After getting this laptop just two weeks ago, I have had nothing but trouble with it so far under Gentoo linux in native x86_64 mode. Let me count the ways I hate this laptop (or myself for being an insufficient linux kernel hacker):

1) ACPI / IRQ hogging issue seems to be due to a hardware flaw of a timer pin internally being set incorreclty (no idea here). This causes eth0 to fail after a few minutes and system needs ot be rebooted due to running out of IRQs. You may notice an hda error in dmesg or /var/log/messages when this happens. I had to resort to genkernel to get this problem to go away (avoided - not resolved).

http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.p...783&highlight= http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.p...994&highlight=

2) Touchpad is not working. No idea whether it is currently supported or not. I have also failed to get my USB mouse working under 64 bit native mode, even though 32 bit mode worked fine.

3) The internal onboard Broadcom 4306 b/g wireless does not seem to have any drivers for 64 bit mode. NDIS wrapper seems to be futile as well.

4) Xorg is having trouble with the official "nvidia" driver, and it fails to load because of an issue with GLX, even if I take it out from xorg.conf. The "nv" driver also has problems with GLX, but even worse, if you get Xorg up and running it kills the ability to get back into a console by using CTRL + ALT + FX, since the refresh never seems to get back to normal all you have is a garbled screen. VESA is the only thing working thus far...

Info seems to be scarce on this laptop. It is my hope that someone will try running linux on this thing other than me, have the same issues, and see this thread. Be sure to send me an email when you do or post a reply so that I can see your frustrations or resolutions as well!!!

Kristian Hermansen

Hi khermans,

I'm posting this from SuSE 9.1 Pro AMD 64 on a zv5270us!

I'm a faithful Gentoo user as well, but I have a business reason for having installed SuSE 9.1 Pro for AMD 64 on my zv5270us. I do have a third boot of Gentoo 64 on it and my usb mouse and the touch pad work just fine. True, we're out of luck on the 802.11g wireless for now. The driver is 'closed source', and will have to be reverse engineered before we have the joy of 802.11g.

My hurdle for now in both SuSE and Gentoo is power management. SuSE is stuck at 800MHz, while Gentoo is stuck wide open at 2200 MHz. Needless to say I don't run Gentoo much yet, for fear of an overheating situation.

I've seen no evidence of the IRQ problem you mentioned, my 8139too seems to work fine as a module in Gentoo. Although I've only used it for about 40 to maybe 60 minutes at a time whille installing Gentoo. I use it for hours on end in SuSE.

The nVidia driver installed fine under both, the biggest challenge there was hunting down a 1280x800@70Hz modeline. 1024x768@60Hz 'stretched' to fill the screen, but was far less then optimum. It made my eyes hurt...

I built Gentoo from an Athlon 64 Gentoo install iso, and just did a stage two for expediency. I figured the default settings ought to be fine as a starting point. As it happened the 2.6.8-gentoo-r4 was the current 'dev sources' kernel and I was lucky enough to only have to build it the one time

I haven't updated the Gentoo side at all yet, just concentrating on getting power management nailed down in the little bit of spare time I can spend searching out solutions. I believe powernow with a proper dsdt would go a long way in that department.

I'll email you a copy of my Gentoo xorg.conf. That should go a long way to straightening out some of your issues but the mouse and ethernet issues have me wondering what you bulit. I'll spark up my desktop and see what I actually started from for sure. I'll include that information in the email as well.

Regards,
--glenn

I'm glad to hear someone has got it working! Here's a link to my relevant configuration files for perusal:

http://www.ht-technology.com/temp/linux/

Can you send me copies of your config files? ESPECIALLY YOUR .CONFIG FROM KERNEL 2.6.8-gentoo-r4 ???? That would be the MOST HELPFUL..1.1.THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU...

Also, the xorg.conf file would be nice and anything else like lsmod output and such. Check my link above, tell me what else I should upload there to help uot, and then send me any configs you think would help me. I would be willing to send you a little extra cash for the expedited effort since I have been grueling over this for the past two weeks :-) Thanks so much...

