linux on hp nx7400

[heikrnen]

Hello,



I recently added a laptop compatibilility report for my brand new
nx7400:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LaptopTestingTeam/HPnx7400



Pretty much everything works now except power management.



Installing

==========

* before starting the XP installation I booted from Unbuntu Dapper CD
and made a backup image of the HD into external USB Hard Disk, because
the nx7400 does not come with XP CD:s or DVD:s. I followed this
procedure http://linuxweblog.com/node/236 except the nx7400 disk is
/dev/sda, not /dev/hda, also I had to use ext3 on USB HD to store image
file since it took 15 gigabytes when compressed with gzip and the FAT
limits the file size to 4 gigabytes.

* Completed the XP Installation

* made XP recovery DVD:s

* Booted from Ubuntu Dapper CD again

* Repartitioned the drive with Ubuntu installer



* shrinked the XP NTFS -partition to 16 GB

* removed the recovery partition

* created an extended partition (sda2)

* created an ext 3-partition (16 GB) for / (sda5)

* created a swap partition (4 GB) (sda6)

* left the rest unpartitioned (data + other Linux distributions)



When I continued the installation wizard the Dapper installer did not
see the just created partitions correctly. I went back and forth
between the partitioner and the volume selection list without any
results. I used fdisk from a command line, but it did not help either.
I rebooted into XP and it seemed to be alive after partition resize.
Booting again from CD to start Dapper installation and this time the
partitions were seen correctly by the root (/) and swap partition
selection phase.



Rest of the installation went without any hassle. Grub was installed
and XP added into it automatically.





Works out of the box

====================

* Sound (also hardware buttons for volume control)

* Wifi Intel Pro Wireles (works with my WEP encryption enabled WiFi
router, also signal strength applet works without problems)

* Bluetooth (succesfully received/sent files to/from Nokia E70)

* Wired ethernet

* USB

* Touchpad (also scroll zone)

* Display cover switch (activates screenlock)

* 3D accelaration (I haven't verified this with any heavy applications
yet)



Almost out of the box

=====================

* FireWire

Tested with Kino and a Sony DV camera. Only thing I had to do
was to give permissions for /dev/raw1394 (sudo chmod 777
/dev/raw1394)

* Second processor core works after installing i686 SMP kernel from
ubuntu repositories



Needs some tweaking

===================

* native LCD resolution (1680x1050)

I installed 915resolution as described in the
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/i915Driver except 915resolution was
not run at the startup. 



I soved this by making a file:

"/etc/init.d/local":

--------

#! /bin/sh

915resolution 50 1680 1050 32

---------

and add it to startup scripts

sudo update-rc.d local defaults 12



Does not work (yet)

===================



* Full processor speed (I now get 1.3 GHz of 1.83 GHz when I run heavy
apps)

* Battery monitor applet does not show the real battery status

* Hibernate, sleep and other power save features don't seem to work
very well yet. Needs some testing and googling around.



Well, that's it. I will make updates to the wiki page when I progress
with the "does not work" section.



Heikki


-- 
heikrnen