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Fedora 8 on HP Pavilion dv6650ee

Linux On Laptops

I recently moved to 64-bit hardware with the purchase of HP Pavilion dv6650ee laptop. This was a cool buy considering the hardware that comes with it. Check this out.


Configuration
Notebook: HP Pavilion dv6650 ee
Processor: AMD Turion 64x2 Mobile technology TL-64, 64-bit, 2.2GHz
Processor cache: 512KB + 512KB level 2
Memory: 2GB
Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS, 64-bit, 16 stream processors, 400MHz Core speed, 128MB dedicated
Video memory: Upto 338MB
Sound: Altec Lansing speakers, 3D soundblaster pro compatible sound, 16-bit integrated
Hard disk: 250GB, 5400 rpm
CD/DVD: Lightscribe super multi-DVD writer with double layer support
Display: 5.4" WXGA (1280x800)
Modem: 56k
External Ports: 5-in-1 media reader, 3 USB 2.0, 1 VGA, 1HDMI, 1RJ11, 1RG45, 1 tv out, 2 headphone-out, 1 mic-in, 1 ieee1394, infrared
Weight: 2.8kg
Security: fingerprint
Power: 6-cell li-ion battery, would last about 2.5hours under extreme use.
others: webcam with integrated microphone, remote controller 


[root@amzone ~]# lspci
00:00.0 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP65 Memory Controller (rev a3)
00:01.0 ISA bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP65 LPC Bridge (rev a3)
00:01.1 SMBus: nVidia Corporation MCP65 SMBus (rev a1)
00:01.3 Co-processor: nVidia Corporation MCP65 SMU (rev a1)
00:02.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP65 USB Controller (rev a3)
00:02.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP65 USB Controller (rev a3)
00:06.0 Ethernet controller: nVidia Corporation MCP65 Ethernet (rev a3)
00:07.0 Audio device: nVidia Corporation MCP65 High Definition Audio (rev a1)
00:08.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP65 PCI bridge (rev a1)
00:09.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP65 IDE (rev a1)
00:0a.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP65 SATA Controller (rev a3)
00:0b.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation Unknown device 045b (rev a1)
00:0c.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP65 PCI Express bridge (rev a1)
00:0d.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP65 PCI Express bridge (rev a1)
00:0e.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP65 PCI Express bridge (rev a1)
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control
03:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM94311MCG wlan mini-PCI (rev 02)
05:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation Unknown device 0427 (rev a1)
07:05.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Ricoh Co Ltd R5C832 IEEE 1394 Controller (rev 05)
07:05.1 Generic system peripheral [0805]: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Host Adapter (rev 22)
07:05.2 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd Unknown device 0843 (rev 12)
07:05.3 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C592 Memory Stick Bus Host Adapter (rev 12)
07:05.4 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd xD-Picture Card Controller (rev 12)

[root@amzone ~]# lsusb
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 064e:a101 Suyin Corp. 
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000  
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 08ff:2580 AuthenTec, Inc. 
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
This note talks about installing and running Fedora 8 on HP Pavilion dv6650ee notebook. If you have any queries, please shoot me an email on amar_padhi@fastmail.fm. Most basic stuff like display, mouse pad, HP QuickPlay keys, function keys, audio, SD card reader, bluetooth etc. worked right after the install. Wireless, modem and fingerprint scanner as expected did not work.

