Can this be done with Linux? Or must I revert to Windows? (Oh god.. I just barfed a little bit)

I want to get a new "Ultraportable" (i.e. a 11-12" notebook with enough juice to not be a toy) in the next few months and I've narrowed in on the new HP DM1Z that will be out in the fall and will feature the AMD E-450 and Radeon HD 6320. I know, I know! "AMD and Radeon for Linux? Are you crazy??" But what choice do I have? Here is the criterion.

Must be under 12".. I'm looking for something portable.

Must be able to playback 1080P with no stutter or lag. (The DMZ1 can do it on Windows 7 from what youtube tells me).

Must be sub $450.00

So, the only other choice that I know of that comes close is the Atom/ION, but as far as I can tell, that is a no-go with Optiums. i.e Bumbleebee won't work with flash, looks like a pain in the ass (Transform and rooooll out)..

So what should I do? Get the DM1Z and hope that Linux might come up to speed (maybe these AMD Fusion chips will spur that?)

Get the Atom/ION and hope that Nvidia will wake up smell the coffee?

Get the DM1Z and just put Windows on it because Linux has gone poo poo on it's shoes with these new type of super netbooks?

Or, some other option that I'm not aware of?

Just answering

http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=88874

24 pages of posts

I have a Eee PC 1015PN (it has optimus, but I only use the nvidia card). It can play 720p h264 vids without problems. It can also play some wmv files, but not all. For 1080p, it stutters no matter what.

I don't know about the Linux ATI drivers, I don't think they are very good. You may end up having to use Window$ if you get that one.

So the "other" option is to get the Atom/ION, and sacrifice speed and power so I can use Linux. In the past I've always gotten more speed and power by USING Linux.

I guess I'm just bummed out because the AMD Fusion just seems to be kicking the Atom/ION up one side and down the other.

Personally, if I buy a netbook, I would
a) take my CF 8GB with an USB adapter (known to be bootable on different PCs)
b) go to a pc shop
c) ask to the guy of the shop if I can boot from the USB
d) go through different netbooks with the 7 different distros on my CF 8GB (or you could put several different distros on an 32GB bootable USB stick).
Then, within few minutes, you can choose a netbook.
Few days ago I tried a lenovo netbook with a colleague: Slitaz, TinyCoreLinux, PartedMagic, PuppyLinux booted (not Knoppix, probably a question of Xorg setting).
So, now he is playing around.
And I will make the TinyCore setting the next weeks.

Or buy a netbook with linux at www.ixsoft.de
169 Euros is much less than 450 USD.

Update: MS in parallel to linux is a good idea; you can keep it for children having fun with windows games (see Moorhuhn winter edition or similar funny games). The adults would use the linux, placed on the same computer. Recently I installed linux in parallel to XP on the same netbook. Grub4Dos is the key programm for it. See http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index...c,11265.0.html

I have a small HTPC that has an atom ion and it really isn't good enough. It is usable.

Dunno where the intel CE4100's are. They would be good enough.

Some of the tests on the AMD are kind of dismal.

Shame you can't get a Core i5 or a i7.

The Fusion APUs are supported by both the catalyst driver from AMD and the open source drivers on (very) recent kernels. I can't personally comment on 1080p with catalyst, but catalyst does support VAAPI and this looks promising: http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?t=99154

In terms of general 2D and 3D performance with the Catalyst drivers, I haven't had any serious issues in years, other than perhaps having to find a patch or two to get the kernel module to compile against the latest and greatest kernel, and even there, AMD is doing a much better job at keeping up than they used to. Still, though, I prefer the open source drivers.

Adam

@floppy_stuttgart - Good advice, I'm not sure where I can get my hands on an AMD Fusion, but I'll check around. I don't think www.ixsoft.de will ship to the US, but I sure wish they would. I totally agree about the dual boot. It will allow me to use the system to it's fullest as the linux gurus work out the bugs related to the Fusion chip. Thanks!

@jefro - I also have an Atom/ION HTPC and it really works great on all my MKV and such. I do play 1080P on it with a headless ubuntu install and XBMC. Not sure how it would do trying to run a desktop environment AND 1080P though. Is that your setup as well?

@adamk75 - That is great to hear! Not sure how I didn't find that thread, but it looks like I have some reading to do.

Not sure how good this answer is, but I have an Asus Eee PC 901, with a very slow SSD. It can play 720p (Tested Big Buck Bunny and Sintel) very well, and possibly 1080p (I have not tried as my web connection takes ages to download files (700MB takes best part of the afternoon), and even if it doesn't, a faster Renice K4VLAR SSD would help it.

It has dual array microphones, dual array (?) speakers, 1.6GHz Hyperthreading processor (I have been using Ubuntu 11.04, currently it is 20% usage and I have Marble running, Geany, Gedit, 3 terminals, Opera web browser (:O) (I use it because of Opera turbo, I often use my phone and tether), and Ubuntu software center running while playing music in Banshee.

I upgraded the RAM to 2GB using crucial.com, and so far it has been awesome. I set Grub to only show for 1 second, got rid of an annoying purple boot screen thing when loading (Before Plymouth), and it boots in 21 seconds, then 10 to a Unity desktops. Also it is 9" so should be portable enough, and best of all, as it is 2/3 years old now sells for around £150! (Or about $160).

