Ubuntu 9.10 on a HP DV2

The HP DV2 is currently the only laptop that houses AMD's Neo processor. This processor is meant to be housed in ultra portables to give a mix of portability, performance at a lower cost than your typical ultra portable. This 64-bit Neo CPU will outperform any Atom processor and is paired with a GPU much more capable than the Intel chips paired with the Atom. This CPU is a great alternative to someone who needs more than the Atom CPU but doesn't want to comprose portability.

After installing 8.10 I then upgraded it to 9.04 followed by another upgrade to 9.10. Both upgrades went perfectly smooth and Ubuntu 9.10 runs great on the laptop. All of the main hardware works with very little effort. The wireless and video card require the proprietary drivers to work. The video functions perfectly but the wireless does have some quirks. It sometime has issues with connecting to new networks and it won't connect when the SSID is not being broadcast.

In Ubuntu 9.04 there is a known issue with the audio. No sound comes out over the speakers but there is audio through the use of headphones.

I did not run any tests on the mic or webcam. These two things didn't mean much to me.

What Works:

• Audio
  
• Video - Binary driver required for OpenGL support
• Wireless - Binary driver required
• Ethernet
  
• CPU Scaling
  
• Webcam
• Microphone
  
• Suspend
• Extended Desktop (Reboot required)
  

What Doesn't:

• Disabling Touchpad Button

Untested:

• Bluetooth
  

Here are my machine Specs:

• AMD Turion Neo X2 L625 (1.6 GHz)
• 4GB DDR2 System Memory (1 Dimm)
• 500GB 5400 RPM SATA HD
• 512 MB ATI Mobility RadeonHD 3410
• 12.1" WXGA HP LED BrightView Widescreen
• Wireless-N Card with Bluetooth
• 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
• BluRay Super Multi DVD+/-RW

I am very please with this purchase. The laptop is amazing, the performance is great with Linux and all the features I wanted work with very little hassle.

Running Ubuntu 9.04 on a HP DV2

The HP DV2 is currently the only laptop that houses AMD's Neo processor. This processor is meant to be housed in ultra portables to give a mix of portability, performance at a lower cost than your typical ultra portable. This 64-bit Neo CPU will outperform any Atom processor and is paired with a GPU much more capable than the Intel chips paired with the Atom. This CPU is a great alternative to someone who needs more than the Atom CPU but doesn't want to comprose portability.

This laptop was a nice upgrade from the Gateway Solo 2550 I had previously been using. The laptop came with Vista installed but I never booted into it. I used the external dvd drive to install Ubuntu. There was an issue with booting the Ubuntu 9.04 live CD but the 8.10 disc works fine.

After installing 8.10 I then upgraded it to 9.04. The upgrade went perfectly smooth and Ubuntu 9.04 runs great on the laptop. All of the main hardware works with very little effort. The wireless and video card require the proprietary drivers to work. The video functions perfectly but the wireless does have some quirks. It sometime has issues with connecting to new networks and it won't connect when the SSID is not being broadcast.

In Ubuntu 9.04 there is a known issue with the audio. No sound comes out over the speakers but there is audio through the use of headphones.

I did not run any tests on the mic or webcam. These two things didn't mean much to me.

What Works:

• Audio - Works, through the use of headphones
• Video - Works (Binary driver required for OpenGL support)
• Wireless - Works (Binary driver required
• Ethernet - Works
  
• CPU Scaling - Works
• Webcam - Works
  

What Doesn't:

• Disabling Touchpad Button
• Suspend
• Extended Desktop
• Microphone
  

Untested:

• Bluetooth
  

Here are my machine Specs:

• AMD Turion Neo X2 L625 (1.6 GHz)
• 4GB DDR2 System Memory (1 Dimm)
• 500GB 5400 RPM SATA HD
• 512 MB ATI Mobility RadeonHD 3410
• 12.1" WXGA HP LED BrightView Widescreen
• Wireless-N Card with Bluetooth
• 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
• BluRay Super Multi DVD+/-RW

The laptop is mostly usable in Linux if you don't require any of the extra features. The external monitor will probably work with some finesse but I was unable to get the external monitor to do a extended desktop through the AMD Catalyst Control Center.

