Good distro for HP Pavilion ZV6005US ?

I recently bought a Compaq R4010US, apparently the R4000s are similiar to the HP Z6000s. It came with XP Home, I installed FC3. I'm a Slackware fan, but I figured I'd get more hands on with RH/FC since RHEL is the big backoffice Linux and they run RH in our Linux classes at school.

It has an ATI Radeon xpress 200M, 1200x800 15" widescreen, DVD+-R/RW/CDRW, Broadcom wireless G, Realtec 8139 series 10/100, touchpoint mouse and a Semperon 3200.

The keyboard does nada under any distro of Linux (Knoppix and Slax live CDs, Slackware and FC3 install CDs) *until* I firmly press the left SHIFT key and then it works normally.

The touchpad didn't work in anything but Slax. After installing FC3 using an external USB mouse, I was able to get it to work by manually loading psmouse via modprobe in rc.local and using settings for xorg.conf from a search here. Now it works better in Linux than in Windows because I can tweak the settings for good sensitivity and get the scroll (there are yellow lines on the edge of the pad that are virtual horiz/vert scrollwheels) to work. In Windows the scroll just changes the mouse pointer but I don't use the feature much so I haven't looked into why, it's probably from me yanking a bunch of the stock HP stuff out of windows startup.

The wired NIC originally wasn't working in FC3, but was in Slax and Knoppix. What it would do was initialize normally, report no link and not send any packets out to the network. After first trying the updated 2.6.11 kernel RPM with no change, I built a custom kernel from the 2.6.11 source RPM and somehow without changing any of the 8139too compile time options, that made it work.

The Broadcom wireless has absolutely no Linux support, but fired right up under ndiswrapper, using the windows driver softpac from HP. It's a little flakey sometimes on reboots, especially between win/linux reboots, and does a nice hardlockup if you try to rmmod ndiswrapper, but otherwise it's workable.

There is a built in ATI chip winmodem that apparently uses atiixp-modem since I can modprobe that, but I haven't looked to see if it needs anything else or tested it yet.

My USB flash drive works without me having to do a thing, sound automatically came up with the right ALSA modules and the DVD+-RW/CDRW combo drive burns CDs (I haven't tested DVDs yet) but I haven't played with the built in cardreader or firewire or even PCMCIA although the right yenta module autoloads so I imagine that would work.

Now for the kicker...To get most install or live CDs to work I had to force 1024x768 resolution with boot options. It won't do 1280x800 using the xorg vesa driver. The xorg ati driver says my chipset isn't supported and won't even load X. The propriatary ati driver off the main Linux page at ATI also says unsupported chipset and I searched their site and found a fglrx_something RPM that claims to be for the 200M but it too complains about unsupported chipset and fails. Of course, HP has half of richard for information about Linux on any laptop they sell and ATI's site says check with your OEM about onboard mobile graphics cards...

The keyboard thing is obviously a BIOS issue, but I don't expect a fix from HP any time soon. The mouse thing could probably be fixed in the BIOS too, or in the hotplug scripts or kudzu or whatever it is that is supposed to autoload the right modules, but I'm not savvy enough to want to look into it since it works with a manual modprobe. I'm a little depressed about the broadcom needing ndiswrapper and if it weren't bundled in I'd never buy a broadcom anything just because of their lack of care for Linux. The ATI thing is the most obnoxious though, my P2/400 firewall box gets a better glxgears score and I suspect even if/when ATI changes their propriatary driver to support it, the 200M will be a pathetic Linux game chip, just like it's a pathetic windows gaming chip.

Hi Guys,

I have just bought the HP zv6009EA and managed to put Fedora Core 4 on it no problem. I have got everything but the graphics card to work so am now having to run linux on 800x600 which isnt too bad.

The touch pad didnt work, so i just plugged a usb mouse in. Also the Wireless card didn't work, so i used ndiswrapper and the windows drivers to get it up and running, so now have wireless internet

Fedora Core 4 rules, just waiting for the graphics drivers now hopefully anyday.. wish i had the knowledge to be able to write driver files.... where do people learn this stuff?

