Open-Source Support For AMD "Richland" APUs

[madbiologist]

- worse performance/price
- 5400 rpm HDDs when there is no SSD (except in high-end laptops)

How much performance do you think you need to check email, run a LibreOffice Impress presentation and watch a movie?

- nerfed CPUs/GPUs (can a GTX 680M beat a GTX 660? Nope.)

In power saving and longer battery life, probably yes.

- keyboard sucks, often

Not always, as you say. If the keyboard does suck it is easy enough to keep a couple of USB/Bluetooth keyboards at home and at the office. Even your clients will probably have a spare keyboard that you can use if you want. And thanks to GSoC, you can now use your Android mobile phone as a remote control for your Impress presentation.

Building your own desktop also allows you to get a computer without pre-installed Windows.

HP supply notebooks pre-installed with SLED and fully certified by Novell. Are Dell still shipping notebooks pre-installed with Ubuntu?

[madbiologist]

I heard AMD is supposed to have a news event on the 19th concerning richland.
I can't remember where I saw that.

You probably previously read the same TH article that Ofen linked. They were either a week out with their date or they are referring to the launch date of the desktop Richland parts. We will know in a few days.

[Soul_keeper]

19th

I heard AMD is supposed to have a news event on the 19th concerning richland.
I can't remember where I saw that.

[zanny]

Won't be launch-day support, because it wont work on the upcoming Ubuntu 13.04.
So we'll have to wait until Ubuntu 13.10.

Intel on the other hand, already has pushed Haswell patches long time ago, so when Haswell is coming, it will really have launch-day support for real.

Same thing happened last year - I built a 5800k HTPC, and needed to run Ubuntu 12.10 on it (though now I'd just throw on Tumbleweed Suse...) since the 12.04 kernel at the time didn't support Trinity.

[Calinou]

What's wrong with a notebook?

- worse performance/price
- nerfed CPUs/GPUs (can a GTX 680M beat a GTX 660? Nope.)
- noname parts everywhere
- less repairability
- screens... *vomits a frame pointer*
- keyboard sucks, often
- 5400 rpm HDDs when there is no SSD (except in high-end laptops)

Building your own desktop also allows you to get a computer without pre-installed Windows.

[Drago]

HD8000 my a**. This is HD6000 aka. Cayman GPU.
I personally have big expectations for SI, since it uses GCN which is somewhat more easy to be optimized.
I will skip Richland, and will wait for Kaveri.

[AJSB]

What's wrong with a notebook?

Nothing per se....i myself had two (1st was a Toshiba many many years ago and second was a Fujitsu-Siemens)...they are great as portability and still running regular programs...

The thing is, they are crap to upgrade, DIY repairs,etc.

In the end i lost interest not only in notebooks but i also didn't bought the tablet hype...

I prefer to have a very very low power (thing) mini-itx rig w/o DVD drive and only one SSD with sub-d and HDMI connectors (besides all the usual connectors)....

It's as portable and i don't do work in a bus, airplane, boat, train or car anyway...forever i go , there will be some sort of monitor and a keyboard and mouse waiting for me and my rig

Even at home i only now use mini-itx rigs in very small cases (21x22x7 at max if i use a DVD in it)

[pingufunkybeat]

Won't be launch-day support, because it wont work on the upcoming Ubuntu 13.04.
So we'll have to wait until Ubuntu 13.10.

It's hardware launch-day, not Ubuntu launch day.

If you are running Ubuntu, you have several options on launch day:

- install drivers from Ubuntu's repository using apt
- install drivers from source
- use a distro which does provide this out of the box

In any case, you will have launch-day support if you want it.

[madbiologist]

That's the mobile versions for notebooks,etc....not the socket versions that would be used in mini-itx and other mobos...

What's wrong with a notebook?

[Ofen]

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/AMD-Kabini-Richland-APU-Release,20888.html