[lug] Two more weeks...

[Kevin Kempter]

On Sunday 23 December 2007 15:45:46 Collins Richey wrote:
> On Dec 23, 2007 12:53 PM, Kevin Kempter <kevin at kevinkempterllc.com> wrote:
> > Hi List;
> >
> >
> > I have an AMD based hp laptop
> > hp pavillion dv6000
> >
> > I'm not a newbie to Linux but this box is giving me major issues. I get a
> > bios error warning at boot time but I don't think this is the main
> > problem.
> >
> > Fedora seems to install but boots only to a blank screen after. Once the
> > screen works I cant get the broadcom wireless to work properly.
> >
> > I had everything working at one point with Kubuntu but the wireless
> > driver started to cause major issues (lots of warnings, program crashes,
> > etc)
>
> 1. A brief foray into google says that this laptop uses a Broadcom
> wireless chip, and that is always the toughest nut to crack, some
> would say a total crapshoot.
>
> 2. Even worse, other reports say that the dv6000  has badly broken
> apic support (ie the beast requires windows support to work around its
> deficiencies) and extremely flaky usb support. Those who had some
> success had to boot with strings like 'noapic' and 'iommu=memaper=2'
> and 'iommu=off' and 'noirqdebug'.
>
> 3. This is a fairly typical HP retail product that has little hope of
> running Linux well, since the vendor does not give a damn whether it
> works on Linux or not.
>
> 4. I suggest that you read the reports from a google 'hp pavillion
> dv6000 linux' search.
>
> 5. Not to discourage you totally, but this laptop willcertainly
> require more TLC than the average non-Linux-savy user is willing to
> bear, and you will be unlikely to find  'a distro that requires very
> little maintenance'.
>
> 6. I would try booting the very latest Knoppix LiveCD on the laptop.
> If that fails, you are not likely to find a Linux distro that will
> work well. In any case, only the very latest distros are likely to
> have a prayer of dealing with the hardware irregularities.


Thanks for the advice. I'll try the knoppix suggestion