I've been playing with linux on my Sager 4080, and thought I'd share my findings. I'm using Gentoo with the 2.6.0 development kernel.
Gentoo installed without any problems at all. All the difficulties I had were adding extra functionality.
Hard drive:
Working, DMA enabled:
/dev/hda:
using_dma = 1 (on)
/dev/hda:
Timing buffer-cache reads: 2176 MB in 2.00 seconds = 1087.08 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 88 MB in 3.05 seconds = 28.85 MB/sec
Not too good, but it's a 5400rpm drive.
Hyperthreading:
Works fine, just enable SMP in the kernel.
Network:
The network card is full supported by the kernel. It's:
Device Drivers->Networking Support->Ethernet (1000 Mbit)->Realtek 8169
Touchpad:
The touchpad mostly works. For some reason, the top scroll button doesn't register, but the bottom one does (as button 3). The scroll button works fine in Windows, so it's not a hardware problem.
6-in-1 card reader:
Much to my amazement, this works fine. The devices are /dev/scsi/host1/target0/lun*/generic. You can mount them and use memory cards just like a floppy drive.
Firewire:
I don't have any devices to test it with, but it's detecting something.
USB:
Works perfectly with my mouse and gamepad.
ACPI:
Battery, temperature, and button monitors work. Sadly, the fan monitor does not.
CPU Frequency Scaling:
Seems to work. Automatically underclocks the computer whenever it's unplugged from AC. I don't know how to test if it's actually underclocked or not.
Throttling:
It works, but resets to 0% when I check any of the other ACPI sensors. I don't know what causes that, but as long as it's throttled I can't check the battery or temperature.
Xfree:
This part was really nasty. The system would hard-lock when using the ati-drivers, and was nice enough to corrupt Xfree every time it happened. I had to reinstall about 20 times. In doing so, I found that the problem is actually sis-agp in the kernel. Xfree would start if I didn't load sis-agp, but direct rendering (3D acceleration) was disabled. I just found out this morning that it was actually a bug in sis-agp, and found a patch that fixed it. I am now in X with direct rendering enabled. fgl_glxgears works now (it didn't before) and glxgears is accelerated, but Tux Racer hard locked my computer. I'm not certain if it's Tux Racer's fault or the video drivers.
To get Xfree to work, compile agpgart and sis-agp into your kernel. Emerge ati-drivers, and use their configuration utility (found in /opt/ati/bin) to setup a working XF86Config. Be sure you set "UseInternalAGPGART" to "no".
I upgraded to 2.6.1 before applying the sis-agp patch. Vanilla 2.6.1 still had the hard-lock problem, but the patch worked with it.
DPMS automatically detected the monitor and configured the horizontal and vertical sync rates for it.
You can find the sis-agp patch and installation instructions here:
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=125634
Sound:
The sound works fine. I'm using ALSA with the Intel i8x0 driver.
Framebuffer:
Works, just enable "ATI Radeon display support" in the kernel.
Here's the result of 'lspci':
00:00.0 Host bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS 645xx (rev 51)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS]: Unknown device 0003
00:02.0 ISA bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS]: Unknown device 0963 (rev 14)
00:02.1 SMBus: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS]: Unknown device 0016
00:02.5 IDE interface: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 5513 [IDE]
00:02.7 Multimedia audio controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] Sound Controller (rev a0)
00:03.0 USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 1.0 Controller (rev 0f)
00:03.1 USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 1.0 Controller (rev 0f)
00:03.2 USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 1.0 Controller (rev 0f)
00:03.3 USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 2.0 Controller
00:0a.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8169 (rev 10)
00:0c.0 CardBus bridge: ENE Technology Inc CB1410 Cardbus Controller (rev 01)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc: Unknown device 4e50
And 'cat /proc/cpuinfo':
processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 15
model : 2
model name : Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.60GHz
stepping : 9
cpu MHz : 2600.712
cache size : 512 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 2
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 2
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe cid
bogomips : 5144.57
processor : 1
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 15
model : 2
model name : Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.60GHz
stepping : 9
cpu MHz : 2600.712
cache size : 512 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 2
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 2
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe cid
bogomips : 5193.72
Overall, it was pretty linux-friendly. The only catch was Xfree.
