Good evening gang,

I just purchased a HP Pavilion DV8000/DV8110US Notebook from Circuit City for my development work and now I'm thinking about installing a 64-bit Linux on it. HP, in their infinite wisdom, thought that installing 32-bit Windows on a 64-bit machine made sense; and neutered my machine's performance in the process. Therefore rather than pay the Microsoft Tax again to get the 64-bit version, I'm going to go with Linux.

So anyways, I'm going to list off my hardware here as completely as I can, and if anyone can give me advice as to which distro would suit my needs best and any issues I am going to run in to installing this stuff, please let me know.

-HP Pavilion dv8110us
-1.8Ghz AMD Turion 64-bit CPU
-1.25 GB DDR 333 SDRAM
-80GB Hitachi HDD
-Broadcom Gigabit LAN
-Broadcom 802.11b/g Wifi (MiniPCI)
-ATI Radeon Xpress 200M w/ TV and VGA out (dual monitors would be ideal)
-AC97 Winmodem (would be nice if it worked but not life-or-death)
-The built-in laptop panel is a 1440x900 17" Widescreen LCD

Now I did boot up the 64-bit Ubuntu Breezy Live CD (after much headache) and it didn't recognize either network card (wired or wifi) so I can't really use that. Any other advice? I'd like to use Debian if I can so if anyone has Debian-specific info, that would really help me out a lot.

Thanks a bunch!
-Nick

Debian runs great on my AMD64, but I couldn't honestly say the XPress 200 is a breeze to install. Works fine as long as you don't grab the latest kernel until there are some compiled modules around. Xorg 6.9 Vesa drivers give good screen density. I think Broadcom is generally a problem.

All 64-bit distros are a bit experimental at this point. If you want OpenOffice, you have to set up a 32-bit chroot (whatever that is). I have Debian on my laptop, too (32-bit) so I reserve the AMD 64 for 64-bit programs. It is VERY fast., and 64-bit processing is the wave of the future. I say, 'Get in on the ground floor.'

I'm actually considering replacing the Broadcom wifi card with the Intel Pro/Wireless 2915ABG Card. I can get it for about $30 from Amazon. Does anyone know if this card would work better?

Also, I've had experience with SuSE, and my webserver even runs on it so I'd definitely be OK with using SuSE on this machine if Debian won't be doable.

Thanks
-Nick

Hi nickj6282,

sorry, I am new to this forum, so I am not allowed to posts URL to other sides... If you are interested in any further info please contact me.....

I have the dv8000z, I am running Gentoo amd64 on it and I am rather pleased! I have summarized my experiences here at the gentoo-wiki, "Gentoo on HP Pavillion dv800z"

It seems that you have a slightly different hardware selection though. Could you please post the output of lspci?
Might help identifying which module you need to get the LAN card running.

The Broadcom will need "ndiswrapper" + 64bit Windows BRaodcom drivers. Again, it would be good to know which model you actually have in your machine. Generally, ndiswrapper seems to do a good job, even under 64bit, but if it doesn't work then there isn't anything you can do about it!

Which brings me to your last post: I actually did end up buying a different WiFi card (Atheros, but I also played with an Intel). In principle this isn;t a problem, however, the HP Bios has a whitelist of device numbers that prevents the usage of arbitrary WiFi cards in their laptops. Ususally the whitelist covers all cards that you can buy from HP for that specific laptop model. Otherwise, you can either patch the BIOS (that's what I ended up doing following a description in the net), change the device id under linux, or do some soldering on the mainboard.

So, I would recommend that you first try out the ndiwrapper. If you don;t have the 64bit Windows drivers, try the one listed at the linuxant.com webpage.

/Levent

Lede,

I'd definitely be interested in taking a look at the page you described. I'm guessing that this is it here: http://gentoo-wiki.com/HARDWARE_Gent...vilion_dv8000z. But if not you can post a URL by doing something like this: http:// www. example. com/path/to/content.htm.

Anyways, I'll look that page over and see what I can see. I've never used Gentoo before, but I know that it's not like installing other Distros.

Thanks for the info!
-Nick

Hi Nick,

thanks for the tip. Yee, you guessed the webpage right. Well, Gentoo is certainly different when it comes to the installation, but your problem isn;t really ditro specific.

Is there any progress on your side in getting the network cards running?

/Levent

I have exactly the same computer.
I give detailed instructions on loading Fedora Core 5 on this Laptop at my site at partha dot com


HTH,
Partha

From what I can tell, the DV8000 (I have the DV8210US)
is decent on linux, though installing the Vesa compatible Xorg seems to be the better bet.
I have succesfully installed Fedora Core 5 on my laptop and it worked nicely (though it was the 32 bit edition) and got NDISWrapper up and running by using their howto off the sourceforge website (the NDIS install howto wiki... atleast i think)
I am exceedingly pleased with Suse 10.1 and like the smoothness, but the install was somewhat of a headache. I recommend doing the standard Suse Install, but you will run into issues with the ATI 200M video card drivers. If they donot work you can do what I did and simply boot into safe mode (Init 3) and use ATI's install howto off their website.
I am not a guru, but I enjoy linux so much so on the nice 17 inch screen, I find myself running Linux almost exlusively
(Though I do admit I bought a 2nd HDD and put it in the 2nd HDD slot... w00t )
Hope this helps,
RZ

