[other] Bonobo Extreme (bonx6)

Bonobo Extreme (bonx6)

Alright so as I imagine most of you already know, System 76 has put out a new addition to their laptop line: The Bonobo Extreme (bonx6). After spending the last few weeks drooling over this device and comparing it to my current panp9, I have decided to bite the bullet and buy one after watching this video review on it. Anyway the machine looks amazing. Even though my panp9 has been extremely awesome, I've decided that since my wife's Sony laptop is getting a bit long in the tooth, the time to upgrade has come and she'll be inheriting my panp9 as a result in addition to being transitioned over to Linux from Windows.

The primary motivation for buying this laptop over my existing panp9 was the inclusion of the Nvidia GPU. Ironically enough that was also my biggest motivation for not buying it. The reason being is that after suffering with the Nvidia Linux driver for years on various machines I have come to dislike it a great deal. That dislike was reaffirmed when I realized how well the Intel HD4000 in my panp9 worked in Linux. So giving the bonx6 a chance is actually a bit of a stretch for me. Prior to buying it I asked the S76 Sales Reps a few questions concerning issues I've had with the Nvidia Linux drivers in the past (the biggest two being the inability of the Nvidia driver to detect ACPI state changes without switching to a virtual console and back and the fact that I could never seem to add custom resolutions to the Nvidia driver config and get them to work - something the Intel driver allows to happen easily using the standard xrandr tool) and they said that these issues were not issues on the bonx6 and also said that the Nvidia driver has improved a great deal over the last six months. Maybe Linus' middle finger did the trick, eh?

Anyway - hopefully I'll have the machine by the first of the new year. It will take me some time to get it setup as I don't use Ubuntu and since this will be my first UEFI machine (yes it uses UEFI instead of the age old BIOS according to the review I linke above) transitioning my existing Arch Linux install is probably going to be tricky. When I get it, I will be sure to detail and document my experiences in this thread.

So that brings me to my question: Has anybody else purchased this machine? If so, what do you think? I look forward to hearing your thoughts on the matter.

Re: Lets get this party started - Bonobo Extreme (bonx6)

I just got my Bonobo Extreme delivered a couple of hours ago. Haven't had a chance to use it yet but will post back with my thoughts on it once I get some use out of it.

I will say, It's a big machine, which is fine with me because I don't really travel much with a laptop. If you're looking for portability, this isn't the laptop for you though.

Re: Lets get this party started - Bonobo Extreme (bonx6)

I got mine about a week ago. So far, no major problems, but haven't dug deep.

I dumped Ubuntu/Unity since I loathe the interface, switched to Cinnarch. In other words, no problems installing alternative Linux flavors. So far, everything just works. :) But haven't tried the keyboard lights or fingerprint reader at all.

Got the Nvidia 670, just one, and figured I'd be able to upgrade later if I needed. I'm upgrading from an Asus N73JQ, which had Nvidia 425M, so if that could handle Portal2, the 670GTX should do well. (Wikipedia specs suggest its about 5X faster.)

Nvidia drivers work well, though dual screen can be a bit tricky sometimes. Running full screen games or even Heaven benchmark, it will choose a screen on its own based on the resolution, rather than the main screen. So, upon exit, I have to use Nvidia settings to switch back. Likely a Cinnamon problem.

My Asus N73JQ was just as big, so I'm used to this size laptop.

USB 3.0 ports work well, unlike my Asus. :/

SATA-III ports work well, I get full speed out of my SSD drives. :) Drive slots can be a bit snug.

I do wish the mSATA port was SATA-III, but that's a limitation of the Intel HM77 chipset, not the Bonobo. Anyone know if it's possible to software select which ports are SATA-III enabled?

Only problem I have is eSATA is only 1.5GBps, have not figured out why. Seems consistent across other distros, yet I KNOW I have 3Gbps devices. (Same for my N73JQ recently. Might be a kernel regression?)