Fedora 8 Desktop view
Firefox in use

Network Cards
Network cards were recognized after the installation. Check futher below on how I have configured these for usage. 
[root@amzone ~]# lspci | grep -i net
00:06.0 Ethernet controller: nVidia Corporation MCP65 Ethernet (rev a3)
03:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM94311MCG wlan mini-PCI (rev 02)
Livna repos
For legal reason, Fedora flavor does not come with proprietory stuff. Most of such stuff and many add-ons are made available by Livna repository. Configure this as one of the repos to be looked at in YUM, issue the below command as root. 
[root@amzone linux]# rpm -ivh http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-8.rpm
Retrieving http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-8.rpm
warning: /var/tmp/rpm-xfer.Bc2ihf: Header V3 DSA signature: NOKEY, key ID a109b1ec
Preparing...                ########################################### [100%]
   1:livna-release          ########################################### [100%]
[root@amzone linux]#
Bluetooth
Bluetooth device is recognized immediately after installation and functions well. 
Nov 17 14:15:07 amzone kernel: usb 2-3: new full speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 3
Nov 17 14:15:07 amzone kernel: usb 2-3: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
Nov 17 14:15:07 amzone kernel: Bluetooth: HCI USB driver ver 2.9
Nov 17 14:15:07 amzone hcid[2086]: HCI dev 0 registered
Nov 17 14:15:07 amzone kernel: usbcore: registered new interface driver hci_usb
Nov 17 14:15:07 amzone hcid[2086]: HCI dev 0 up
Nov 17 14:15:07 amzone hcid[2086]: Device hci0 has been added
Nov 17 14:15:07 amzone hcid[2086]: Starting security manager 0
Nov 17 14:15:07 amzone hcid[2086]: Device hci0 has been activated
Nov 17 14:18:02 amzone hcid[2086]: pin_code_request (sba=00:1E:37:03:CB:F9, dba=00:0D:92:06:07:FA)
Nov 17 14:18:21 amzone hcid[2086]: link_key_notify (sba=00:1E:37:03:CB:F9, dba=00:0D:92:06:07:FA)
Wireless card
This took me some time to get it running. The Broadcom wireless card is recognized by the kernel as is. 
03:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM94311MCG wlan mini-PCI (rev 02)
The PCI ID for the wlan card (lspci -n), this is required to find the exact driver for the card. 
03:00.0 0280: 14e4:4311 (rev 02)
I followed the below steps:-

RealPlayer for Media
Download the realplayer rpm from the site http://www.real.com/linux/ or from the site http://www.gagme.com/greg/linux/f8-tips.php#rplayer. Trying to install it gave me missing link for compat-libstdc++-33, so get that installed fist. 
[root@amzone ~]# yum install compat-libstdc++-33
Excluding Packages in global exclude list
Finished
Setting up Install Process
Parsing package install arguments
Resolving Dependencies
--> Running transaction check
---> Package compat-libstdc++-33.x86_64 0:3.2.3-62 set to be updated
---> Package compat-libstdc++-33.i386 0:3.2.3-62 set to be updated
--> Finished Dependency Resolution

Dependencies Resolved

=============================================================================
 Package                 Arch       Version          Repository        Size 
=============================================================================
Installing:
 compat-libstdc++-33     x86_64     3.2.3-62         fedora            227 k
 compat-libstdc++-33     i386       3.2.3-62         fedora            230 k

Transaction Summary
=============================================================================
Install      2 Package(s)         
Update       0 Package(s)         
Remove       0 Package(s)         

Total download size: 458 k
Is this ok [y/N]: y
Downloading Packages:
(1/2): compat-libstdc++-3 100% |=========================| 230 kB    00:06     
(2/2): compat-libstdc++-3 100% |=========================| 227 kB    00:04     
Running rpm_check_debug
Running Transaction Test
Finished Transaction Test
Transaction Test Succeeded
Running Transaction
  Installing: compat-libstdc++-33          ######################### [1/2] 
  Installing: compat-libstdc++-33          ######################### [2/2] 

Installed: compat-libstdc++-33.x86_64 0:3.2.3-62 compat-libstdc++-33.i386 0:3.2.3-62
Complete!
Now install the rpm package and you are set to run the application. 
[root@amzone linux]# rpm -ivh RealPlayer-10.1.0.3114-20070503.i586.rpm 
Preparing...                ########################################### [100%]
   1:RealPlayer             ########################################### [100%]


Flash player plugin for Firefox
Go to the site http://plugindoc.mozdev.org/linux.html, this has the list of plugins available for the browser. Download plugin for flashplayer and install it as root.
rpm -Uvh flash-plugin-9.0.48.0-release.i386.rpm

