HP Pavilion ze4430 Laptop

These are my experiences with getting the above mentioned laptop to run the Linux OS. Specifically, I am trying to get Knoppix/Debian to work correctly. For more Linux on laptops, please visit TuxMobil - Linux on laptops, PDA's and mobile phones.

I will post these really soon...

• Kernel config
• X config
• PCMCIA config

Installation Notes

I've heard that to install Linux on this laptop, you must pass the "nopcmcia" argument when booting the kernel. Otherwise the screen tends to freeze. However, if you're like me and just do a Knoppix hard-drive install (knx-hdinstall) then you shouldn't have any problems.

Ethernet

This laptop comes with an integrated ethernet card (National Semicondcutor BP83815/16 "MacPhyter II"). Once you have Linux installed, you should be able to use the "natsemi" driver to connect to the network. However, I found that the Knoppix Live CD couldn't connect to the network even when using the "natsemi" driver. So I downloaded the manufacturer's driver and compiled it for my kernel. Afterward that the Knoppix Live CD could connect to the internet. Note however that after I did a harddrive install, I could use the natsemi driver just fine.

PCMCIA

This laptop comes with one PCMCIA slot. I've only been able to get PCMCIA cards to work with the 2.6.x kernels. Specifically, I have been able to get the Linksys 802.11b cards to work with the orinoco drivers. Although the 2.4.x kernels do recognize the PCMCIA slot, it locks up the computer whenever an actual card is inserted. Note I had to exclude a butt-load of IRQ's to get this thing working with the 2.6 kernels. Someday I will upload my pcmcia config file for everybody.

Wireless

The ze4430 also comes with an integrated 802.11g card that uses Broadcom's 54g chipset. Up until recently, there was no way to use this card with Linux. Linuxant has just released an NDIS wrapper driver for the 2.4/2.6 kernel that uses the Windows driver. As such, you need access to some Windows files. Also, it seems that you have to pay $20 to use it. I have been able to test this driver on both my home network and school network and it works great. There is also an open source project called "ndiswrapper" to make wrappers for the NDIS drivers. I have heard though that it works for the ze4430, so I'll have to check it out sometime.

Graphics card

The laptop comes with a Radeon Mobility 7500 (IPG U1) with 64 mb of shared RAM and a TV-Out svideo port. Using atitvout I can see everything on the tv or lcd (thanks to Sean Hickey for the tip). I can also use the external VGA using the atitvout program, although these days that port seems to be on no matter what I do. I have been able to get 2D accleration working using some replaced radeon modules, but no luck with 3D. IGP support is pretty experimental at this point and I don't think X 4.4 will solve the problem. If you want 3D support you'll have to patch your own version of X. Perhaps the Xorg people will be quicker to integrate 3D support if we all emailed and protested :)

DVD/CDRW

So far this things has worked without a hitch. If I use the scsi emulation everything works as expected. If I use "ide-cd" instead, cdrdao complains about not knowing what to do (this has recently been fixed). If you don't use cdrdao, then you'll be ok. I haven't been able to time how quickly this machine burns an entire CD yet, but it seems to be pretty zippy. I can also watch DVD movies just fine using ogle or mplayer with 2D acceleration.

Touchpad

Currently I am using the Synaptics touchpad driver with the XFree86 4.3 module. The touchpad tends to freeze when I close the lid of the laptop, but otherwise seems to be fairly stable.

ACPI

With ACPI in kernel 2.6, I can check the temperature and battery life. With a patch that tells the kernel to ignore the cpuid, I can even do some frequency scaling to cut back on speed and power. I can even the turn the brightness up and down using the Fn+F1/F2 keys.Suspend to RAM doesn't work as far as I know. The computer goes to sleep fine with "echo 3 > sleep" , but then when I press the power button the computer turns on for about 5 seconds and then just shuts off *shrug*. I suspect it has something to do with reinitializing the VGA bios (it always does). Also, I can't seem to turn on the external VGA using the Fn+F5 key. It will turn on if an external monitor is connected when you powerup though.