HP Notebook and Linux

Mhhz, long time ago since my last post.
OpenSuSE Linux now is running smoothly on the notebook. Although the KDE soundsystem sometimes complains about a not working soundcard (but it's working without further problems after this message).

The hardware did cause troubles, though. The lit touch buttons partly didn't work and I had it picked up and returned by HP for repair. They replaced the entire keyboard unit and it was returned within 5 days from Germany.
Still the keyboard locks up regularly and lately the touch buttons didn't work. But i'm not sure whether this is caused by hardware or Linux drivers.

But some other good news for Linux users:
I tried Windows 7 for a while, just to conclude that a M$ product isn't finished before Service Pack 1 is released, so i wanted to get back Vista. Today there's no way of 'installing' Windows, there's just one option called "recovery". Fortunately in case of HP this means formatting drive C: and leaving alone the other partitions which means my Linux install was unharmed (except for the usual removal of the Grub bootloader).

And something other:
I'm living in a house together with some other people (living in their own room) and recently the one owning the internet connection moved out. So i had to order a new connection, but the provider (Telfort) needed between 3 and 6 weeks to reconnect ADSL. so i used my Nokia N79 for a while as a modem. with Vista it's just a matter of installing Nokia software, but also using Linux modem drivers it became possible. I will show here soon.

Just a last tip: I recently ordered this marvelous anti-glare screenfoil for my laptop. This foil is often selled for mobile phones only, but searching a bit i found an internation company (BT Notebooks) offering 17" wide screen dimensions for €25,-

I will post some more posts soon about above items.

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Quit using nufoto.nl

Since www.nufoto.nl started to block external linked images and doensn't offer any kidn of template for legal linking, i quit using images from this site. This is sad because the user uploaded images are great to view with some english explanation.

I will look for other nice content to put here.

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OpenSuSE on HP dv7-1010ed part 2

Finally things start to work flawlessy on this laptop.

Well, it did work quite nicely already, but there were some highly annoying issues with it.

First it was the sound which didn't work out of the box. With the help of the downloaded en compiled most recent source files of Alsa and with a setting of 'model'=hp-m4 i got it working. A few weeks ago i noticed that this extra setting wasn't needed anymore.
I haven't tested all of the features of the soundcard, yet. Recently i experienced that the speakersound wasn't switched of when plugging in a headphone.

Another mayor problem for a long time was that when X was restarted the driver crashed and only produced garbled mess on the screen. This also means that i couldn't log off and log in as another user. I had to restart the computer.
This seems to be finally solved with the newest Catalyst driver 9.4.

Wireless network had some issues in the last months: I'm using Networkmanager-applet KDE4 and applet for KDE3 at the same time. Mostly because the KDE4 applet wasn't very stable. Several times i installed an update and then i had to put back the older version for de Networkmanager AND both applets.
All tree had to be exact the right version (or better said: same repository).
I'm still using source files from the most recent madwifi-hal, but i'm not sure if this is still needed.
But since i use a custum build kernel i can't use the modules shipped with OpenSuSE 11.1.

And last but not least: Suspend. it worked almost perfect, except for the fact that i couldn't use a keyboard or touchpad anymore. Luckily the on/off button shuts down the computer cleanly which i used frequently to restart the computer after trying resume. I created a little script in /etc/pm/sleep.d/ to reinit the ps/2 port which made the keyboard working, not the mouse.
But now with a recent bios update (F.43) this seems to be finally solved and i don't need that script anymore
It's definitely worth checking for updates since i have seen about 4 updates since i bought this laptop.
Unfortunately you need Windows to install these updates.

Several minor things might be fixed, yet.
Not all touch buttons work.
The laptop feels a bit hot when working with it. Maybe some intelligent battery-loader or powersaving hardware is not working under Linux.
I have to test Compiz, which doesn't seem to like ATI cards
I want to connect with my Nokia N79 mobile phone
etc.

So in the end: Was it a good idea to put Linux on this laptop. Well, i think yes, but not on a very recent computer model, because it will take time before drivers become stable and working. i bought this laptop in october and initially i had very bad hope i would have luck with this one. But it turned out that this type is quite popular which means there are soon good opensource drivers.

And Vista on this laptop isn't perfect either: touch-buttons don't work, touchpad moves sluggish and i can't use the 64-bit capabilities because it came preinstalled with 32-bits Windows.
This Windows Vista is worthless anyways: The computer comes without installation disks but with a crippled Windows Install sytem on the recovery partition. As far as i know there's no way of reinstall Windows from this partition without entirely wipe Linux from the harddisk. Vista is outdated anyways, because Windows 7 is already coming up. I'm afraid major companies will soon leave Vista and leave driver development.
I'm wondering how much i have payed for this unwanted Windows Vista :S

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OpenSuSE on HP dv7-1010ed

And now for something completely different ...



Recently i bought a new laptop, of course with Windows Vista preinstalled.

But i wanted to put SuSE Linux on it. I don't like M$, and i'm using OpenSuSE for some years now as main OS.

On my job i still work with Windows XP, but when i take my laptop i also can have Linux.


My laptop is a HP dv7-1010ed
dual-core 64-bits AMD Athlon processor on 1.8GHz
2GB memory and 250gb hard disk
17" screen

Linux version is 64-bits OpenSuSE 11.0, installed from downloaded and burned DVD.

For taking it to my work i have a lovely Golla sleeve for it and a pink laptopbag :)
When at home it's secured with a Kensington lock.

First i tried the live CD of OpenSuSE (it is version 10.3) which didn' t look very promising;
Because of ACPI troubles it didn't even boot. Unfortunately, the 11.0 version didn't boot either after install.
Using a kernel parameter entirely switching off ACPI i could boot into the OS.
Next problem was that the network drivers din't work, neither the wired, nor the wireless card.
Both had to be installed with updated drivers from internet, which is a bit difficult when you don't have a working network connection.
But after getting the wired connection work, i could download all the updates which solved mostof the ACPI troubles.

Keep an eye on this article because I wil describe here how i got things working (or not yet).
About compiling my own custom kernel, one of the reason was to make both 64-bits AND dual core working.
About compiling the wifi-driver from SVN-sources
About getting it on the Microsoft LAN on my job
About compiling an DSDT
etc.

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Forward with that goat !

A lovely line up of Dunglish, dutch sayings forcebly translated to english
Dunglish is a word for Dutch English, poor english spoken by dutch people with poor knowledge of english. Dutch football coaches are notable for this kind of english, in dutch named 'Coal english', but also several ministers are known for there bad english when speaking for an international audience.

These are literally translated dutch sayings, in several cases very literal.
Like "Driving the spot on english", meaning "make fun of english" because 'spot'(verb) is making fun of somebody.

Forward with that goat!

(i know, my english isn't very perfect, either ;) )

Anyways, when you're on that board you might also like this nice thread:
Counting with images

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My home

Have a look at the place in Hilversum where i'm living.
I'm living with several other people in a single house with shared kitchen and other shared facilities. Not like an idealist community, but because it's the only way to find a living space when you're new in a town and only have a moderate income.

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Flying train ?

Schiphol Airport Express ? Railroad to Heaven ?


No, just an accident with a train. The train is hoisted while waiting for a new boogie to arrive. Nobody got hurted, by the way.

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