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Linux Laptop

Aug 2007 HP Laptop Running Gentoo Linux

HP Pavillion dv6575us Laptop

Laptop hardware inventory
Item Description
System Intel Core2 Duo 2Ghz T7300 Centrino, 800Mhz FSB
RAM 2GB PC2-5300 677Mhz (No additonal free slots)
Video nVidia GeForce 8400M GS 128MB onboard video, up to 895MB Shared
LAN Realtek RTL8101E PCI Express Fast Ethernet (Gigabit)
Disk Controller Intel SATA AHCI Controller
Hard Drive Toshiba MK203GS DK02 200GB SATA-150 4200 RPM Hard drive
Optical Drive Matshita Lightscribe DVD-RAM UJ-851S ATAPI DVD+/-RW, CD+/-RW
Sound Intel 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03) - Realtek ID 268 Codec
TouchPad Alps Touchpad with scroll
USB USB 2.0 EHCI Controller (3 Ports)
Wifi Intel 4945AGN Supports a/b/g/n protocols
Webcam Chicony Electronics Co., Ltd USB Webcam (04f2:b015)
Fingerprint Reader USB AuthenTec, Inc. (08ff:2580)
Media Readers Ricoh Co Ltd R5C822 (SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro) Reader
Firewire (1394) Ricoh Co LTD R5C832 IEEE 1394 Controller
Screen Active Matrix LCD TFT 1280 x 800 15.4in 16:10 Widescreen

PCI Information

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile PM965/GM965/GL960 Memory Controller Hub (rev 0c)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile PM965/GM965/GL960 PCI Express Root Port (rev 0c)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Contoller #4 (rev 03)
00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 03)
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 03)
00:1c.5 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 6 (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev f3)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801HEM (ICH8M) LPC Interface Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) IDE Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) SATA AHCI Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 03)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation GeForce 8400M GS (rev a1)
02:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 4965 AG or AGN Network Connection (rev 61)
06:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8101E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller (rev 01)
07:09.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Ricoh Co Ltd R5C832 IEEE 1394 Controller (rev 05)
07:09.1 SD Host controller: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Host Adapter (rev 22)
07:09.2 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C843 MMC Host Controller (rev 12)
07:09.3 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C592 Memory Stick Bus Host Adapter (rev 12)
07:09.4 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd xD-Picture Card Controller (rev 12)

USB Information (no external devices)

Bus 002 Device 003: ID 04f2:b015 Chicony Electronics Co., Ltd 
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000  
Bus 007 Device 001: ID 0000:0000  
Bus 006 Device 002: ID 08ff:2580 AuthenTec, Inc. 
Bus 006 Device 001: ID 0000:0000  
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 0000:0000  
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000  
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 0000:0000  
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 0000:0000

Gentoo Linux Installed

Installed from Gentoo LiveCD 2007.0

Worked out of the box:
  • Gentoo Linux, Kernel: gentoo-sources-2.6.22
  • Video: nvidia-drivers-100.14.11
  • Xorg: xorg-server-1.3.0, beryl-0.2.1
  • DVD/CD: xine (xine-lib-1.1.7) and k3b-1.0.3
  • Hard Disk Driver: Intel ACHI
  • Gigabit NIC: Realtek r8169 driver
Needed external drivers/patches:

Useful Gentoo Tips

A few things will greatly help with laptops. First, add acpi to your use flags. This enables several features such as the battery monitor for gnome panel. Second, emerge acpid and set it to run by default. (rc-update add acpid default)

Power Control

This processor supports frequency scaling. To enable support, select these options in the kernel config.

CONFIG_CPU_FREQ=y
CONFIG_CPU_FREQ_TABLE=y
CONFIG_CPU_FREQ_STAT=y

CONFIG_CPU_FREQ_DEFAULT_GOV_PERFORMANCE=y

CONFIG_CPU_FREQ_GOV_PERFORMANCE=y
CONFIG_CPU_FREQ_GOV_POWERSAVE=y
CONFIG_CPU_FREQ_GOV_USERSPACE=y
CONFIG_CPU_FREQ_GOV_ONDEMAND=y

CONFIG_X86_ACPI_CPUFREQ=y

CONFIG_X86_SPEEDSTEP_CENTRINO=y
CONFIG_X86_SPEEDSTEP_CENTRINO_TABLE=y

CONFIG_X86_ACPI_CPUFREQ_PROC_INTF=y

All of the performance profiles worked on kernel 2.6.22. The gnome CPU Frequency Scaling Monitor is built when ACPI is enabled when gnome-panel is built. The battery monitor also is included in this package.

Suspend works by pressing FN-F5. F5 has a moon picture on the key as the second function. To resume, press the power button.

Onboard HD Audio

The onboard audio is an Intel HD Audio ICH8 Family card. While the alsa driver in Linux 2.6.22 does detect and appear to run with the snd_hda_intel driver, no sound comes from the speakers. The patches for Alsa are already out but not in the main kernel trunk yet. Until then, use a patched external module driver. For Gentoo, emerge alsa-driver-9999 and patch with two files found in the below non-Gentoo Sources section.

cat /proc/asound/cards 
0 [Intel	]: HDA-Intel - HDA Intel
		   HDA Intel at 0xf8500000 irq 23
head -n5 /proc/asound/card0/codec#0 
Codec: Realtek ALC268
Address: 0
Vendor Id: 0x10ec0268
Subsystem Id: 0x103c30cc
Revision Id: 0x100003

Onboard Wireless

While the drivers for the 4965 are in portage, they cause a kernel panic on 2.6.22. Until I have more time to diagnose the problem, I'm using a USB Wifi adapter. Listing these as non-operational for now. To try for yourself, USE=4965 emerge ipw3945 iwl4965-ucode. Please note that my system would kernel panic within seconds after boot due to the kernel auto-loading the driver. So test with caution.

Update Jan, 2008

Updated drivers, iwlwifi with USE=4965, works without problems on 2.6.22.

DVD Playback

After installing Xine/Mplayer, I found that DVD playback would not work giving a permission error or message about the incorrect libraries installed. After I verified the libraries existed, I checked around and found out the drive was not set for any region. Simply emerge regionset and set for the correct region. For the US, region 1. The DVD playback worked great. One word of caution, as the tool will warn, you can only change the region five times.

DVD/CD Recording

My burning software of choice is K3B. Tested and worked without issue on DVD-R, CD-R, CD-Audio.

Webcam

The built-in webcam on the top of the screen will work, but needs a module not currently in the 2.6.22 kernel. Emerge linux-uvc, then run modprobe uvcvideo. This will provide you with a V4L2 (/dev/v4l/video0) interface to the camera. Currently I've only tested with luvcview, and found the camera to work at 640x480 at 25FPS.

Multimedia Keys

The light keys above the keyboard need to be remapped before they can function. To find the keycode for a unknown key, run xev and look at the code when the key is pressed. Then using xmodmap, set the keycodes to known XF86 keysym. These are the keycodes I use below. Place them in /etc/X11/Xmodmap.

keycode 144 = XF86AudioPrev
keycode 162 = XF86AudioPlay
keycode 153 = XF86AudioNext
keycode 164 = XF86AudioStop
keycode 160 = XF86AudioMute
keycode 174 = XF86AudioLowerVolume
keycode 176 = XF86AudioRaiseVolume

Non-Gentoo Sources