BenBot

Originally posted by BenBot Hi Guys, I have just bought the HP zv6009EA and managed to put Fedora Core 4 on it no problem. I have got everything but the graphics card to work so am now having to run linux on 800x600 which isnt too bad. The touch pad didnt work, so i just plugged a usb mouse in. Also the Wireless card didn't work, so i used ndiswrapper and the windows drivers to get it up and running, so now have wireless internet Fedora Core 4 rules, just waiting for the graphics drivers now hopefully anyday.. wish i had the knowledge to be able to write driver files.... where do people learn this stuff? BenBot

I have a hp zv6000. I tried installing FC4 final. With the linux vga=771 option the display goes haywire after the setup. I tried linux nofb and nothing happes and stalls at loading /sbin/loader. Any suggestions? How did u get it to work?

Nevermind the previous question. I realized that I was working with an external keyboard and that was the problem. Got FC4 setup and its working smooth. The display is stuck at 800x600 though. Audio is working out of the box and so is ethernet. Got to setup other stuff now.

Originally posted by OneSeventeen So far, Ubuntu seems to be the closest to working on mine, but the biggest problem is stupid ATI not being open source friendly.

Hi there, have you successfully make Ubuntu working on your lappy? I have the exact same problem with Ubuntu 5.04, system freezes when Gnome splash screen starts. I really appreciate someone can help me!

I have a question. I just installed FC4 x64. All the commands such as modprobe, insmod, ifconfig etc are setup as scripts. I need to run them with the './'. How do I get them to work as commands.

Has anyone checked this link out?

https://support.ati.com/ics/support/...ge&folderID=27

Originally posted by hr_phenom Has anyone checked this link out? https://support.ati.com/ics/support/...ge&folderID=27

If you're running Fedora, a better bet is to set up livna as a repository and use yum to add their versions of the ATI drivers. They keep them current with the shipping FC kernel. They do the same for some other useful stuff like ndiswrapper, the NTFS drivers, etc.

Originally posted by hr_phenom I have a question. I just installed FC4 x64. All the commands such as modprobe, insmod, ifconfig etc are setup as scripts. I need to run them with the './'. How do I get them to work as commands.

change shell to cshell or tcshell, then all scripts will work as commands.

Do you know how to fix the fast clock problem with FC4 x86_64? DaveatFraud said to pass the parameter no_timer_check at boot? How to pass it? and in which file? Do I need to do any kernel patching before it?

Originally posted by trainee Do you know how to fix the fast clock problem with FC4 x86_64? DaveatFraud said to pass the parameter no_timer_check at boot? How to pass it? and in which file? Do I need to do any kernel patching before it?

To try it, reboot your system and hit the escape key when grub says its going to boot your default kernel in a few seconds. This takes you to the grub boot menu. Select the kernel you would normally boot with the arrow keys and hit "e" for edit. Add the string, " no_timer_check=0" (without the quotes) to the end of the line and then hit enter. The parameters are blank delimited so leave a blank between the string you add and the rest of the line. This takes you back to the grub boot menu and then hit "b" to boot using the same kernel but now with the modified boot parameters.

If you're happy with the result, edit the file /boot/grub/grub.conf to add the, "no_timer_check=0" option. Updates appear to bring this forward so you don't have to worry if you install a new kernel.

Cheers

Thanks. I'll try the trick
I have one more question:
I was able to make the wireless work. But I don't know how to make it permanent. Instead of having to type
#modprobe ndiswrapper
and configure it everytime I boot.

Originally posted by trainee Thanks. I'll try the trick I have one more question: I was able to make the wireless work. But I don't know how to make it permanent. Instead of having to type #modprobe ndiswrapper and configure it everytime I boot.

I think the switch is "ndiswrapper -m" to modify your modprobe.conf file to automatically load ndiswrapper at boot. Check the README for ndiswrapper.

There are a number of ways to configure the wireless card. I have at least three different network configurations (home wired, home wireless and work wired) so I set up some shell scripts to let me pick which way to connect. Before I went the shell script route, I remember running across at least one howto for Fedora that works for the "just wired" or "just wireless" case. Hit Google and see what you can find since I had to set up the shell scripts to mess with routes and with vs. without DHCP.