The latest version can always be found here
updated Jan. 8 2007: made FC6 version hereThe system tested is mostly a bare-bones HP Compaq Business Notebook nx6110 configuration PR124UA#ABA.
The specifics of my system are:
Here's what works, what doesn't, and what I haven't tested as of my last update (see above for last update date):
| Feature | Status | Configuration Work Necessary |
|---|---|---|
| video : basic X display | |
|
| video : 3D acceleration | |
|
| video : xv acceleration | |
|
| video : external monitor control | |
|
| audio | |
|
| CD/DVD/ROM | |
|
| 10/100 onboard ethernet | |
|
| wireless : WiFi | |
|
| wireless : infrared | |
|
| modem | |
|
| touchpad | |
|
| USB | |
|
| firewire | |
|
| PCMCIA : basic functionality | |
|
| PCMCIA : hotplug event notification | |
|
| Suspend : to RAM | |
|
| Suspend : to disk | |
Any standard Fedora Core 5 install method should work fine. Note that on the last config screen instead of clicking you sometimes have to hit the Enter key (why doesn't clicking with the mouse work here sometimes?)
I highly recommend disabling SELinux. One day it will hopefully be a transparent feature when enabled, but at present it can and does cause problems with some software.
Finally, I highly recommend following the setup notes given at fedorafaq.org, especially regarding yum repository setup.
The linux i810 driver is correctly chosen upon FC5 install. However, the screen is not detected, so you need to specify the proper screen setting on install (or afterward by bringing up Desktop -> System Settings -> Display). Click the Hardware tab. For Monitor choose a generic LCD display of 1024x768. Once this is in place, you have accellerated 2D and 3D graphics (but slower than an ATI or NVidia card) and xv (for playing movies) support.
The video hotkey (Fn+F4) works to switch between LCD and external displays. It toggles between LCD only, both LCD and external displays, and external only. It only functions when a monitor is plugged into the external video port.
When the lid is closed and the lid switch activates, the video display turns off, and when it opens, it turns back on once you do some activity (like moving the mouse). Seems reasonable to me. If you want it to do other things, I've read that there are ways to get these events from acpid and attach your own actions.
The other setup you need to do makes the video driver survive a suspend. You need to add this line:
Option "VBERestore" "1"to the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file somewhere in the section that starts with Section "Device" and ends with EndSection. You should also make sure that the vbetool binary is in /usr/sbin. It is usually included as part of the FC5 pm-utils package.
Additionally, the screen blanking within X will interfere with suspend/resume functionality, so it must be disabled. You can do this by adding a section to /etc/X11/xorg.conf that looks like this:
Section "ServerFlags" Option "BlankTime" "0" EndSection
Failure to do the above will cause video driver failures after a suspend/resume.
The audio works fine by default with FC5.
The onboard ethernet works fine by default with FC5.
For those looking for an alternative driver, the broadcom provided driver (gpl) for the bcm4400 is available, but I haven't tried it.
Warning: the HP BIOS locks out non-HP mini-PCI cards, so don't expect a non-HP mini-PCI card to work. Someone claims there is a workaround.
When FC4 came out, I determined that the linux drivers for the Intel Pro Wireless 2200 weren't yet stable. Any large volume transfers would kill them. However, with the newer drivers, they seem to now be usable.The driver for the ipw2200 in FC5 is version 1.0.8 from October 2005. This is unfortunate, because the stable 1.1.0 driver was available as of February 2006. However, the 1.1.0 driver is available from the (non-default) atrpms repository. So, you have two options for the ipw2200. Either the standard FC5 1.0.8 driver (which seems to work OK for me), or the atrpms 1.1.0 driver.
To use the standard FC5 driver, just run yum install ipw2200-firmware to get the firmware from livna. Then run System -> Administration -> Network, in the "Hardware" tab make sure the "Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless" is listed as device of type "Wireless", and create a new device that uses it in the "Devices" tab. If Fedora doesn't recognize it as type "Wireless", a reboot will fix it.
To use the 1.1.0 driver from atrpms, instead run yum --enablerepo=atrpms install ipw2200 and follow the instructions above for the standard driver.
