Jani Reinikainen,

Table of contents

1. Introduction

1.1. Concepts

1.2. Revision history

1.3. Copyright

1.4. Disclaimer

1.5. Acknowledgments and Thanks

2. Hardware

2.1. Initial state

2.2. Tested hardware upgrades

2.3. Finding out what hardware the laptop contains

3. Software

3.1. Initial state

3.2. Re-installing Windows XP

4. Installing and Configuring Gentoo

4.1. noapic

4.2. Graphics

4.3. TV-out

4.4. Network

4.5. Sound

4.6. WLAN

4.7. ACPI

5. Hardware hacks

5.1. Heat/noise

5.2. Logitech wireless keyboard + mouse

6. Conclusion

5.1. Further Documentation

1. Introduction

1.1. Concepts

This document describes my experiences with HP's Compaq nc6400 'business' laptop a.k.a. notebook computer. I use my laptop as a dual-boot system between Xubuntu Linux and Windows Vista Business, even though I spend about 90% of my time in Linux.

1.2. Revision history

1.3. Copyright

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".

1.4. Disclaimer

Use the information in this document at your own risk. I disavow any potential liability for the contents of this document. Use of the concepts, examples, and/or other content of this document is entirely at your own risk.

All copyrights are owned by their owners, unless specifically noted otherwise. Use of a term in this document should not be regarded as affecting the validity of any trademark or service mark.

Naming of particular products or brands should not be seen as endorsements.

You are strongly recommended to make a backup of your system before major installation and should make backups at regular intervals.

1.5. Acknowledgments and Thanks

Thanks to everyone who gave comments as I was writing this, and especially all of you who have donated. We couldn't be here without your support.

2. Hardware

2.1. Initial state

Originally the laptop contained the following hardware; 14,1" WXGA TFT screen, 512MB RAM (one stick, one free slot), 80GB SATA hard drive (in "hard drive manufacturers' bytes"), a combo CD-RW/DVD-RW. The laptop is quite light for the price and not too big either.

2.3. Finding out what hardware the laptop contains

Once you get Linux installed and running, it's trivial to use the 'lspci' utility to find our what hardware the laptop contains, so that you'd know what to compile into your custom kernel. The compilation of a custom kernel is pretty much inevitable if you wish to take full advantage of the Linux system.

On my laptop, the output of 'lspci' is as following:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/PM/GMS, 943/940GML and 945GT Express Memory Controller Hub (rev 03)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/PM/GMS, 943/940GML and 945GT Express PCI Express Root Port (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 01)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 01)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 01)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 4 (rev 01)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 01)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 01)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 01)
00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 01)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 01)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev e1)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GBM (ICH7-M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 01)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) IDE Controller (rev 01)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 82801GBM/GHM (ICH7 Family) SATA AHCI Controller (rev 01)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc M52 [Mobility Radeon X1300]
02:06.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCIxx12 Cardbus Controller
02:06.2 Mass storage controller: Texas Instruments 5-in-1 Multimedia Card Reader (SD/MMC/MS/MS PRO/xD)
02:06.3 Generic system peripheral [0805]: Texas Instruments PCIxx12 SDA Standard Compliant SD Host Controller
02:06.4 Communication controller: Texas Instruments PCIxx12 GemCore based SmartCard controller
08:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5753M Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express (rev 21)
10:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection (rev 02)

3. Software

3.1. Initial state

The laptop comes pre-installed with Windows XP Professional, on a NTFS partition, that it occupies the entire hard drive. This is clearly not desirable for a dual-boot system. Additionally, Linux can only read NTFS without problems, and enabling write support is not recommended at the moment; thus FAT32 would make a more sensible choice, as Linux safely can both read and write to FAT32 partitions.

I asked my retailer if I could get the laptop without the pre-installed Windows, but I couldn't. Seems like I HAD to buy the bundled Windows, even though I didn't really want it. Unfortunately, this seems to be the case world-wide. Anyway, I decided to re-install the bundled Windows XP on a small FAT32 partition. so that I could boot into Windows in case I needed to do some testing, and so that I could read and write to the FAT32 partition from Linux.

I proceeded with the install of Xubuntu Gutsy Gibbon (7.10).

4. Installing and Configuring Ubuntu

4.1. Wifi

Works out-of-box with wpa_supplicant and restricted drivers.

4.2. Graphics

Works fine ATI's restricted fglrx driver. VGA-out and S-video out work perfectly. Xvideo and GL2 work fine also.

4.3. Modem

Untested.

4.4. Network

Works fine, correct module is 'b44'.

4.5. Sound

Works out-of-box. 'snd_hda_intel' is the correct driver.

4.6. Bluetooth

The built-in Bluetooth chip shows up as an USB device and works fine with Bluez.

4.7. ACPI

ACPI works perfectly. Tested button, lid, video and fan.

6. Conclusion

Hope you found the guide useful. A donation wouldn't hurt (even if it's only a euro or two - everything helps), as this site is getting so many hits it's getting a bit expensive. There's a link to PayPal at the lower left corner of this site. Thanks!

5.1. Further Documentation

• ACPI: Advanced Configuration and Power Interface
• linux-on-laptops.com
• tuxmobil.org
• http://repair4laptop.org/

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