2001.02_Wortmann Terra Aura a74Ld-Tested in the Linux Labs.pdf

NOTEBOOK GROUP TEST

COVER FEATURE

TERRA AURA

A74 LD

Fresh from the SuSE certification lab, the Wortmann Terra

Aura A74 LD was the only device to arrive with Linux pre-

installed. The oddly metallic-looking case is actually made

of plastic but nevertheless looks very elegant and has

nothing to fear from comparison with other notebooks

such as the Lifebook E-6560. As is representative of the

high-end category, the diskette drive and 8x DVD-ROM

are permanently fixed in place and cannot be removed.

port. Wortmann was unable to say why there was

an RJ45 socket instead of the RJ11 normally

provided for modem ports. A version of the

notebook with Ethernet capabilities instead of the

modem does not exist, which is fairly odd.

The keyboard is rectangular and has no offset

cursor block. The space bar is pleasantly large and

the left Shift key is fairly big. On the other hand

though, Wortmann has unusually positioned the key

for the pointed brackets on the left next to the

cursor keys. The typing feel was very comfortable

overall and the keys are mounted so as to move only

slightly and have a soft feedback. As with the

Lifebook, in the Terra Aura a touchpad with two

mouse keys has been installed beneath the key field.

Ethernet socket for modem

Wortmann Terra Aura A74 LD

(+)

An inventory of the ports brought a bit of a surprise.

In addition to the usual ports, we found an

apparent Ethernet port in the form of an RJ45

socket. However, this turned out to be a modem

certified for Linux

(+)

hardware almost fully supported

(-)

no modem support, no Ethernet

(-)

CardBus slots too hot

5 · 2001 LINUX MAGAZINE 47

WORTMANN

COVER FEATURE

NOTEBOOK GROUP TEST

Linux Installation

CardBus

Naturally although this is a preinstalled machine,

we were keen to look at the course of a typical

installation, this notebook being certified by

SuSE. At this point it's worth taking a look at the

small print of the certificate, as it includes

restrictions with respect to the X-server and

sound card. As there is an S3 Savage MX in the

Wortmann Terra Aura, the patched X-server is

needed, as we also used in the Toshiba devices

and the HP Omnibook. Accordingly, we left

YaST2 without having installed X. Also, the driver

for the sound card is still brand-new and we

used, as with the HP Omnibook, the Maestro-3

sound driver from Zab Brown, still in the Alpha

stage, which can be found at

http://www.zabbo.net/maestro3.

The Terra Aura also contains the popular Ricoh RL

5c476 CardBus controller which, like most others, took

20 seconds for the initialisation of our PCMCIA hard

disk. Unlike the Lifebook E-6560 the CardBus slots here

are a bit further away from the main air vent but the

cards still heat up to almost 50 degrees and at higher

external temperatures could certainly get damaged.

Good news: Many notebooks already

have two USB ports. The Wortmann

Te rra Aura unfortunately, needs a special

plug for the TV connection.

Conclusion

In principle at least the Wortmann Terra Aura is a

Linux laptop and in a few months, when the

Maestro-3 driver and the patched X-server are

included in the distributions, there won't even be any

manual work involved in configuration. Only the ESS

modem somewhat spoilt the overall impression. We

had no problems worth mentioning otherwise – even

the TV output could be wired up without complaint

(up to 800x600 pixels). At higher resolutions, as with

the Toshibas, only the upper left corner is visible.

Wortmann deserve huge praise for taking the

trouble to get SuSE certification, even if it not yet quite

"Ready for SuSE Linux 7.0". This clearly shows that at

last one manufacturer is taking Linux users seriously

and offering its devices with Linux. The Terra Aura is

only just becoming available in the UK and Wortmann,

which is a German company, advise you to enquire

with your local notebook dealer about availability.

ESS Modem

No driver of any kind could be found for the

built-in modem with ESS-1989 chip so we can

only hope that Ensoniq will soon remedy this.

Maybe Wortmann can check just once more

whether it might be possible to supply an

Ethernet card instead of the modem.

Nevertheless, the infrared port is immaculate and

after the obvious adjustments it was installed

without any problem.

Dell Latitude C600

Just before we went to press, the Dell Latitude C600 arrived by express courier. It

is equipped with a Pentium-III (750 MHz) and 128 MByte RAM and counts among

the so-called 'ultraportable' class. As a special feature, it has two front slots – in

the right one you can insert a CD-ROM drive, a DVD-ROM, a second battery or a

diskette drive, as you choose. The left-hand slot is reserved for the main battery. A

fully-functioning second drive slot would be very interesting, like the one there

used to be years ago in the Scenic Mobile series from Siemens. This let people

accommodate two drives at once if one were working in an office, for example.

It has to be said that due to the very short time available we were unable to

test the notebook with the detail used elsewhere, so you will only find here

some first impressions from a brief test.

The unknown infrared port turned out to not be a problem after all. After a

kernel patch was sought and found, the irda-utils could be started without

demur and the Nokia 6210 was specified in the list of accessible devices.

The ESS 1983S Maestro-3i sound card was correctly detected by YaST2 but SuSE did not supply an appropriate driver. We

installed – as with the Wortmann Terra Aura and HP Omnibook – the Maestro-3 module from Zab Brown and were thus able

to activate the sound card without any problems.

Network card and modem in the Dell Latitude C600 are located on a mini-PCI plug card. The 3com chips installed there were

recognised in the SuSE standard installation but because of a limited timeframe we could not look for a suitable driver.

Posing more of a problem was the ATI Rage Mobility M3 – unlike the Mobility P/M present elsewhere in the test, this did not

respond to the SVGA server and came up with a few oddities, mainly in connection with the framebuffer support. We will

have to go into this, too, in more detail, before we can give a well-founded judgement.

One big fat plus to finish off is that the Latitude was the only device able to call up the BIOS set-up via function key both in

text mode and under YaST2 and then to return without a problem. And the suspend function worked without complaint.

We will bring you the whole test report in one of our upcoming issues, together with other latecomers from Gateway, Apple

and Fujitsu-Siemens.

48 LINUX MAGAZINE 5 · 2001

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