Gentoo installed without any problems at all. All the difficulties I had were adding extra functionality.
Hard drive:
Working, DMA enabled:
/dev/hda:
using_dma = 1 (on)
/dev/hda:
Timing buffer-cache reads: 2176 MB in 2.00 seconds = 1087.08 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 88 MB in 3.05 seconds = 28.85 MB/sec
Not too good, but it's a 5400rpm drive.
Hyperthreading:
Works fine, just enable SMP in the kernel.
Network:
The network card is full supported by the kernel. It's:
Device Drivers->Networking Support->Ethernet (1000 Mbit)->Realtek 8169
Touchpad:
The touchpad mostly works. For some reason, the top scroll button doesn't register, but the bottom one does (as button 3). The scroll button works fine in Windows, so it's not a hardware problem.
6-in-1 card reader:
Much to my amazement, this works fine. The devices are /dev/scsi/host1/target0/lun*/generic. You can mount them and use memory cards just like a floppy drive.
Firewire:
I don't have any devices to test it with, but it's detecting something.
USB:
Works perfectly with my mouse and gamepad.
ACPI:
Battery, temperature, and button monitors work. Sadly, the fan monitor does not.
CPU Frequency Scaling:
Seems to work. Automatically underclocks the computer whenever it's unplugged from AC. I don't know how to test if it's actually underclocked or not.
Throttling:
It works, but resets to 0% when I check any of the other ACPI sensors. I don't know what causes that, but as long as it's throttled I can't check the battery or temperature.
Xfree:
This part was really nasty. The system would hard-lock when using the ati-drivers, and was nice enough to corrupt Xfree every time it happened. I had to reinstall about 20 times. In doing so, I found that the problem is actually sis-agp in the kernel. Xfree would start if I didn't load sis-agp, but direct rendering (3D acceleration) was disabled. I just found out this morning that it was actually a bug in sis-agp, and found a patch that fixed it. I am now in X with direct rendering enabled. fgl_glxgears works now (it didn't before) and glxgears is accelerated, but Tux Racer hard locked my computer. I'm not certain if it's Tux Racer's fault or the video drivers.
To get Xfree to work, compile agpgart and sis-agp into your kernel. Emerge ati-drivers, and use their configuration utility (found in /opt/ati/bin) to setup a working XF86Config. Be sure you set "UseInternalAGPGART" to "no".
I upgraded to 2.6.1 before applying the sis-agp patch. Vanilla 2.6.1 still had the hard-lock problem, but the patch worked with it.
DPMS automatically detected the monitor and configured the horizontal and vertical sync rates for it.
You can find the sis-agp patch and installation instructions here:
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=125634
Sound:
The sound works fine. I'm using ALSA with the Intel i8x0 driver.
Framebuffer:
Works, just enable "ATI Radeon display support" in the kernel.
Here's the result of 'lspci':
00:00.0 Host bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS 645xx (rev 51)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS]: Unknown device 0003
00:02.0 ISA bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS]: Unknown device 0963 (rev 14)
00:02.1 SMBus: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS]: Unknown device 0016
00:02.5 IDE interface: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 5513 [IDE]
00:02.7 Multimedia audio controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] Sound Controller (rev a0)
00:03.0 USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 1.0 Controller (rev 0f)
00:03.1 USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 1.0 Controller (rev 0f)
00:03.2 USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 1.0 Controller (rev 0f)
00:03.3 USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 2.0 Controller
00:0a.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8169 (rev 10)
00:0c.0 CardBus bridge: ENE Technology Inc CB1410 Cardbus Controller (rev 01)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc: Unknown device 4e50
And 'cat /proc/cpuinfo':
processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 15
model : 2
model name : Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.60GHz
stepping : 9
cpu MHz : 2600.712
cache size : 512 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 2
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 2
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe cid
bogomips : 5144.57
processor : 1
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 15
model : 2
model name : Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.60GHz
stepping : 9
cpu MHz : 2600.712
cache size : 512 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 2
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 2
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe cid
bogomips : 5193.72
Overall, it was pretty linux-friendly. The only catch was Xfree.
