HowTo: Ubuntu Linux on HP Pavilion series laptops
1. Choosing the right flavour of Ubuntu Linux
Many of you may be wondering whether or not you should install the 32-bit or 64-bit version of Ubuntu Linux. Since all recent HP Pavilion laptops support 64-bit, you will get the best performance 64-bit Ubuntu.
64-bit version of Ubuntu
- maximise CPU performance. All Pavilion CPUs support x86_64 instructions.
- maximise RAM memory management. This is particularly useful for virtualization.
- maximise addressable memory space (if you have more than 3Gb RAM installed you could access the upper memory only with 64bit OS or the 32bit one with -server kernel [which although has its own drawbacks])
- some third party closed source proprietary drivers do not have any 64bit support
- some devices have unstable support, including internal modem (check paragraph for details)
32-bit version of Ubuntu
- maximise software and drivers compatibility. Every program is compiled at least for x86_32.Workarounds exist that allow these programs to run on 64-bit operating systems, but they require tweaks to be setup.
- maximise memory space (since shorter addresses need less memory – generally speaking 64bit is better for those who have big amounts of RAM, however it is worse for those who have small amounts of RAM (<1Gb)
- cannot use more than 4Gb RAM space
If you want your operating system to just work out of the box or you are new to Ubuntu/Linux, I would recommend 32-bit as you will not have to fix these issues, this would not affect system speed and in any noticeable way.
Get your Ubuntu Linux from here: http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu
for daily built development and unstable/unsupported snapshots:
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/ for graphical installer and Live CD
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily/current/ for text mode automatic installer
Some users advised against burning with Windows integrated burning utility since it prevents the bootable flag. Instead use a third party burning program. Any other burning program should work, however I suggest using Free Open Source Infra Recorder. Further burning tips available here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BurningIsoHowto
2.Boot into Ubuntu Linux CD
Choosing between the LiveCD or the AlternateCD:
- AlternateCD uses a terminal-style installation method that allows for more flexibility on installation, but no live system would be available. On the other hand it can provide a very simple recover menu (e.g. to restore Ubuntu if it disappears from the boot menu or you messed with packages and nothing more works)
- Live CD enables you to setup Ubuntu via a pleasant and simple graphical setup wizard and to run a fully functional OS live from CD/DVD which is also very handy for accessing a damaged installation/partition.
I would suggest LiveCD, unless you need the AlternateCD for a more complex installation, you prefer the terminal-style interface, or you do not succeed booting LiveCD.
Note on problems booting the system
This applies only if boot hangs or fails, Ubuntu 7.10 onwards should however boot perfectly well on these platforms!
a) At the GRUB menu press F6 then add “break=top” and boot. The system will eventually stop booting prompting an initramfs shell. Here write down modprobe piix and then exit.
(after completing setup login and open /etc/initramfs-tools/modules here add a new line with word piix then save and in shell type update-initramfs -u reboot)
b) alternatively you can press F6 at the GRUB menu and try one or a combination of these parameters:
Try booting with the “acpi=off” kernel parameter. This will disable ACPI support. If the error is the same with acpi enabled and disabled, this may not be an ACPI issue.
If “acpi=off” allows the system to boot, try to isolate the ACPI issue with the following boot parameters in order to save the most features your ACPI can grant you (disabling it completely should be avoided since it plays an important role on powersaving and suspend management on nowadays laptops).
- Try booting with acpi=ht
This disables all of ACPI except just enough to enable Hyper Threading. If acpi=off works and acpi=ht fails, then the issue is in the ACPI table parsing code itself, or perhaps the SMP code. - Try booting with pci=noacpi
This disables ACPI for IRQ routing and PCI scanning. - Try booting with acpi=noirq
This disables ACPI for IRQ routing. - Try booting with pnpacpi=off
This disables the ACPI component of the aLinux Plug and Play code. - Try booting with noapic
Disables the IO-APIC for IRQ routing or PCI scanning. - Try booting with nolapi
Disables the local APIC
NOTE: Only adding ‘noapic’ to the boot parameters has been reported to disable the USB ports. Only adding ‘nolapic’ has been reported to prevent the NVIDIA driver from loading correctly. However use of both ‘noapic and ‘nolapic’ is not know to cause these problems. Also if you use “IRQPOLL” or “IRQFIXUP” along with “noapic” will enable usb support. Feedback on this would be appreciated.
3. Installing Ubuntu Linux
Note: drives are in ‘sd**‘ format because these laptops use SATA hard drives (ie sda1 sda2 sdb1 ecc)
Note: if you want suspension to work you MUST set a swap partition equal or bigger than your RAM memory.
Related posts:
- Linux Power Saving Tweaks for HP Pavilion laptops
- Call for enabling HP Pavilion internal softmodem
- Ottimizzazioni per il Risparmio Energetico per portatili HP Pavilion su Ubuntu Linux
- [EN] Configure HP Pavilion QuickPlay multimedia buttons in Ubuntu Linux
- Guida per Ottimizzare Ubuntu Linux sui portatili HP Pavilion
- How to update ALSA to latest version easily
- Ad Hoc Wireless Networking in Linux
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Thank you very much, Aldeby, for this great collection of tips! I found it after solving almost all problems in 9.04 and wished that I had found your site much earlier.