CE4100s is an atom CPU....and if Atom/Ion is 'too slow' then CE4100 is going to be worse- slower core, single core only.

VDPAU should make the Ion system better for HTPC use.

Link? Or is this like the last time that I discussed Intel Atom vs AMD Fusion with you jefro? (@ jason32835- worth a look if you are considering an AMD Fusion system)-

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...m-d525-872734/

The problems with Ion2 in particular are more about intel and nVidia having yet another fight than any technical limitations... Dont expect it to get any better.

You should have no real problems with a Fusion system, but development is ongoing, its possible you will have a minor problem or two for now. You will need a fairly new kernel and xorg version, so its not something to buy if you are planning on running CentOS, debian stable, etc..

The reason why soem computers cant play 1080p is because they lack the CPU power to decode the video stream (and either dont have or havent setup VDPAU or VA-API).

Adding a faster SSD to a EEE PC 901 wont make it capable of playing 1080p.

I know the SSD won't make it better, but if it was faster at reading the 1080p video it might run better.

I am going to look on the web for a small (Like 60 seconds long) 1080p video to test.

Edit: I found a youtube video and it stuttered, but it also stuttered on 720p of which I hve played on here. It is probably my rubbish download speed, but: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVf3PtNF-j0 is a video of someone watching 1080p on it.

@cascade9 - Thank you for the response. I tend to agree that the Fusion will work "pretty well" and I'm ready and willing to use the newest kernels. I have been experimenting on my desktop that has an Radeon HD 4450 and it is interesting to note that the Radeon sucks almost as bad under windows as it does under linux. It will suffer through a 1080P MKV file at around 50-80% CPU and stuttering during a lot of action (For both Windows 7 and Ubuntu 11.4). My HTPC plays the same video on an ION chip using VDAPU at around 10% CPU.

I'm starting to reconsider the "Ultraportable" concept entirely. Perhaps it is a better idea just to sacrifice some portability and get an I3 Intel based system like the Acer Aspire AS5733-6650 Intel Core i3. That has a 15.6" screen. It only costs $380 bucks so I would be able to cram 8GB of ram into it. I'll have to go to the store and compare again, it has been awhile since I even held a 15.6" laptop.


@ThatPerson - I currently have an Acer Aspire One ZG8 and although I love the hell out of it, it is just getting a little small and sluggish for me. Time for something with some firepower!

The CE4100 may have an atom at the core but it is way better for media. Everyone knows how and why the atom-ION platform stinks. It is a pcix1 crippled connection between core and video. The CE4100 fixed that and can decode and play dual 1080P. (that is if we ever get one). Using a CPU to decode video is the wrong way to do stuff. A dedicated decoder works better. The problem with the aton-ion is the bandwidth between the cpu and video is just too slow.

The tests I have seen don't seem to show AMD's much better than the Atom-ION. Where do you keep seeing these great tests?

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?...on+HD+Graphics

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?...25+%40+1.80GHz

CE4100 has the same basic video core that the atom Z5XX intel chipsets (Intel SCH) systems did- PowerVR SGX 535.

GMA 500/PowerVR SGX 535 has supported VA-API for years now-

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...item&px=NzAyOQ

The PowerVR SGX 535 in the CE4100 might be slightly upgraded compared to the GMA 500 versiosn, but its not going to make much difference.

Blame intel and nVidia having a fight for that. There is no reason why the Ion2 couldnt have a faster PCIe connection, just intel refused to licence nVidia to use the faster interface.

BTW, only Ion2 had the 'crippled' PCIe x1 connection. Original Ions did not have that limit.

Using a GPU is the 'better' way to decode video, I agree on that.

But PCIe x1 'too slow' for video? Hardly. PCIe x1 is 250MB/sec (for PCIe v1.X, PCIe 2.X is 500MB/sec, and I think that Ion 2 is PCIe v2.X). 250MB/sec is more than enough bandwidth for video decoding. A tenth of that is enough for video decoding.....

That is not a link to a test for Fusion that is 'dismal'.

Passmark has its own issues, but it actually agrees with what was saying to you ages ago- that Fusion is faster than Atom. Its not a huge difference, but its there.

Reading speed isnt going to help once you reading speeds are faster than 'XMB/sec', and 'X' is less than 30MB/sec. A faster SSD will make no real difference.

Testing flash videos from the web...Flash takes up more CPU to decode than other video streams, and unless you've dont some stuffing around, with linux it wont be accelerated (VDPAU, VA-API, XvBA).

Technically, there is no way that the EEE PC 901 can display 1080p.....with its standard screen anyway. IIRC it has a 1024x600 screen, which makes it impossible to output 1080p streams, or even 720p (the screen must be a minimum of 1080 pixels high for 1080p, 720 pixels for 720p).

It might be playing a 1080p video stream, but it cant output at anything like 1080p. If it is playing a 1080p/720p stream, its downscaled.

Hmmm...HD4450, it should be able to use VA-API with linux, and UVD 2 with windows. I'll see what I can find out.

I wouldnt get 8GB with an i3. Anything that will do better with 4GB+ is going to do better with a few extra cores.

Hard to compare a ZG8 (N270 single core Atom, right?) and fusion. Fusion should have a fair bit more power due to being dual-core, but its impossible to say how that will 'feel' to you.

For my Ion2 netbook it says PCI Express x1 Gen1, PCI-E Max Linux Speed: 2500.