I am very please with this purchase. The laptop is amazing, the performance is great with Linux and all the features I wanted work with very little hassle.

Ubuntu 5.10 on a Gateway Solo 2550

Have a older laptop. Don't throw it away. It can still be useful. I have a Gateway Solo 2550 and I decided to put Ubuntu Linux on it to bring it new life. Here are the specs of my laptop:

CPU: Pentium III 600 Mhz
LCD: 13.3 inch 1024x768
Video: SMI Lynx EM4 Video Graphics Accelerator (4 mb)
HD: 4 gig Hitachi
Ram: 192 MB
Sound: ESS Maestro 2E-1978 with PCI interface
Wireless: Cabletron (Prism2 chipset)

The installation:

Everything here went fine. No problems with hardware detection or screen problems. The touchpad worked fine along with the USB mouse I had. The wireless card I had also worked perfectly fine. It was detected and worked at boot. The only problem in installation was the hard drive size. Things were a little tight when installing, but I managed to slip by. A larger hard drive should would have been nicer though.

On boot-up Gnome runs very well on this hardware. Boot up is very quick along with the login time. It tends to slow down when coming across a lot of flash on the internet, but that typical for a computer of this age.

What worked:

The Video and LCD were detected without a problem along with the laptops battery system. The sound also works right off install. No setup or configuration is needed.

What didn't:

The integrated modem. This is to be expected. Its very hard to find a modem that is supported under Linux out-of-the-box. The modem is the laptop is a Lucent V.90 56K modem. Its detected, but there are no drivers available. This isn't a huge deal to me seeing as I connect, and most other people, connect through a wireless card.

Conclusion:

If you are looking to install Linux on your Gateway Solo 2550, look no further.

More information:

To find our more about Linux and Laptops visit TuxMobil.org or Linux-Laptop.net. They have a wide variety of Laptops running Linux.

Mandrake 10 on a Gateway Solo 2500

Installing Linux on a laptop can sometimes be tricky. You don't know what will work and what won't so I'm posting about my experience to let you know a head of time, what you're getting yourself into.

Here are the specs of my Gateway Solo 2500:

CPU: Pentium II 333 Mhz
LCD: 13.3 inch 1024x768
Video: NeoMagic NM2160 with 2 MB integrated RAM
HD: 4 gig Hitachi
Ram: 192 MB
Sound: NeoMagic NMA 2

Installing:

I used Mandrake 10 (and eventually upgraded to Mandriva 2006) on my Solo. Installing was a breeze. I had to be somewhat cautious of what I installed because space was limited. I chose KDE when I first installed it but eventually switched to IceWM. Both worked fine, its just IceWm used less memory and less disk space.

What Worked:

During the Mandrake install, it is very good at getting all your hardware setup properly. It even gets the scroll wheel in the touch pad. The video is detected with no problems along with the LCD. My PCMCIA Prism2 based wireless card was detected at install, along with the CD-rom drive and floppy drive.

What Didn't:

The sound card. It isn't detected out of the box like everything else. The only way I was able to get it to work was to go to opensound and download the drivers. They were easy to install and setup and worked very cleanly. I used the Generic Yamaha OPL3-SAX (YMF719) non-PNP. You'll need to possibly mess with the dma settings so they match whats in your BIOS. Once configured properly you should be able to experience sound through your laptop.

They have much newer Kernels out now from when I last installed Linux on my laptop. Supposedly there was a bug in ALSA back when I installed Linux keeping the sound from working. You can read more about it here: BugTrack.

More Information:

To find our more about Linux and Laptops visit TuxMobil.org or Linux-Laptop.net. They have a wide variety of Laptops running Linux.