Can Linux work on a HP Pavillion ze 5400 ????

[DERNBACH]

I'm in despair. I have a brand new HP Pavillion ze 5400 (2.2 Ghz Celeron) and I cannot install a Redhat distro on it.

Actually I managed to install a Redhat 9.0 distro, but with no kudzu and pcmcia working. I need PCMCIA to plugin a Linksys Wireless 3.0 WPC11 card.

I tried the following note that tells you it might work by recompiling a linux kernel with ACPI patch (http://home.elp.rr.com/mcghees/ze5470us.htm). After spending days, I could not follow the instructions of this page (compilation failed).

Therefore, I'm asking the following question to the community: IS THERE A LINUX DISTRIBUTION THAT WORKS WITH AN HP PAVILLION ZE 5400 ? (kudzu and pcmcia included; I do not need a working firewire interface.

I'm also VERY DISAPOINTED by HP capabilities at supporting labmda-users like me with Linux on notebooks. I've worked with HP at a professional level a few times with HP/UX boxes. I thought buying an HP notebook would give me greater chances to have Linux operational. I guess I've done a mistake .... Is HP fgoing to support Linux on all of their hardware ?

[Steven E. Protter]

HP Pavillions were clearly not designed with Linux in mind. I have seen frequent itrc posts with regards to video drivers.

To suceed, you will have to go the the manufacturer of the parts involved and try and get linux drivers from there.

Also, winmodems don't work with Linux. See http://linmodems.org

SEP

[Dave Falloon]

I would try Knoppix first, it is based on debian and these guys have done an excellent job of autoconfiguring systems. I have had similar problems installing linux on pretty much every laptop I've tried. Redhat installs have kernel panic'd during autoprobing on me before, and in the same situation the knoppix disk worked fine.

Check them out at:

http://www.knoppix.net/get.php

It is an entire distro on a CD.

If you are into setting everything up by hand you can try debian:

http://www.debian.org

But like I say you are basically on your own with no autoconfiguration tools if you go with debian.

What specifically fails during the installation?

Dave

[Bruce Copeland]

Linux is seldom easy to install and configure on notebooks. There ARE however plenty of success stories (see http://www.tuxmobil.org and http//www.linux-on-laptoms.com). These success stories include many members of the HP ze4000/ze5000 series and their close Compaq cousins. You can find quite a bit of relevant information on my linux-ze4100 web page:

http;//wwww.cybersym.com/pages/linux-ze4100.html

The site refers to Red Hat 8, but there are few differences between 8 and 9. Unfortunately I don't have any pcmcia cards and therefore haven't really tested pcmcia. However, I have seen several reports of success with pcmcia on other ze4000/ze5000 models, so it should be possible for you to get things working. I suggest you do a thorough search on this site for linux + notebook + pcmcia. Also search Google for HP notebook linux pcmcia. Finally, you might simply look at some of the web pages that you can find at linux-on-laptops or tuxmobil for closely related HP ze4000/ze5000 models .

Bruce

[Bruce Copeland]

Wow, that was really poor typing!!! The links in the previous post should have been:

http://www.tuxmobil.org
http://www.linux-on-laptops.com
http://www.cybersym.com/pages/linux-ze4100.html

Bruce