Re: Bonobo Extreme (bonx6)

Abe, did you have to do anything special in regards to the bootloader on the machine? As I understand it, the laptop uses UEFI instead of the age old BIOS. I'm actually looking to transition the existing arch install I have on the panp9 to the bonx6 when it arrives so if you have anything to add that would be most appreciated. A quick google shows me that Cinnarch comes with UEFI support out of the box. That means it might prove to be a viable option if I choose to reinstall rather than transition the existing install. I'm hoping to avoid that if at all possible though.

Also, how does the GPU react when you unplug the laptop and plug it back in? Is it downclocking and upclocking as it should? Traditionally I've had problems with that sort of thing with Nvidia drivers (typically resolved by switching to a virtual console and back to X). In addition, have you had any luck setting up custom resolutions for the screen (mostly 16x9 stuff like 1024x576 for instance)?

Re: Bonobo Extreme (bonx6)

Jaylittle,

I was able to move the drive from my Asus to the Bonobo and boot without any modifications or problems. :) (Both Nvidia)

The UEFI/BIOS supports traditionally partitioned disks and boot loaders like GRUB.

Have not tried UEFI boot/partitions on the Bonobo, but I do have a disk I can try. :)

The BIOS has an option for Windows8 UEFI mode. Guess what this does... ;)

Will check Nvidia/CPU power behavior tomorrow (Tues).

Re: Bonobo Extreme (bonx6)

That's good to know. This means moving to the new machine will be quite a bit easier than I anticipated as all I will need to do is switch video drivers :) Thanks for the details Abe - they are most appreciated!

Re: Bonobo Extreme (bonx6)

In the Nvidia-settings app, resolution of the LCD is limited to 1920x1080, however, if I force Heaven benchmark to 1024x576 it works, but is a bit stretched vertically bordered by black on left & right.

Not sure how to measure the power settings. The Nvidia settings "Power Mizer" shows:

http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/3...m201212181.png

It says "Battery" even though it's plugged in.

It doesn't change if I unplug the laptop.

So, if you know a better way to check, lemme know. :)

Re: Bonobo Extreme (bonx6)

FWIW:

Code:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core processor DRAM Controller (rev 09) 00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v2/3rd Gen Core processor PCI Express Root Port (rev 09) 00:01.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v2/3rd Gen Core processor PCI Express Root Port (rev 09) 00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family USB xHCI Host Controller (rev 04) 00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family MEI Controller #1 (rev 04) 00:1a.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #2 (rev 04) 00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family High Definition Audio Controller (rev 04) 00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev c4) 00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 2 (rev c4) 00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 3 (rev c4) 00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #1 (rev 04) 00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation HM77 Express Chipset LPC Controller (rev 04) 00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 7 Series Chipset Family 6-port SATA Controller [AHCI mode] (rev 04) 00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family SMBus Controller (rev 04) 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation Device 11a1 (rev a1) 01:00.1 Audio device: NVIDIA Corporation GK104 HDMI Audio Controller (rev a1) 04:00.0 Unassigned class [ff00]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. Device 5289 (rev 01) 04:00.2 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller (rev 0a) 05:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Centrino Advanced-N 6235 (rev 24)

Code:

Module Size Used by fuse 69213 3 wacom 42610 0 uvcvideo 72788 0 videobuf2_vmalloc 2469 1 uvcvideo videobuf2_memops 2283 1 videobuf2_vmalloc videobuf2_core 24073 1 uvcvideo videodev 100860 2 uvcvideo,videobuf2_core media 10406 2 uvcvideo,videodev joydev 9992 0 hid_logitech_dj 10190 0 usb_storage 47385 1 uas 11120 0 snd_hda_codec_hdmi 24529 1 hid_generic 1114 0 coretemp 6071 0 kvm_intel 124718 0 kvm 374014 1 kvm_intel crc32c_intel 1988 0 ghash_clmulni_intel 4278 0 aesni_intel 42082 0 aes_x86_64 7556 1 aesni_intel aes_generic 26139 2 aesni_intel,aes_x86_64 ablk_helper 1973 1 aesni_intel cryptd 8742 3 ghash_clmulni_intel,aesni_intel,ablk_helper usbhid 37036 1 hid_logitech_dj arc4 2040 2 btrfs 718583 2 hid 85974 3 hid_generic,usbhid,hid_logitech_dj crc32c 1769 1 libcrc32c 1003 1 btrfs zlib_deflate 20437 1 btrfs iwldvm 171052 0 mac80211 426350 1 iwldvm nvidia 9340873 55 iTCO_wdt 5256 0 mxm_wmi 1468 0 iTCO_vendor_support 1930 1 iTCO_wdt snd_hda_codec_realtek 61420 1 microcode 12346 0 evdev 10267 17 psmouse 71952 0 serio_raw 4690 0 pcspkr 1900 0 i2c_i801 9572 0 snd_hda_intel 26181 5 snd_hda_codec 98034 3 snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_intel snd_hwdep 6429 1 snd_hda_codec snd_pcm 75735 3 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_intel snd_page_alloc 7218 2 snd_pcm,snd_hda_intel video 11277 0 acpi_cpufreq 5934 0 iwlwifi 125182 1 iwldvm mperf 1300 1 acpi_cpufreq r8169 56872 0 snd_timer 18935 1 snd_pcm mii 4092 1 r8169 snd 60189 17 snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hwdep,snd_timer,snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_pcm,snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_intel i2c_core 20708 3 i2c_i801,nvidia,videodev lpc_ich 10610 0 cfg80211 177109 3 iwlwifi,mac80211,iwldvm ac 2537 0 soundcore 5443 1 snd thermal 8120 0 mei 32666 0 rfkill 15605 1 cfg80211 battery 6774 0 wmi 8380 1 mxm_wmi button 4663 0 processor 26856 1 acpi_cpufreq loop 18161 0 vfat 10120 0 fat 48403 1 vfat ext4 440435 2 crc16 1360 1 ext4 jbd2 78802 1 ext4 mbcache 6027 1 ext4 ehci_hcd 41817 0 xhci_hcd 87083 0 usbcore 150472 7 uas,wacom,uvcvideo,usb_storage,ehci_hcd,usbhid,xhci_hcd sr_mod 14824 0 usb_common 955 1 usbcore cdrom 35521 1 sr_mod sd_mod 29560 7 ahci 21361 3 libahci 20024 1 ahci libata 167757 2 ahci,libahci scsi_mod 133434 5 uas,usb_storage,libata,sd_mod,sr_mod

Re: Bonobo Extreme (bonx6)

It looks like you are on the right portion of the Nvidia setup screen. When you switch from AC to the battery, in theory the performance level should change (this behavior can vary based upon xorg config settings however). When you switch from the battery to the AC it should change back. If it doesn't change in either event, try switching to a virtual console and switching back. If it changes then, it means that Nvidia still hasn't got their act together in regards to power management. If it doesn't change even then, then it may mean that their power management has actually improved to the point where you have to run some sort of 3d application in order to force it to upclock. Not too shocking as I'm prepared to live with it. Still a tiny bit disappointing though.

Edit: Nevermind - the question is already answered. The fact it doesn't update the power source in the window when you change it pretty much says it all. Try switching to a virtual console and back and I bet you'll see it update :) <sigh> Oh well - I was prepared for this. No biggie.

Re: Bonobo Extreme (bonx6)

According to the Arch wiki entry on Nvidia, the driver can detect the power source but only if the acpid daemon is installed and set to run on startup. It might be worth trying to install that and see if it makes the driver more responsive to power state changes. I doubt it, as I believe I've gone down that road before.... but it's worth a shot. If you don't want to bother, don't worry too much. I got the shipping notification on mine and it will be here on Friday. w00t!