Samsung ATIV Smart PC with openSUSE

English Hardware
#1

I have used openSUSE on several desktops and laptops. But I am tired of using an Apple Ipad tablet.

My question is, if I could combine a tablet and a openSUSE PC, if I am buying a Samsung ATIV Smart PC XE500T1C-A01SE and installing openSUSE 12.3 ?

I will ask before I buy the Samsung Tablet PC, but I have read that openSUSE could be installed on Samsung Slate 7 PC and x86 Acer Iconia tablet.

(Link to danish shop: Samsung ATIV Smart PC 11.6 b )

Thanks
Jan

#2

Don’t do it:

Grafikkort model (GPU)        Intel SGX545

That will leave you with a very poor graphics performance experience … its not an actual Intel gpu, but rather one they licensed from Imagination Technologies. The PowerVR chips are poorly supported under Linux.

#3

Thanks for your advice

#4

Do you know of any other x86 tablet or tablet PC, where openSuSE and KDE runs okay ?

#5

Trying to find a tablet PC that can run openSUSE and KDE, I will ask the forum if you think this model will do it:

Acer Iconia W510 Intel Atom Z2760, 2 cores 1,5GHz, 2G DDR2 RAM, Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3650, 64G SSD

This is a link to a danish shop:
Acer Iconia 10.1 b

Thanks

#6

Sorry, I’m ignorant about this, so can’t give you any specific recommendations.

One thing I do know which might be of interest, and which is independent of openSUSE & KDE, is that “touch” input in xorg got a lot of attention in near recent months, so such experiences should be better going forward with xorg server 1.15 (due out around Christmas). Though I believe the fixes have also been backported to the xorg 1.14 line too, so (as well as being available to users of older releases, provided they upgrade their X environment), openSUSE 13.1 should contain all that OOTB when it is released next month.

#7

Same problem as the last one – PowerVR graphics >:(

This is common for last generation Intel Atom based boards.

#8

Seems like gpu drivers are the problem (maybe other problems comes also).
I am not sure I really understand the reason:

  • Shall the gpu driver be a Linux driver from the vendor? (Intel, nVidia, AMD)
  • Opensource driver don’t exist or not good enough for the quality on the small screen

I found this link to a test of 5 different Linux distributions on a Acer Iconia W500:
Install Linux on your x86 tablet: five distros to choose from | News | TechRadar

openSUSE did the test quit good, but the reason why it can run, is the AMD Radeon GMA 6250, which has a Linux gpu driver?

Jan

#9

The graphics stack consists of several components, so its not “driver”, its “drivers”. The OSS stack for the PowerVR chips is elementary and lacks a 3D component. It provides a very basic and limited user experience. The prop. stack was highly buggy and I don’t believe has been maintained in eons. I doubt it would even build any more. (I could be wrong)

AMD Radeon GMA 6250
The authour makes a mistake, as there is no such part: GMA is an Intel name given to their GPU models found embedded in an Intel motherboard chipset. The Acer tablet uses an AMD C-50 APU – which is a CPU and GPU (Radeon HD6250) on the same chip.

which has a Linux gpu driver?
the OSS driver stack for that part is good. In particular, when a 3.11 kernel and above is used and you evoke its new power management support (not enabled by default yet).

#10

Thanks Tyler_k. You are an expert :slight_smile:

i think I will wait a while and see what the future brings up.
I also asked on a danish Linux forum, and people meant that it was a little to early trying to use opensuse/KDE on a tablet.

Jan