Hey all!
I have a DV8210US laptop.
AMD 64 Turion 1.8
1Gig Ram
This is how I got it to work in Ubuntu, and this guide applies to that setup, not other distros (though it may help in other distros, possibly)
The standard configuration seems to be the norm. I have the ever so not loved BCM43xx Wifi Broadcom card, but have succesfully got it working, not just with Fedora, Suse, but also in Ubuntu (which was by far the fastest).
This uses Automatix2 (which will be covered in the guide below)
IT IS NEEDED TO HAVE A WIRED CONNECTION TILL COMPLETED (Recommended)
IMPORTANT NOTES (Encourage reading): This is how I did this in Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty (64-Bit)
These are the steps I took, and the commands for the terminal have a $ before them.
(SIMPLY HIGHLIGHT, COPY AND PASTE AFTER THE $ SIGN)(Eample: $ sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf)
sudo prompts you usually only the first time in the active terminal for your password.

Now on with it.



FIRST: Open a terminal window (Applications >> Accessories >> Terminal)

type in:

$sudo rmmod bcm43xx

(it should prompt for password)
This step removes the module from being active (from memory? I am not sure)


SECOND: Blacklisting the module.
We do this to prevent the module (driver)from being loaded every time the computer initializes linux.

$sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

(When gedit (text editor) opens, insert this line near the top with other like entries. Specific line DOES NOT matter).

blacklist bcm43xx

After you click save, close the program.



THIRD: Paranoia! (Intermediate Skill Recommended) (Beginners may be able to skip this)
Reference for step: Due to I had problems in the past with FC6 (Fedora Core 6), I do this step to help.

Why delete what you are not sure you need?, so I just rename it (using mv)

In the terminal, type:

$ cd /lib/modules/2.6.20-16-generic/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/bcm43xx
$ sudo mv bcm43xx.ko bcm43xx.ko.old

Important note! it might be best to hit the Tab key when you get to /lib/modules/ due to you may have more then one kernel. It is HIGHLY recommended that you goto your most current one (being if it is a 2.6.20-15-generic or a 2.6.20-16-generic, choose the latter)

---------------------------------------
IMPORTANT! (EVERY ONE MUST DO THIS!!!)
Next type in (in terminal window)

$ sudo depmod -a

---------------------------------------
I would bookmark this page in firefox, then reboot your system (if you are doing this from this tutorial now).


FOURTH: Lets get Automatix!

Automatix2 makes your life easy as an Ubuntu user, and is simply great, but if you live in the Unites States, it is not legal to enter the DVD decryption due to this may break laws.

Note: We are not covering this, but simply using a tools it provides (ndiswrapper) due to this is a faster, graphical frontend that you seem to only have to point and click.

goto this link found at http://www.getautomatix.com/wiki/ind...t_Installation

Choose specifically which of the versions you have, and download it. The simple method is that firefox should select a default program (GDebi) which is fine to run with.
If running it with GDebi doesen't work, download it to your desktop, minimize your window, and RIGHT CLICK and install by selecting "Open with "GDebi Installer", which (might) prompts you for password.

Let the installer do it's thing, and once successfully installed, goto System tools in your Applications Menu (Applications >> System Tools >> Automatix) which might ask your password (yet again). Automatix2 Asks a yes or no question (about the DVD libraries mentioned at the beginning) which I click No (it will still proceed with some warning about stuff might not be initiallized etc etc.)

The window pops up for Automatix, then goto Drivers, and in the right window select (check the box) NDISWrapper, then click "Start" button in the Automatix window to begin. It might take a sec (depending on connection, but seems to be pretty fast. Once done, close the window.

FIFTH: Get & install driver

Now, we need to download a program that makes life easier.
Type the following in a terminal:

$ cd ; sudo apt-get install cabextract -y ; mkdir ndis ; cd ndis

This returns you to your home directory (/home/(your username)), uses apt-get to install the tool (cabextract), and then makes a directory to keep the files we will be extracting for your WiFi card.

The driver I use seems to work fine is the Windows XP (32-bit) with no issues. Mine is found at this link (go down a little till you see the download link. If you download it, save it to /home/(your username)/ndis or if you havent, type the following:

$ wget ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp33001-33500/sp33008.exe


Next, we need to extract the files, by typing:

$ cd ; cd ndis ; cabextract sp33008.exe

Now, you goto System in your upper task bar (System >> Administration >> Windows Wireless Drivers) which should (yet again) prompt you for your password.
It will pop open a window "Wireless Network Drivers".
Click on "Install New Driver", select the "Location: None" in the "Select inf File" window, goto your ndis directory, and then click the bcmwl5.inf file (if not named the same, look for a .inf file, which (in my experience) there is only one).

My Wifi Light usually promptly lights up with a blue light, and *POOF*, the mythic WiFi dilemma is solved. Goto connection manager, left click it and (if there are any near by) you should see networks available. I usually look to disconnect my wired connection, then select the WiFi network of choice and surf!.


Hope this helps all!
RZ