| | Introduction
| | As far as size, weight,
and power are concerned, this HP is a nice compromise between usability
and portability. It is fast and Ubuntu works almost like a charm. The major
drawback of this HP? Its "nice bronze color" makes the keyboard
unreadable under most illumination conditions. Concerning Ubuntu: some
problems with the internal microphone, brightness keys, and poor dialup support.
|
What
Works and What Doesn't
| Here is the result of lspci:
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Memory Controller Hub (rev 07)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset PCI Express Graphics Port (rev 07)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 03)
00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 03)
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 03)
00:1c.5 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 6 (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #6 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev 93)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation ICH9M LPC Interface Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation ICH9M/M-E SATA AHCI Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 03)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation GeForce 9300M GS (rev a1)
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller (rev 02)
03:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 5100 AGN [Shiloh] Network Connection
Results
using Ubuntu 8.10 i386:
The
kernel is 2.6.27-11-generic.
| 2
processors | Yes |
|
| Ethernet,
Wireless | OK |
|
| Bluetooth |
Detected |
Not tried |
| Modem |
1/2 OK |
Using driver from
linmodems.org; poor
user interfaces for dial-up;
PPP connections still unstable
|
| Sound |
OK | |
| Microphone |
1/2 OK |
External microphone only |
| Graphic
card | OK |
Using NVIDIA drivers |
| External
display | OK |
Using NVIDIA X Server
Settings (System->Administration) |
| Webcam |
YES! |
Tried with Skype |
| Touchpad |
~OK |
Tapping
and vertical scrolling; no
horizontal scrolling |
| USB
devices | OK |
|
| Fn-Fx
Keys | 1/2
OK |
Volume,
WiFi kill, and media keys (start/stop,
>>, <<) work (!); brightness and mute do not work |
| Suspend,
Hibernate |
OK | |
|
Before starting
| Be sure to prepare Vista
recovery disks first!
If you don't, then in case of trouble you may have to pay for
restoring the system. Recovery disks can be made with Vista's
Recovery management utility.
Second, shrink Vista's main partition (there may be a second, smaller
partition for restoring the system in a faster way - when possible)
using whatever utilities M$ and HP give you. If you shrink the main Vista
partition with a Linux partitioner, Vista will not boot anymore.
In my system, partitions can be changed with Vista's Disk Management
utility that... is not linked to any menu. I looked for "partizioni" in
the (Italian) user guide, and found the manual of the utility that -
fortunately - had a link to the utility itself.
From that point on, what you see and do is similar to what is described here.
For some unexplicable reason, the partitioning
utiliy refuses to shrink the main partition below about 120Gb, even if
the actual memory used is less than 30Gb
| Modem (thanks to linmodems.org)
| The internal
modem is an Agere softmodem. There exist Debian/Ubuntu packages for
older kernels; I decided to follow a manual procedure: - Download dkms-agrsm_2.1.80-5_i386.deb from here and install it with the package manager (to launch it, just double click on the downloaded file's icon)
- type: sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/dkms and add the following two lines (without the small circles) at the end of the file:
- install
agrserial /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install agrmodem ; /sbin/modprobe
--ignore-install agrserial && test -e /dev/ttySAGR || ln -s
/dev/ttyAGS3 /dev/ttySAGR
- remove agrserial /sbin/modprobe -r
--ignore-remove agrserial ; /sbin/modprobe -r --ignore-remove agrmodem
&& { if test -L /dev/ttySAGR; then rm /dev/ttySAGR; fi } ; true
- type: sudo gedit /etc/modules and add the following line (without the small circle) at the end the file:
- Restart the system
Then
you have to choose a tool for dial-up. Ubuntu 8.10 does not
support dial-up through the Network Configuration utility anymore
(Ubuntu people: Why are you doing this to us?). Usually wvdial
is the suggested dial-up tool. In my case it is not satisfactory,
because it does not handle correctly PAP authentication. Eventually, I
had to resort to the following programs:
- pppconfig for configuring my account(s). The modem is not seen automatically, I had to set the modem port manually to /dev/ttyAGS3
- gpppon to start/stop connections
- plog to read a connection's status
NOTE: according to the reference Linmodems' web pages PPP connections are still unstable and more work is needed on the driver.
|
| External display
(projector)
| | The display switch key (Fn 4) works, but it does not automatically change resolution. The best option for my needs is the Twin
display option in System->NVIDIA X Server Settings (after
installing NVIDIA's restricted driver). |
| Graphic card
(NVIDIA GeForce) |
Use
System->Administration->Hardware Drivers and activate
NVIDIA's recommended driver.
| Piero A.
Bonatti |