[Libreboot] libreboot first-impressions

[Abhiram Chintangal]

Hello,

I recently flashed libreboot on a thinkpad x60 I picked up for ebay. I
figured it might be good thing to share my experience :).

Apart from a few tense minutes, I entire process was quite
straightforward. The documentation[1] helped me greatly!

So here are a few things that I noticed:

1. Noise!

   Annoying.I found a few workarounds for the problem at the project
   wiki. I liked the powertop approach, but sadly it didn't work for
   me.  A silly solution; I have mplayer playing my fav radio station
   on another terminal (muted of-course)

2. Runs Hot

   It usually runs hot when I watch a movie or two. Not a big deal,
   but it would be great if this can be improved.


3. Improving Battery Life

   I am currently running the laptop on a cheap four-cell battery I
   found on amazon. While the battery life is nothing to brag about,
   it gets the job done (1-1:30) at max brightness. ( those ips
   displays have spoiled me)

   Are there any tricks of the trade that you folks can share? One
   particular idea that I have in mind is disabling devices that I
   don't use (card-controller, ethernet, bluetooth and so on). Is it as
   simple as black-listing the respective modules?

   
Any suggestions/tips are welcome.

Cheers!

Abhiram Chintangal