Kristian Hermansen

Kristian,

I'm glad to help. I don't know that I actually have acpi turned on in the kernel I built, but I'll be glad to send you my config files. I must have because the battery and temp monitors in gkrellm are working. That's the whole idea of open source is to help one another out, we're a lot more powerful as a group.

I'll email the config files as soon as I tuck my daughter in.

--glenn

It seems that the .config file yo sent me was auto generated? Was that because of a previous problem with your first manual compile? Is this one you sent me a genkernel compilation? We should work on the ACPI thing, because I think that is the issue I am having in my manual kernel configuration build. Hrmm...your Xorg config also doesn't have the 1280x800 profile resolution...how did you get that working?? Thanks so far :-)

Kristian Hermansen

Nope, the kernel config was not auto generated. I just didn't modify the 'default' that heavily, I guess I got lucky there.
The xorg config has a 1280x800 modeline, it looks like I just hadn't put the proper specifier in the screen section. Thanks for pointing that out, just change the resolution on the screens.

<edit>
Nuts, it's still not picking up the 1280x800 ModeLine after calling out 1280x800 in the screens section. SuSE is running XFree86 and picks it up fine. I'll have to work on that after the daily drudge (work). Although setting up a SunFire 280R server is more fun that I am usually allowed at work. Even if I'm stuck w/ Solaris 8...

I'm going to finish installing Gentoo as well, my cpu seems to stabilize at about 53C in Gentoo which is acceptable. Oh yeah!, it's a dog running SuSE @ 800MHz

Time to get headed for work...
</edit>

Yes, the ACPI configuration needs work. I hate running the thing wide open when I'm just doing email or browsing.
If we work together we ought to be able to get them dialed in.

Thanks,
--glenn

Is there a command line tool that you can use to return a string of the current CPU usage, load, speed, heat? I have always used the Gnome applet bar plugins, but that is graphical. There must be a command line too out there too, and these GUI ones probably depend on them...lol

Don't worry dude, we'll get this thing nailed and figure out the APIC stuff if we have to call HP ourselves!!!

Kristian Hermansen

While trying to us your .config file, I encounter the errors:

Warning! Found recursive dependency: UNORDERED_IO UNORDERED_IO
#
# using defaults found in .config
#
' invalid for LOG_BUF_SHIFT8
make[1]: *** [menuconfig] Error 1
make: *** [menuconfig] Error 2

Any ideas on these? I tried these on kernel dev-sources 2.6.8-gentoo-r5, so I will try -r4 just to be sure its not an -r5 issue. I will let you know on the xorg.conf and if it works or not.

BTW, you seem to have ACPI already in the kernel - what problems were you having with it? Did you set the AMD64 specific power flags in the kernel to allow for userland frequency scaling and power management? I'll try that too and see how it goes...

Kristian Hermansen

UPDATE: linux-2.6.8-gentoo-r4 still had the same error message when using make menuconfig. I fixed the problem by changing the line: CONFIG_LOG_BUF_SHIFT=18 to CONFIG_LOG_BUF_SHIFT=14, since this is how genkernel had picked it for me previously. I can now properly run menuconfig and change options via th interface. I will try using it under -r6 as well...

Could you also send me a copy of your /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6 file? I have your modules listed, but I'm not exactly sure which ones you explicitly threw in there to make it work and if some depend on others etc... Thanks ;-)

Kristian Hermansen

Ok, after some hacking, things are up and running but still having issues.

My touchpad still does not work! And I still cannot use my mouse at all :-( Do we have different models? If you emerge dmitools, you could issue the dmi command to see exactly what model yours is. Is it exacty a zv5270us or a 52xx model? It would be helpful to get the dmi queries checked to see if we really do have the same model and revision laptop. I'm stil stumped, and I don't know where to go from here since I have copied pretty much your exact configs and I'm still having issues - although the nvidia kernel loads fine now thanks :-) I'm still lost on this....

Kristian Hermansen

Hey Kristian.

The only thing I can figure on the kernel is maybe not doing a make clean beforehand, or some patch was messed up when one of us downloaded the dev-sources kernel. I've noticed a fair bit of patch activity when downloading a dev-sources kernel from Gentoo.

