| Linux Laptops Home |
Last updated: Sep 10 2007
General Hardware Specifications of HP dv2415nr:
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Hardware Components
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Status under Linux
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Notes
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| AMD Turion64 x 2, 1.8GHz | Works | No special procedure required during installation. |
| 14.1" widescreen 1280x800 (12" x 7.5") | Works | No special procedure required during installation. |
| NVidia C51 [Geforce 6150 Go] | Works | No special procedure required during installation. |
| 1G RAM | Works | No special procedure required during installation |
| 160 GB/5400rpm | Works | No special procedure required during installation |
| No Floppy Drive | None | N/A |
| Integrated wired ethernet (using 'forcedeth.ko') | Works | No special procedure required during installation |
| Internal Modem | Have not tested | Probably won't be tested |
| Lightscribe 8X DVD +RW with double layer support | Works | No special procedure required during installation |
| 802.11b/n WLAN | Untested (but it shows up in Networking) | I don't trust WLAN (security), so I won't be checking it |
| 6 cell lithium ion batt | Works | No special procedure required during installation |
| Blue Tooth | Untested (but dmesg(1) shows it recognized it) | I don't use bluetooth and don't trust it (security) |
| Audio card (I don't know the type) | Works |
No special procedure required; it plays default boot/login sounds |
This laptop is operating under Kernel version 2.6.20-15
Chose Ubuntu because I've heard of its easy of use, and witnessed it while installing on another AMD workstation. I've used redhat + fedora for years, first time I've tried Ubuntu. Looks nice, and easy setup. No weirdness at all.
Downloaded the x86_64 DVD image of Ubuntu 7.2 from their website. You can boot right up with the single DVD straight into a working linux GUI without any human interaction needed, before you even install it on the hard disk!
No special steps were needed -- I went default all the way, and everything seemed to work fine; see 'What Works' below.
Audio works fine; default boot/logout sounds (Ubuntu's bongo drums and 'ahh' login sound all sound fine through the notebook's speakers.
Install recognized correct settings for graphics/monitor/mouse/ethernet.
USB seems to work fine; I plugged in a thumbdrive, and after a few seconds, a filebrowser appeared surfing the thumbdrive's contents.
When I run 'halt' it shuts down and turns itself off automatically.
Audio 'touchscreen' volume seems to be automatically recognized; when I wipe my fingers along the black strip above the Scroll/NumLock key, a GUI volume indicator appears and goes up and down as I slide my finger.. cute! Also the mute touch button works. The play/rewind/dvd/replay buttons seem to do nothing currently, but they do make a little beep when I push them.
From the output of dmesg(1), I noticed the OS recognized the machine's 'video capture' capabilities (it says "Linux video capture interface: v2.00'). Not sure what that means.. I probably won't be using it.
I changed the networking from DHCP to a fixed IP, nameserver, router, and internal domain name. No problems it seemed.
One thing odd about the default Ubuntu install: no /bin/csh. That's a first; unix without a csh?
Also: can't login as root from the console login window, even though I've set a password for root, and can 'su - root'. It says explicitly "The system administrator is not allowed to login from this screen", which seems like an odd 'out of the box' config for the console login screen to disallow root. FWIW, I can login as root via the Ctrl-Alt-F1 text screen just fine.
Pushing the power button briefly does nothing.
If I hold it down for about 5 seconds, it does an unclean shutdown + reboot.
Usually a brief push puts the box to sleep.. or it did with the default Vista install.
None yet.