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Update 3.12.08: In Fedora Core 10 Live system I get more than 1300FPS in glxgears.

Update 23.11.08: I found a work-around for the suspend to RAM problem. It now works but causes minor problems with CPU frequency scaling. Here is my report.

Update 21.11.08: Very poor graphics performance in Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex 8.10. It seems there are still problems with the graphic driver xserver-xorg-video-intel. Glxgears performs 1300FPS in Hardy Heron and only 400FPS in Intrepid Ibex. Youtube videos in full screen are not fluent, in Windows they are perfectly fine.

On October 21st 2008 I got my brand new Dell Latitude E6400 Notebook. Main aspect for me was full Linux support. If possible right out-of-the-box. I am continuously adding my new findings to this report, so stay tuned.

Specification

• Dell Latitude E6400
• Intel Core 2 Duo P9500 (2.53GHz, 1066MHz, 6MB)
• 14.1in Widescreen WXGA+ (1440X900) with LED backlit, non-glare
• Express Card base: Mobile Intel Integrated Graphics Media Accelerator X4500HD
• Integrated 0.3 Mega Pixel Camera with Microphone
• Memory: 4096MB (2x2048) 800MHz DDR2 Dual Channel
• Hard Drive: 250GB (7200RPM) Free Fall Sensor (Western Digital WD2500BJKT)
• 8X DVD+/-RW Drive
• Battery: Primary 9-cell 85W/HR LI-ION
• Intel WiFi Link 5300 (802.11 a/b/g/n 3X3) 1/2 MiniCard
• Dell Wireless 370 Bluetooth
• Internal German Qwertz Backlight Keyboard
• German Windows Vista Home Basic SP1 (32Bit OS)

As distribution I use Ubuntu Linux. As the machine uses the newest Intel Centrino 2 technology, I have to use Linux Kernel 2.6.27, that means Ubuntu 8.10.

After downloading Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex 8.10 Release Candidate I put it on a USB stick using usb-creator. I could boot from the stick as from a CD.

Hardware

• Grafic: 1440x900 was autodetected and 3D effects using Compiz are working right away. The brightness of the display is excellent, so working in the garden is no problem.
• Sound: Out-of-the-box.
• CPU: Automatic frequency scaling works.
• WLAN: Network Manager detected my encrypted network, I only had to type my password and was online.
• Bluetooth: Filetransfer to my Nokia 6234 without problems using Bluetooth-Manager.
• Backlit keyboard works.
• Light sensor to activate backlit keyboard automatically works.
• Special keys for volume control work.
• Webcam: Works with the application cheese (sudo apt-get install cheese) out-of-the-box.
• Automatic control of the screen backlight using light sensor: Out-of-the-box.
• Suspend to RAM does work with work-around. After resume the machine is completely frozen. This is only the case when X is running. The first 20 suspends did work properly, now it freezes every time. Here is the bug-report on Launchpad. I found a work-around for the suspend to RAM problem. It now works but causes minor problems with CPU frequency scaling. Here is my report.
• Suspend to Disk (Hibernate) does not work.
• Changing to text console: Changing to a text console using Ctrl-Alt-F1 gives a flickering screen. Changing to X and back to the console gives a working console.
• USB ports work.
• DVD burner works.
• SD Reader: Cannot test as I have no card. Comments in my blog suggest it works just fine.
• eSATA: No drive to test this.
• UMTS: I do not know.
• 9 cell battery: It seems to last for ever. No change to sit long enough in front of the computer to tell you how long.
• Ethernet: Works. I had to activate and deactivate the network in network-manager to get the connection. The kernel module is btw. the much feared Intel e1000e Treiber.
• System suddenly frozen: After some days using the computer it suddenly frozen. Caps and Scroll-Lock were blinking.
• Docking station: I do not have one.
• Very poor graphics performance: It seems there are still problems with the graphic driver xserver-xorg-video-intel. Glxgears performs 1300FPS in Hardy Heron and only 400FPS in Intrepid Ibex. Youtube videos in full screen are not fluent, in Windows they are perfectly fine.

HD Tune Results

Can be downloaded for Windows here: www.hdtune.com

Windows Leistungsindex

• Prozessor: 5,4
• RAM: 5,9
• Grafik: 4,1
• Grafik (Spiele): 3,8
• Festplatte: 5,4

glxgears

In Hardy the same system performs 1300FPS. It seems there are still issues with the Intel driver or Xorg.

CPU Settings at Ondemand:

• Around 225 FPS with Visual Effects to Extra.
• Around 340 FPS Compiz turned off or Visual Effects to normal.

CPU Settings at Performance:

• Around 408 FPS with Visual Effects at Extra.
• Around 415 FPS with Compiz turned off or Visual Effects to normal.

As comparison, in Fedora Core 10 Live I get above 1300FPS.

Google Earth 4.3

It can only be used with Compiz turned off. Otherwise display is distorted heavily. Without Compiz some letters of town names are missing.

Supertux2

Supertux at full resolution gives exactly 68 FPS most of the time. This seems to be an upper limit.
Starting parameters: supertux2 -g 1440x900 -a 16:10 --show-fps

Openarena Benchmark

Generated after this manual. Default options (640x480).

sudo apt-get install openarena
mkdir -p ~/.openarena/baseoa/demos
wget -O ~/.openarena/baseoa/anholt.cfg http://people.freedesktop.org/~anholt/benchmarking/anholt.cfg
wget -O ~/.openarena/baseoa/demos/anholt.dm_68 http://people.freedesktop.org/~anholt/benchmarking/anholt.dm_68
OpenArena benchmark start:
openarena +exec anholt 2>&1 | egrep -e '[0-9]+ frames'
840 frames 14.8 seconds 56.8 fps 7.0/17.6/137.0/6.9 ms

With 1440x900 the result is:

840 frames 22.6 seconds 37.2 fps 14.0/26.9/146.0/8.3 ms

bonnie++

Version 1.03c       ------Sequential Output------ --Sequential Input- --Random-
                    -Per Chr- --Block-- -Rewrite- -Per Chr- --Block-- --Seeks--
Machine        Size K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP  /sec %CP
ubuntu           7G 39758  96 54529  26 27539  15 60310  91 64753  22 197.2   1

lspci

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Memory Controller Hub (rev 07)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 07)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 07)
00:19.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82567LM Gigabit Network Connection (rev 03)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 03)
00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 03)
00:1a.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #6 (rev 03)
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 03)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 3 (rev 03)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 4 (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev 93)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation ICH9M-E LPC Interface Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.2 RAID bus controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 82801 SATA RAID Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 03)
03:01.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Ricoh Co Ltd R5C832 IEEE 1394 Controller (rev 04)
03:01.1 SD Host controller: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Host Adapter (rev 21)
03:01.2 SD Host controller: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C843 MMC Host Controller (rev 11)
0c:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 5300 AGN [Shiloh] Network Connection