One hint for the suspend/hibernate chapter: I run a dv9500 with the most recent BIOS, but after a clean install of 9.10, the machine hung while trying to hibernate. There are two more solutions to this topic, one is to use the package “uswsusp” instead of the default pm-utils. The other is to list modules (mostly wifi) to unload before suspending or hibernating. Google “SUSPEND_MODULES” or have a look here:
http://www.ubuntugeek.com/fix-for-suspend-and-hibernation-problem-for-laptops.html
Best regards,
Uwe
i runed the script setup_alsa and it gets to a point where it says “Choose the mode which best fits you” but when i type my prefered number and i hit enter doesnt do anything.am i doing something wrong?
Makis, why don’t you use an utility like meld to compare the original and your customized script to highlight all the differences (and eventually the mistakes)?
In the audio section, sudo apt-get install linux-backports-modules-alsa-karmic should be sudo apt-get install linux-backports-modules-alsa-karmic-generic.
This site saved my 9.04 + 9.10 ubuntu installations on my HP dv 7 (3165dx) notebook. Thank you! I just did a clean install of Ubuntu 10.04 LTS and everything works perfectly: sound, front audio jacks, wireless card, web cam, etc. I hope this helps If your considering upgrading.
I confirm my flawless upgrade to 10.04 from 9.10 – on the 6th of May 2010 – kra20kra!
Thanks for this wonderful website that helped in the first place, when I doubted about buying this machine for Linux.
So I guess HP should be thankful as well…
Charlot
I’m happy to read your feedback CharlesdArvay!
By the way I haven’t heard a word from HP yet.
They seem way too busy making profit to even bother understanding what the opensource approach is!
Thanks for your detailed site. I look forward to delving in to it. My initial task however is to install 10.04 Server on a Pavillion notebook using an external monitor as the LCD screen is not working. The external monitor initially shows the cdś loading progress and then the screen is completely black. When the off button is pressed the external monitor again details the shutting down process. Is there some way of seeing what is occurring through the whole process? Thanks for any help that can be offered.
Hi Darren!
As far as I recall the external monitor would switch off when the video driver takes control of the video card. As long as is the BIOS controlling both internal and external screens are enabled. You should then be able to enable the external screen from within the driver settings.
But I guess your laptop has a broken screen…
Basically I would suggest you to install the operative system in text only mode (so that you would benefit from the BIOS controller and be able to use the external monitor) and not forget to install SSH support so that you could access via network cable your install. Now it would be fairly easy to enable the external monitor by configuring your laptop driver ( /etc/X11/xorg.conf for instance).
Linux newbit who installed the newest version of Linux Ubuntu 10.04 on my HP Pavilion dv6000 Laptop. Both my wired and wireless connections do not work. Thank you for your help.
Below is the output of sudo lshw -C network
*-network
description: Ethernet interface
product: MCP67 Ethernet
vendor: nVidia Corporation
physical id: a
bus info: pci@0000:00:0a.0
logical name: eth0
version: a2
serial: 00:1b:24:8c:7b:fa
size: 100MB/s
capacity: 100MB/s
width: 32 bits
clock: 66MHz
capabilities: pm msi ht bus_master cap_list ethernet physical mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd autonegotiation
configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=forcedeth driverversion=0.64 duplex=full latency=0 link=yes maxlatency=20 mingnt=1 multicast=yes port=MII speed=100MB/s
resources: irq:27 memory:f6488000-f6488fff ioport:30f8(size=8) memory:f6489c00-f6489cff memory:f6489800-f648980f
*-network
description: Network controller
product: BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN
vendor: Broadcom Corporation
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:03:00.0
version: 02
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list
configuration: driver=b43-pci-bridge latency=0
resources: irq:19 memory:f6000000-f6003fff
*-network DISABLED
description: Wireless interface
physical id: 1
logical name: wlan0
serial: 00:1a:73:84:5e:66
capabilities: ethernet physical wireless
configuration: broadcast=yes multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bg
It seems your hardware is supported. Have you had a look at System -> Administration -> Hardware Drivers to see whether your computer needs restricted drivers?
By the way I find it suspicious to read: *-network DISABLED
If you have installed the default packages and had not modified any file inside /etc by hand you should at least be able to connect via ethernet. Check right clicking on the Network Manager applet if you can tick Enable Networking.
[...] [...]
Broadcom also offers closed STA drivers for those chipsets that aren’t yet covered by the b43 driver. Their compiling instructions are pretty distro-inspesific, I found it easier to connect the laptop to a wired connection and install the same closed driver offered by Ubuntu.
http://www.broadcom.com/support/802.11/linux_sta.php
Thank you for sharing your suggestion Neva!
I’ve added it to the tutorial. Have a nice day!
Hi Aldeby, it’s me again.
This time with an addition to 7. (Touchpad):
Under 9.10 as well as 10.04 I had problems with the touchpad after disabling it with the touchpad’s “on/off”-button. Re-enabling did not work, although the button’s light changed from off to on. Restarting X or rebooting did not work, either.
Cause: The gnome-settings-daemon interferes with the Synaptics touchpad driver and saves the “off” state forever.
Remedy: Run “gconf-editor”, navigate to “apps”-”gnome-settings-daemon”-”keybindings” and change the value of “touchpad” to “” (empty string).
Source: Ubuntu Bug #549727, https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-input-synaptics/+bug/549727/comments/103
Best regards,
Uwe