The blue wireless radio LED won't come on for the ipw2200 unless you put this file into /sbin/ifup-local and make it executable.
If you want to or need to use the Broadcom wireless card, you have two options. First is to use the ndiswrapper software, which is the older and more tested but less functional way of doing it. The other way is to try the new native driver by looking here. I haven't tried the new native driver yet, so I only supply directions for the ndiswrapper method. Here are the steps to setting up ndiswrapper for the Broadcom card:
Now you can reboot to have it activate, or you can run depmod -a followed by modprobe ndiswrapper if you want to get it running immediately. Use the System -> Administration -> Network application to create a new device for the wlan0 ndiswrapper device.
This driver appears to be fairly stable, and able to do large volume transfers with no trouble. It even makes the blue wireless LED work. But, do NOT press the button containing the blue wireless LED. For me it works once or twice, but I always get a kernel crash shortly after doing it.
The synaptics touchpad works fine by default in FC5, but I find the use of tap-to-click awkward and error-prone. I put the line
Option "MaxTapTime" "0"between the
Section "InputDevice"for the Synaptics device and the subsequent
EndSectionin the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file.
By default the right side of the pad does vertical scrollwheel action, and the bottom edge of the pad does horizontal scrollwheel action. I found that the horizontal scroll in firefox took me forward and back whole pages, which was disconcerting, so I changed firefox to turn it into a true horizontal scroll by doing the following. First, bring up firefox, and visit about:config. Now right click on mousewheel.horizscroll.withnokey.action and set it to 0.
If you really want to get fancy with the Synaptics touchpad configuration, look at the synclient command.
PCMCIA cards seem to work fine, they just don't mount themselves automatically or bring up an icon on the desktop the way that USB drives do. Those interested in a fix can look at my notes for the nx6110 under Fedora 4. (I haven't tested this approach under Fedora 5, but it will probably work).
The good news is that suspend to RAM works right out of the box (once the video configuration described above in the video section is performed). You can try it by pressing the Fn+F3 (moon) key. When you do so, the system suspends in about 5 seconds, and the power LEDs blink slowly. In this low power state, I find that my nx6110 drains about 1.5% of the standard internal battery per hour. To bring it out of suspend, just press the power button, and in about 10 seconds you will be right where you were when you suspended.
Everything appears to survive just fine through a suspend/resume, including the ethernet, wireless, display, and sound. However, unless you are running the NetworkManager, you will have to manually shutdown and startup your network interfaces after a suspend. For this reason, I highly recommend using the NetworkManager. The steps to install it are simple. As root, run these commands:
/sbin/chkconfig NetworkManager on
/sbin/chkconfig NetworkManagerDispatcher on
/sbin/service NetworkManager start
/sbin/service NetworkManagerDispatcher start
Then, assuming you have a Notification Area somewhere in your Gnome panels, you will see the NetworkManager come up and start trying to make connections. It seems to work pretty well, and Fedora 5 even supplies the necessary hooks to deal with suspend/resume.
If you use NFS automounting, you may want to put my 60network file into /etc/pm/hooks. This stops any automount mount points upon suspend, and re-starts the automounter on resume. Without this, I notice various NFS hangs and other unpleasantness.
If you don't want to run NetworkManager, you need to put my ifup-tryall and ifdown-all files into /sbin and make them executable, and then put my 60network file into /etc/pm/hooks. The 60network file must then be edited to remove the comments in front of the /sbin/ifdown-all and /sbin/ifup-tryall lines. These files will safely shut down network interfaces on suspend and start them up on resume. They also handle any automounted mounts safely.
I haven't tried keeping a USB or PCMCIA device attached through a suspend cycle. The suspend documentation says that you shouldn't change any peripherals (even batteries) while the machine is suspended.
I haven't tried suspend-to-disk yet.
The following links I've found helpful in nx6110 configuration.
Other user experiences with the nx6110:
Info about suspend/hibernate:
HP linux support forums:
I welcome corrections and additions to this page. You can email me at my email address soup at my company email domain ampersand.com.