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.