Is this a linux compatible notebook?
 

I just received a notebook I ordered from amazon but before I even open the box I wanted some opinions. I know I should have done this first but, well no excuses.
It's a HP stream

Here are the specs:

Anything to worry about?

From my personal experience, those specs should work just fine. However, WiFi can give you a hard time.

What is it about the wi-fi? I have trouble with wi-fi on my laptop even though my card is supported. I don't want to have that problem again.

The most common wi-fi issues I've seen (and read about here) seem to involve Realtek or Broadcom chipsets; I've dealt with Broadcom, but not with Realtek. They generally are not insurmountable, but they can be annoying. Intel wireless usually works just fine.

What's the wireless chipset in the machine? (The lspci command should reveal that information.)

I have a realtek wireless chip in my dell which is currently being repaired. When I get it back I'm going to install debian. I've done my homework and i think the easiest is to install with the non free version.

Anyway thanks for the input.

bsth123,

Two relevant links:
http://peterdoggart.com/computing-it...-hp-stream-11/

http://thepurdman.com/install-galliu.../#.WMruq0ekJpQ

antiX is Debian-based and has automatic enabling of most Broadcom drivers:
http://antix.mepis.org/index.php?title=Main_Page

antiX FAQs:
http://download.tuxfamily.org/antix/...FAQ/index.html

Extract:

Foundation
Debian Stable "Jessie" (8.6), upgraded by ongoing backports
Xfce 4.12.2
core antiX systems
Automatic enabling of most Broadcom drivers
UEFI installer (64bit)

I am on the verge of sending this notebook back but I thought I'd see if anyone could help first. Everything I've read says that linux can be installed on this notebook but I am having problems trying to get it to boot from the usb thumb drive. I used rufus to create two bootable thumb drives. One for gparted live and one for kubuntu.

I followed the directions I found to access system bios. I changed the boot order but it still booted into windows 10. I did some more research and it said to enable legacy which I did. I'm using usb 2.0 thumb drives but I don't know if that makes a difference. Anyway I'm stuck.

Any suggestions?

Hi...

If you're looking to use Linux only, one idea would be to send it back and instead purchase a system in which Linux comes preinstalled. This is one way to ensure that all of the hardware is supported. Here are three companies that offer such systems, although there are others out there... :)

https://zareason.com/Laptops/

https://system76.com/laptops

http://www.emperorlinux.com/

Regards...

yeah it does not specify state which WIFI card it is. so yeah look out you might have to do some finagling to get that to work. Other than that it looks good to me.

Well I found the solution for the wi-fi but I finally just gave up.

I have a dell that is supposed to be completely linux compatible and I installed two different distros and didn't have any problems with them. But my laptop had other problems that are hardware related and still under warranty so I sent it back but I would rather have a different laptop but that is not an option. I just can't warrant spending more money on another laptop. I hope once the harddware issues are resolved I'll have better luck with it. thanks for the input.

My Stream 11 (2GB RAM) seems to like Ubuntu-Mate. For some reason, I couldn't get the touchpad working for me with Fedora. My Stream came with Windows 8.1 on the 32 GB eMMC; I upgraded to Windows 10. Ubuntu-Mate currently runs off a 64 GB mini flash drive I keep plugged in the USB 3.0 slot. It's also possible to run off a card in the SD slot, but the boot loader has to go on the eMMC as my Stream won't boot off the SD card. Wifi card is Realtek RTL8723BE; no problems there.

Pretty much all streams use either the RTL8723BE that the Dr. has, or the BCM43142. The Broadcom is annoying, but the broadcom-sta (wl) drivers work fine with it. I had a Stream with the Broadcom drivers and was able to run Debian stable, Debian Stretch, Arch, Mageia, and Fedora on it with only minor issues (and another machine to download the drivers to on everything but Mageia, which at the time included them in their live USB).

My problem was that no matter what I didn't I couldn't get it to boot from usb and I've done this before when I was re-installing windows for someone else. I sent it back for another hp with two usb 2.0 ports and I have a 2.0 optical drive. It's due today. It's an HP also. I thought I'd try kubuntu first and if that works fine. I'll try debian next.

As I just posted elsewhere - You can usually replace the mini pci-e wifi adapter with something supported. However some vendors' laptops use a hardware whitelist, which means that you can only replace with a handful of supported devices.

Touchpads can also be a difficult proposition as synaptics usually 'work out of the box', but other brands may just be treated as a ps/2 mouse and may need more manual configuration.

It's difficult for anyone to say your hardware works, without having used exactly the same themselves, so I would have to second ardvark71's suggestion and just get something pre-installed.

As I mentioned earlier my dell is being repaired and I don't when I'll get it back and it is compatible. I have also gotten good advice on what to put on an old thinkpad. I got a really good deal on this notebook since I purchased it through amazon and I applied my points. Worst comes to worst I put windows back on it and give it to my daughter and she can use it for school. But as I've mentioned before several times before I want to be challenged so I can learn. If everything were easy I should have just stuck to windows, :)