Samsung X20-XVM 1600-V

[Ernst W. Winter]

On Thu, 07 Jul 2005, Oliver Fromme wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> I'm currently considering to buy the following notebook:
> Samsung X20-XVM 1600-V (Centrino, Pentium-M 730, 1 Gbyte
> DDR2 RAM, 80 Gbyte HDD, 1400 x 1050 intel 915 graphics,
> 10/100 LAN, b/g WLAN, DVD+/-R/W/RAM, USB2, IEEE1394 and
> all the standard stuff; no legacy ports (serial, parallel),
> though.)  At 1199 Euros this seems to be very reasonably
> priced.
> 
> Does anyone have any FreeBSD-related experience with that
> notebook (or similar ones)?  I've looked at the infos at
> http://gerda.univie.ac.at/freebsd-laptops/ and searched
> the mailing lists but didn't find any information about
> the Samsung X20 series.
> 
> I'll have the opportunity to (shortly) test the notebook
> and boot a FreeBSD 5.4 DVD and a PCBSD CD-ROM.  However,
> that might not be sufficient.  For example, some investi-
> gations revealed that it might be necessary to use the
> tool from http://people.tecnik93.com/~acpi_perf/ to enable
> the native resolution of the display under X, but I have
> no idea whether it will work.  Also, I won't have enough
> time to fully test ACPI, suspend, audio, WLAN etc.
> 
well I have a cheap ACER Aspire 3002LC and I can say that most things
work that I need, that is USB, WLAN (extra PC-CARD) and the display
is in the range to  give good resolution on a standard vesa driver.

> I'm aware that the built-in 56k/V.92 modem won't work,

Interesting as I have a built in modem but haven't tried it yet.

> neither the TV-out, but I don't need those.  Also, I don't
> need 3D graphics acceleration.  If the graphics works at
> 1400 x 1050 in 2D VESA mode, that's enough for me.
> 
I have no TV out but if you like to see it work I can make arangement
to see you or at the office at BSn.

> I'd appreciate any advice on this machine.  Any comments
> are welcome, either "works great, buy it!" or "there are
> problems, don't buy it".  :-)
> 
Another one I installed FreeBSD in Basel a couple weeks ago with
simelar results where most standard HW works was a ASUS A4712DLH with
all the works that I can imagine. It installed FreeBSD from a CD, but
I testet it first with PCBSD at the dealer and left the CD there as
they all got exited with PCBSD.

The machine is running with kde3.4 and the main thing it is used for
is Postgres for collecing Data. I can't give you much more details on
it as I don't knwo more, bit will see it again in a couple of months
for a maintenance check as well teaching how to use many things under
Unix.

> Best regards
>    Oliver
> 
> PS:  _If_ I buy it, then I'll submit a detailed entry to
> http://gerda.univie.ac.at/freebsd-laptops/  of course.
> 
> PPS:  I read the list, so there's no need to Cc me.
> 
Ernst