On a sunny day (Wed, 18 Jan 2012 16:38:06 -0800) it happened Joerg wrote in :
Well, that is true, but that did not work anymore. It is part of the BIOS code I suppose, you can sometimes set that timeout in the BIOS. For that to work code needs to be executed. If the processor is looping in unknown territory no other code will be executed.
This is about boot managers, that is that part that starts the OS. According to info grub it is the most important part of the computer....
The important thing to have is a real power switch PLUS a real reset button.
Evaluation of my Samsung notebook so far, on scale of 0 to 10: Build quality mechanical: 1 (thin plastic that does not close properly, only the top is alu.) Quality of OS win 7 it came with: 0 (useless piece of crap). Quality of keyboard: 1 (space bar is flexible and now only works if I hit it in the middle, sharp edge at front hurts your hands.) Quality of display: 2 (viewing angle 15 degrees (+-7.5), but 1 extra point because it is matte.) Audio: 1 (only mono, small speaker in bottom, no high frequencies.)
Stupidity factor: 1000 Hole for 'mike' in top, so sure any coffee will land in there. No real reset switch.
Benchmarks for small program that uses floating point and fits in cache: Duron 950: Linux 32 bit mode 125 seconds. Core I5(single): Linux 32 bit mode: 5 seconds (Ubuntu). Core I5(single): Linux 64 bit mode: 3.5 seconds (Slackware).
So it looks like an increase from at least 35 times. Well, I needed faster encoding, this is not counting any increase in encoding speed because of the Radeon hardware, not tried that yet.
So, that leaves -995 points I think.
Nevertheless I bought it, I didit, idea it to use it as my media PC, replacing the old one that now has used up 3 power supplies in a year. I guess replacing all components in that one would help,
Probably voided the guarantee (2 year pick up and return) by deleting the redmond7 virus and opening it up. With some luck it will die before it gets nuked in WW2.
The positive side is that the display is very nice to work with for programming in all sorts of light, no reflections. But who runs 8 xterms in 8 virtual screens in fvwm these days except me?
Slackware allowed me to chose fvwm window manager. Be aware that things have only gotten worse since then with window managers, mostly or especially because people trying to write a redmond microvirus clone.
Observations about HDMI: Burning movie X to DVD and playing it with Cyberlink DVD player via SCART to Samsung 46 inch is noise free. Using HDMI cable from laptop shows fine RF noise superimposed. Quantisation noise I think, or deliberately added s*it by the Hollywood conspiracy. Hollywood makes quality improvement run backwards.
Nuke Hollywood! And now I understand why that great leader in N Korea wants to nuke the south: He probably bought a Samsung. Hollywood is in range for him too I think.