-No nvidia optimus

That's from my point of view, hope it helps.

 

I just got my 8130 but I had ordered a Intel 6230 and now find that support for this card isn't that great as it is a newer card. I'm not having any luck with the default Ubuntu 10.10 installation picking this card up however I'm stuck in a hotel with no ethernet access so not sure if it would work if I could update Ubuntu from the Internet. Just curious if anyone else ordered this card and got it working?

 

According to Intel® Wireless WiFi Link drivers for Linux* support for the 6230 was merged in the 2.6.36 kernel, and ubuntu 10.10 uses .35. You can try a beta of 11.04, or post on the ubuntu forums to ask for detailed help on how to get it working.

 

Ignore, made a mistake

 

another cons:

- software availability (there are replacement, but sometimes they are not that good.. to name a few: microsoft office, photoshop, even evernote is not supported)

- occasionally no driver from manufacturer, third party may not be fully compatible or utilized the full hardware capability..

Personally I won't ask people to switch, dual boot and try using it for several months.. if you like it then keep using your linux, and just leave your windows partition if space is not a problem.. you may need it occasionally..

my 2 cents

 

A couple of tips for anyone running Ubuntu 10.10 on the 8130/8150 as follows:

a. I managed to get the 6230 card going after installing the compat-wireless drivers as per the thread here [ubuntu] Ubuntu 10.10 and Intel 6230 Wireless Card - Ubuntu Forums. I ended up having to use the bleeding edge drivers but it worked for me.

b. The Suspend/Resume function wasn't working on the laptop, was able to fix it by adding SUSPEND_MODULES="xhci-hcd" to /etc/pm/config.d/unload_module as per the thread here [all variants] Ubuntu 10.10: suspend and hibernation not working on sony vaio vgn-fw21e - Ubuntu Forums

 

One question for everyone, what temperature sensors is lm-sensors picking up for you? When I run the 'sensors' command I only get the following:

acpitz-virtual-0
Adapter: Virtual device
temp1: +45.0°C (crit = +154.0°C)

Disappointed not to see sensors for CPU and GPU.

 

For the GPU temp you can use nvidia-settings to get the temperature if you're using the proprietary drivers. If you use nouveau lm-sensors will actually pick the temperature up.

Not sure how to get the CPU temperature working.

 

I am using the NVidia proprietary driver but was hoping to get the GPU temperature through lm-sensors to integrate with Conky.

 

Conky is for the most part scriptable so you could just query nvidia-settings. I believe the command is nvidia-settings --query GPUCoreTemp

 

Great tip, that should meet my needs nicely so thanks for pointing it out.

BTW tested the webcam with Cheese and it works fine in case you want to update the first post.

 

Just got lucky on the CPU temperatures, run this command:

sudo modprobe coretemp

After which sensors should pick up the CPU temperatures. Found on this thread:

[lm-sensors] Sandy Bridge support?

 

Awesome. Works for me on Arch as well

 

Any virtual box test over linux?

 

Linux will work on virtualbox regardless of hardware.

 

I use VirtualBox on the NP8130 with Ubuntu 10.10 as the Host OS and Windows 7 as the guest and it works great, no issues at all.

 

Have the machine now - I installed Opensuse 11.4 on it - runs very well!

just to put some numbers for the battery life I have attached a picture of battery charge vs time - seems that at least 3.5 hour is possible (40-60% brightness, browsing on wireless, some installation of programs. Note the flat areas means the laptop was put on standby)

 

A new kernel patch seems to have broken input devices through USB 3.0. I had to revert to an old kernel to get it working again. On arch the kernel version that breaks it is kernel26-2.6.38-4.

 

I installed Chakra-Project Linux on my machine. As far as I can tell everything seems to work out of the box except for the fingerprint reader.

Will keep you posted if I run into any issues.

BFC

 

hi all,

i just bought a p150hm from malibal, and should have it in about 10 days or so. i'll be attempting to install arch linux on it. it's the first time i install arch, so i'm expecting a bit of a learning curve. i'll be starting a Sager NP8150/Clevo P150HM page over at the arch wiki once i get rolling and will post back here again to let you guys know when i do.

any recent developments you guys have had with this machine? this thread has been quiet for 20 or so days now.

cheers,
_c

specs:

Display: 15.6" 1920 x 1080 FHD LED Backlit 95% NTSC Color Gamut Matte Display
Processor: Intel® CoreT i7-2630QM, 6MB L3 Cache, 2.0-2.9GHz
Memory: (4GB) 4096MB, PC3-10660/1333MHz DDR3 - 2 SO-DIMM (TO BE UPGRADED)
Graphics Card: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 560M 1.5GB GDDR5
Hard Drive: 120GB Intel® (510) SATA III 6Gb/s SSD2 Drive
Optical Drive: 8X Multi DVD+/-R/RW RAM Dual-Layer Drive
Wireless: Intel® 6300 Ultimate-N 802.11A/B/G/N LAN Card

 

Welcome to the MALIBAL family! I'm glad to see you joined the community! Please let us know if you ever need anything.

 

I've been using Arch on the machine since I got it. No problems.

 

I received the Sager NP8150(S-1) from LPC-digital yesterday. It is the basic configuration except for the nvidia 485M and the mat screen.

I started to install arch-linux to get more experience (I used to be a mandrake/mandriva user) and I managed not to break everything. The dual boot is working correctly. I will go as far as I can with arch and switch to another distribution if I cannot get a fully functional system.

