This is an old revision of this page, as edited by
dyngar at
08:09, 6 May 2013. It may differ significantly from the
Current revision.
model: Alienware M11x R1(model id: 524)
subtype (notebook, netbook, motherboard, tablet):
notebook
architecture:
x86-64/amd64
does it have a free boot firmware (BIOS,UEFI,...) ?
no
can free operating systems be installed?
yes
does the device prevent installing wifi cards not-approved by the vendor?
no
year of commercialization:
2010
compatibility with free software:
C-silver 
tested on:
gNewSense 3.0 Parkes
Parabola GNU/Linux
Trisquel 4.5 Slaine
tested with the following kernel libre:
3.2.6-1-rt
3.7.1
video card model:
nVidia GeForce GT335m + GMA 4500MHD (works with 3D acceleration)
wifi model:
Broadcom 4353 802.11 ABGN (it works)
webcam model:
unknown (it works)
Description:
GPU offloading to the nVidia GPU works with bbswitch and bumblebee with the free nouveau driver. Additionally, you can choose to use the nVidia GPU at all times in the BIOS, however, it has a huge impact on battery life. Bumblebee and bbswitch are suggested in order to get the full battery life, otherwise the nVidia GPU is always running and the fan kicks on more than it's supposed to (it barely ever kicks on to begin with).
Stock wi-fi card requires non-free firmware to operate. I've replaced it with an Atheros card (AR9285) and it works just fine without non-free firmware. Progress has been made and the Broadcom 4353 802.11 ABGN is now operational under brcm80211(brcmsmac on some debian-based systems).
Stock bluetooth card works perfectly without non-free firmware.
Changing the AlienFX lighting is not yet supported by a libre program, however, it is not mandatory. Changing the AlienFX backlighting does not work "Out of the box" on any distribution I know of, however a GPL'ed solution is available here https://code.google.com/p/pyalienfx/ from this gentleman. It is very straightforward to install and configure and I have encountered no trouble with it.
Other than that, everything else works perfectly with a libre GNU/Linux distribution.
- CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo SU7300 1.3 GHz
- GPU: nVidia GeForce GT335m + GMA 4500MHD
- RAM: 8 GB DDR3-1066
- HDD: 120 GB Intel SSD
- Screen resolution: 1366x768
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