Double check that package for dmitools please I've searched high and low and can't find anything. You'll make me feel like a dumd baboon, sure as ... but oh well and yes it's supposed to be an honest to God HP Pavilion zv5270us,

I haven't taken any time to mess with oxrg.conf yet re: the 1280x800 configuration, but get this. I know I booted over to Gentoo, with pretty much nothing but xorg, fluxbox, and gkrellm installed beyond the 'base' system to double check that the touch pad actually worked before I told you it did. I swear to God I know I did, well the GD thing isn't working now. Weird... The usb mouse is fine though.

There's no command line temp, etc. monitoring that I know of, but the information is available to all in the /proc/acpi tree. I tried a root-tail on some of then, but that's a) for gui, and b) for a file that grows like a log file.

I'm compiling a bunch of the Gnome stuff right now, I mostly use Gnome apps in fluxbox. The temp hasen't gone over 72 or 73C that I've seen, that's still pretty danged hot though. That's from a steady state CPU bouncing from 99-100%, which fortunately it don't do all that long or that often.

I did do an lspci I'll send you in a few minutes, it looks like my compile is almost done...

--glenn

Package seems to be DMIDECODE. Try that instead. Our lspci output appears to be identical.

Also, I have been using gcc 3.4.2 instead of 3.3, since it is going to be the new standard and it is supposedly more compatible for 64 bit compilation. Let me know what you are using. Also, can you get your touchpad working again? I cannot make it work. Is there any way I can clone your whole environment so that it works on my end, lol??? I just want to be up and running before I go into the hospital for surgery next week, because I may be out of commission for a while :-{ If I could just use the configs that would be fine, but it doesn't seem to make a difference! I'm very confused...indeed

Kristian Hermansen

Sheesh, finally! This LCD is killing my eyes w/o 1280x800

The same mode line from xorg.conf (the 70 Hz one) works fine w/ XFree86 under SuSE. It griped about the horizontal freq being out of range w/ xorg under Gentoo. I don't get it.

I hope your surgery isn't too serious, that's no fun even if it's really minor. At least being sedated kicked the crap out of me, yuck... I hope you are able to get it nailed down before you have to go in. Oh, and gcc is 3.3.4 I'm probably lucky it works at all.

dmidecode will be in the mail in a sec...

--glenn

Hi Kristian and Glen,

Great to see that others are trying to put linux on this laptop. I also have the zv5270, and I have installed debian on it. X works fine, including the touchpad. I'm using the XFree86 nv driver that comes with debian.
the ethernet card also works fine.

The problems I have with it are:

1) PCMCIA:
memory error when pcmcia starts:
cs: warning: no high memory space available
The result is that my two cards (standard pcmcia modem, and a NE2000 pcmcia ethernet card), which have given me no problems on other linux laptops, doesn't work on this machine. Have any of you got pcmcia to work?

2) The modem is a softmodem. is there any way to get to work on linux?

3) A minor problem is that after I exit x-windows and return to shell, I get a lot of flicker, making the shell unusable. How do I prevent that.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Lars.

Yeah, I ran into the same exact problem with th nv driver. I would speculate to say that the driver does not properly reset its display mode of the hardware and that is causing the scrambing, i have seen it first hand on mine too when doing CTRL + ALT + F1 from within Xorg. Both Glenn and I have been wondering why Xorg is now working even after having proper configuration files. We can't get the native 1280x800 resolution working (so it's just 1024x768 stretched right now). That kinda sucks.

About PCMCIA, i think it is yenta compatible so load that module. I havent tried any devices in it yet, but I'm sure I will soon. I dont receive the error that you get though when the modules load.

No idea on the modem either. You can try using the nvidia nforce drivers for the mobo (i use gentoo and they are supposedly in portage). That might work wont it? Anyways, let me know if you get wireless working either. Seems to be no hope for it yet :-( Of course, we are both running native amd64 and refuse to revent to 32bit native!!!

Kristian Hermansen

PS - I am back from the hospital now and trying to hack my box back together and get it working!