I followed the instruction on a youtube movie (by typing "dual boot arch windows" or something like this). Windows allowed me to shrink the partition and I have around 250G for windows and 250G for linux (a little more for windows than for linux).

Right now, just following the beginners guide:
*Pacman does not manage to get all the packages suggested on the guide. I will try to change the mirrorlist, I just picked a few at random yesterday.
*The wireless is not working yet (the first message on this topic talks about a pci module, I will check if this can be installed)
*I cannot get x11, I believe there is a problem with the nouveau driver, I may check if there is something to do, or simply switch to the nvidia driver.

More to come soon hopefully.

 

Some mirrors are slower than others (both in terms of currency and bandwidth) so you should try a few and choose the best one.

The new wireless driver _should_ be in the kernel now. If not, you can install r8192ce_pci from AUR.

Nouveau will work but you won't get proper power management and 3D acceleration. I suggest you install the binary nvidia drivers.

 

Update on this (and thanks to NLLPTR for the reply). I'm posting in case someone wants to install Arch and also to get useful feedback from experienced users. I believe there may be an interest because of the message of POLYPUS74.

After changing the mirror list (and updating arch and pacman), everything was much better. The video I used to install the dual boot recommended not to use archlinux.org mirrors because of the limited speed but I don't think it's a good idea. Also for some reason the script that was on the beginner's guide to update the mirror list (if you live in the US) was not working for me, I may have made a typo. If you go for arch like me and follow the beginner's guide, note that when I was not adding the DAEMON dbus before my other DAEMON (linked to network ?) but after it, I was loosing internet.

System status now
*The wireless card seems to be recognized. To be confirmed as I did not configure the wireless network (I did not understand the arch wiki instruction really well, it was late and I prefered to install the GUI)
*I could follow the instructions of the beginner's guide without any problem, X11 is working well.
*I installed the window manager openbox, the login manager slim, and the web browser uzbl. I have the beginning of a GUI. Everything should be easier now that I can have the web browser and the console at the same time.

Next steps:
*Configure openbox, add a few other programs to get a better GUI
*Install NVIDIA driver (I will probably have to remove nouveau, not sure what is the correct order to do it yet...)
*Install GRUB2 without destroying everything...
*Configure wireless network (need to figure out how to use netcfg ?)
*[EDIT] add a swap file (video I followed was not creating a swap partition)

More to come soon hopefully.

 

I suggest you use wicd

 

Thanks, I will try that.

(I edited the to do list to add the creation of a swap file.)

 

I may try to write something more complete, to better explain how to install arch on the laptop instead of those small posts.

To continue on my previous posts:
*Installed NVIDIA drivers (no need to remove the nouveau driver apparently, just installing the NVIDIA driver looks ok so far, one sentence on the wiki may suggest I did it correctly)
*Installed grub 2. Not too difficult but I had to fight to set a background image (simply because I did not read the wiki correctly and also because I did not install sophisticated image viewer/converter on my system). I really don't like the "Welcome to GRUB" message but I'm not planning to go back on GRUB-legacy (don't want to mess up my boot !).
*Wireless is working ! I removed netcfg and installed wicd. Wiki is really clear on how to install and use wicd, it was really easy. Thanks again to NLLPTR for suggesting that.
*Created the swap file. Really easy, the wiki is straightforward.
*Slowly improving my GUI... I had a hard time installing conky with lua support until I realized I did not install base-devel (I'm sure I clicked during the installation process but I probably clicked at the wrong place). I managed to install conky-lua-arch but not conky-lua-nv (with nvidia support). I need to learn how to use this tool and then I'll install other programs for my GUI...

 

I used this tutorial to install Arch. Installing Arch looks complex, but in reality is fairly simple.

 

Hello, has anybody had success installing ubuntu on a p150hm with a nividia GTX 580M card? Modprobing the card with the nouveau driver fails, so I can't even boot from the livecd.

 

You should really use the binary driver if possible. Nouveau isn't very mature.

 

Yeah, but that's what the live CD uses so I'm kinda stuck with it. Could I maybe blacklist the driver and still be able to install, so I could apt-get the nividia driver post-install?

 

You could try this to force it into vga graphics mode. You could then install the binary drivers.

 

The new ubuntu 11.04 looks really nice...

Are there any recommended basic apps that I should install?

It's my first time using a Linux-based OS, and I'm shocked at how advanced it is.

 

Nope, not really. If you had a Nvidia card, I'd recommend grabbing the Nvidia drivers over Nouveau, but it looks like you've got an ATI card so that's moot.

Browse the software repository though and grab what you want, since it is all open source

I personally disable Unity desktop in Ubuntu 11.04 as I'm partial to the full Gnome desktop. (Just pick "Ubuntu Classic" at the login screen instead of "Ubuntu" if you want to check out both)

 

The cool thing about Ubuntu is that it comes pre-installed with a bunch of applications that should be good enough for most people's needs: universal IM client, Firefox, LibreOffice, movie editor, image editor, cd burder and whatnot. Other than dev tools like Glade and Eclipse, the only extra apps I install are VLC and Google Chrome.

 

two (more or less random suggestions - it is just that I have installed them recently):
Virtualbox - virtual machine
jbackpack - backup program

more to the point: do you have everything to play media files? often mp3 codecs etc are not installed by default...

other than that: browse through the packages available (you have found the package manager?) to see if there is anything you fancy...

 

Waa, wait.

Are you Korean?

I notice Seoul in your pingtest...

 

Yeah lol
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