HP launching Linux Laptop "market test"... NO!

[richard deckard]

I have an hp pavilion zx5000 that I bought nearly a year ago. I immediately repartitioned the hard drive and install debian on it. Of course it has taken a little while to get things installed and configured but it works for me.

I have accellerated 3D graphics, firewire and USB, sound, and wireless networking. The wireless part was one of the biggest pains. I ended up buying a seperate card to make it work, but, it does work. Mostly I bought the wireless card so that I could have a directional antenna but it became a necessity when I couldn't get the internal card to work. Strangely enough both the internal wireless and my pcmcia card both use broadcom chipsets.

As everyone else has found out, the only way to make this work is through a somewhat bastardized process that uses the windows drivers. I don't like it as a solution but it does work and I've maintained it as a sacrifice. This machine dual boots with LILO and I use windows xp on a periodic basis. If I could get away from a few issues that require MS products I would be completely free of it on this machine. All together I'm happy but I would be happier with a better solution from HP. My suggestion for Carlie would be to release linux drivers or requiring their vendors to.

All this mess with restricting the use of the laptop by cripling the hardware has to go. That is no way to run a hardware company. If things are going to continue this way then when I replace this laptop it will be with a different architecture ~ say an Apple. All of my employees will do the same as I will vote with my wallet.

[Scott Serr]

I have to reiterate here too... If you have a x86 hp/compaq notebook, it's just a pain to use the (internal wireless) windows drivers on Linux. BUT... If you have an AMD64 notebook, it's not just a pain... it's a choice of what *ADVERTISED* hardware functuality that you want to loose. Will it be the 64bit mode or the internal wireless?

No amount of money that I dump into this notebook will fix this problem. There is not a Linux-friendly internal wireless card on the BIOS whitelist.

HP does some things better than others, support is much better than Dell in my experience... but why make "whitelist" decissions with your profit brain disengaged? My next notebook won't be an HP. :(

[Vid Luther]

Ditto. I have a pcmcia netgear card working in Linux and Windows, I've disabled the wireless card completely. So, HP has cost me $60 in a PCMCIA card, $50 in a mini-PCI wireless card that I know to work in Linux, and a lot of headache.

This decision on their part is the same reason why I now tell all my relatives who ask me for computer advice, to stay away from HP for computers and printers. If they are going to be so irrational towards their paying customers, then their paying customers will react back violently as well. All I have to tell my relatives who think I know everything about computers, is that I had an issue with my laptop and the customer service was horrible and couldn't help me. They see 2 things right there.

1. HP's products are so bad, that even I had to call for tech support.
2. Their tech support wasn't able to help him, they definitely won't be able to help me.

Otherwise, I have Suse 9.2 running on the laptop and it runs fine, just have some issues with Suse itself. But, telling me I can't use something on my laptop without even explaining why, has made me the first and last time HP customer.

[Scott Serr]

[For some reason there was a new post notification in my inbox on this subject, but there is no new post. I wonder if it was scathing and was deleted quickly. hum]

An update. The fine folks doing ndiswrapper now support 64bit. You have to find a beta WinXP 64bit edition driver, but it does work. Mine has worked for almost 5 months. You can't do cool things with it like kismet, but atleast it's wireless.

Another alternative that I didn't try... Apparently people found a portion of the NVRAM for the BIOS settings that could be tweaked under /dev/nvram. I have not tried this, and won't unless I feel really confident. There are links to a hack for IBM Thinkpads.
http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0406.1/1048.html
http://www.essenz.com/support/lists/hackers/20040926/65.html
I think I saw someone have success with an HP but can't find the link.

Still have the Xterasys mini-PCI sitting there collecting dust.

Good luck all...
-Scott