XMMS Player
I use XMMS player for all my audio needs. To install it issue the below command. 
yum -y install xmms xmms-mp3 xmms-faad2 gstreamer-plugins-ugly gstreamer-plugins-bad libmad libid3tag
The above was sufficent for my XMMS player to startup and play mp3 files. In a thread on Fedora forums, a user couldn't get sound working in mplayer and did the following. He changed his $HOME/.mplayer/gui.conf for the following line.
ao="pulseaudio"
He changed it to read-
ao="sdl"
Apparantly, the user had some issue with the new pulseaudio module, this is just info, incase you get the same problem

XINE Movie Player
Issue the below command - 
yum -y install xine xine-lib xine-skins xine-lib-extras-nonfree libdvdcss
After the installation, my xine playback is pretty jumpy and I am not able to smoothen it. I am working on it. At the moment I am making use of VLC to play my videos.

Acrobat Reader
The default Evince Document Viewer is good enought for reading PDF documents, I prefer using the Acrobat edition. Adobe reader 8.1 requires Mesa libGLU runtime library. If you get the below error, install the library. My step above for XINE installation also updated my mesa-libGLU library and I was able to continue with the installation.
failed dependencies: libGLU.so.1 is needed by AdobeReader_enu-8.1.1-1.i486 
[root@amzone linux]# rpm -ivh AdobeReader_enu-8.1.1-1.i486.rpm 
Preparing...                ########################################### [100%]
   1:AdobeReader_enu        ########################################### [100%]
Install TrueType fonts
Download the rpm file from http://www.mjmwired.net/resources/mjm-fedora-f8.html#ttf. Follow the instructions provided on the site to install it. Yum will also install the dependency packages-chkfontpath.x86_64 0:1.10.1-2.fc8, libFS.x86_64 0:1.0.0-6.fc8 and xorg-x11-xfs.x86_64.

Thunderbird email client
The default provided email client with Fedora 8 is Evolution, again I prefer the Thunderbird email client. Install it with the below command. 
[root@amzone etc]# yum -y install thunderbird
VLC Media Player
VLC media player supports many video formats as well as various streaming formats for internet play. As my XINE player is not functioning properly, I make use of VLC for all my media requirements. VLC is infact a pretty smooth player. 
yum -y install vlc
I also went down to http://www.videolan.org/vlc/skins.php and downloaded some skins for vlc. The file format is ".vlt", copy it to a directory and change the skin from VLC menu.

Setting Default players
The default player in fedora 8 is Totem. Do the following to set it to some other player like xine or vlc.
Go to system ->preferences -> hardware -> removable drives and media -> multimedia tab. Edit the default settings, i.e., for xine as default player, put "xine %d" for running video dvd disks.

Desklets
Use yum to install the gdesklets. 
[root@amzone gDesklets-0.35.4]# yum install gdesklets
Once the installation is through, the gDesklets menu entry will be visible under Applications -> accessories. Open the gDesklets application to install new desklets and activate them. You can download some desklets from the site http://gdesklets.de/. Here is a screenshot of my desktop.
Fedora 8 Desktop view with desklets

Torrent client
For torrent downloads a popular client like deluge is very handy. 
yum -y install deluge
Virtualization on linux
I made use of VMware player to run Ubuntu and Windows XP environment on top of Fedora 8, check out more details from the note Virtualization environment on Linux host (with VMware player) [04-dec-2007] . Brightness changes automatically
When using the function + brightness control key from the keyboard, the brightness automatically increases to 100% after some time. This keeps on hapenning even after the brightness is reduced to a certain level. Instead of using the function key to control the brightness, make use of the System -> Preferences -> System -> power management tool. Manually set the display settings for brightness here (do not use the function keys any more after this).

I will continue to update this page as I further get into more depths

Linux on Laptops

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This page was create on 02-dec-2007 and last updated on 02-dec-2007.
please forward all queries to amar_padhi@fastmail.fm