The last week or so, I’ve been fine-tuning my current installation of Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy Eft) on my new HP dv2024, which seems to be basically the same as any other HP dv2000. This is an overview of what I’ve gotten working, and how, and what I have left to test.
Because I use Windows very occasionally, I maintain a dual boot system. Setting that up was easy, and since I’ve done it before, I didn’t need a walkthru. If you do, check out this video. The only thing they don’t get into is the specific setup I prefer, which is having a small partition for Windows, a small partition for Linux, and a big partition to put files accessible to both systems. I did that simply by partitioning the drive as I wanted — installing Windows first, defragging the drive, resizing the partition, adding a second, larger partition for the files, and then a third, extended partition containing the Linux logical partition and another for the swap partition. (Because I wanted to preserve the Quikplay function and the use of my remote control while watching movies using the DVD system, the extended partition was an important necessity. It’ll be less so for those who won’t have that extra little partition, and who can therefore put fit a swap partition as a Primary one instead of mushing it into a logical partition shared with the Ubuntu system partition.
People who don’t have headaches at this point should read on. If you have one, this discussion may not be for you.
So, anyway — after installing Ubuntu Linux 6.10 to the Linux drive, I booted up to find most things were working fine. This was nicer than when I installed Ubuntu 5.10 onto my old Compaq Presario V2000 to discover that the video system wasn’t working, right off the bat. With 6.10, my PC mostly was functional already. Not only that, but the Windows drive and the Fat32 files partition were both available to me immediately, automounted. (Though there are some issues with accessing some files on that partition, which I need to sort out. Something to do with file permissions and “accessed” logging of files in the partition, I think. But it’s fine for storage of files.) Happily, the card reader was working out of the box, and recognized my San Disk immediately when I inserted it, offering to import the photo images from my camera right away.
So what wasn’t working? Well, a quick search of complaints and queries on the Ubuntu Forums shows my complaints weren’t all that unusual.
For one thing, I had to fiddle a little bit to get wireless working, but much less than I did with my Presario. All I did in this case was install Wifi-Radar and suddenly wireless access was completely functional. (At least, that’s what I remember.) That might be because my particular model isn’t using a Broadcom wireless component. Getting the Broadcoms to work takes some fiddling, but mine worked right out of the box.
The webcam, however, was nonfunctional, and there were issues with the audio. Unlike some dv2000 users, my audio out worked fine out of the box, but when I plugged in my headphones into the headphone jack, the headphones and the computer speakers both emitted sound. Finally, the built-in microphone was not working at all, and I also wanted to get the Korean-input working with SCIM, something I never quite managed on Ubuntu 6.06 on the Presario.
Well, getting Korean to work was relatively simple. I basically just had to use the language support system in System > Administraion > Language Support to install Korean language support. I configured SCIM using the control panel available at System > Preferences > SCIM Input Method Setup, so that I could use the Hangeul key on my keyboard to toggle from English to Korean, but the SCIM still refused to toggle when I pressed the key. Finally,I found the fix here.
Next, the webcam. This was relatively easy to get working, and after some fiddling, I basically followed the instructions here.
The audio is a lot trickier, and the progress I’ve made is mostly because of the instructions on this page. (Actually, it took me a long time to find that page — someone had to recommend it to me! — but it contains the best walkthrough the the steps I’d seen all over the place in less clear terms.) However, there are some features which remain slightly messed-up. The help offered on this page might be useful to some, but brought no joy to me.
So, what’s left? Small things. I have a couple of bugs.
For one thing, my computer now has headphone jack sensitivity, but it’s reversed. When I boot up, audio works. When I insert a headphone jack, sound continues to come out of the speakers, as well as through the headphones. Using mute momentarily silences both, and then when I unmute, the PC speakers remain muted but the headphones work. So far, not such a big deal, really. I’d like that resolved, but I can live with it until it is fixed. However, when I want to turn the PCs speakers on again, I can’t do so simply by removing the headphones — that just leaves me in silence. Instead, I need to open the Volume Control panel and unmute PCM-2 manually, then mute and unmute the Master Volume, and then I have speaker sound again.
And the internal mic isn’t working. Every time I try to change the mic status to something else in the Sound Recorder application, it reverts to Internal Mic automatically, and I seem to record only silence.
Neither of these are killer problems to me, but it would be nice to get them working. I’m assuming that the proper support will be available in a forthcoming ALSA driver. Until then, I suppose I can boot into Windows if I need to use the microphones, and I can do the fiddling to adjust the headphone issues easily, for now.
For my next trick? Well, once I’ve got all the little issues with the file storage partition, audio, and internal mic ironed out, I wouldn’t mind installing Beryl so that my computer looks as space-agey as it really, truly is, at least by me-ten-years-ago standards. Hell, me right-now standards still make my new laptop look space-agey… to me.
But I’ll wait a bit on the Beryl. I think I may even install it as an extra boot partition on my office PC, where I don’t keep anything too critical, until I’m confortable enough to put it on my much more critical laptop system. But first, to sort out the little things. I’ll be posting about those on the Ubuntuforums, as well as crossposting this overview, later this weekend.
I’m curious how you go to load windows in there during an X window session.
what program was that?
is it WINE out of the box with ubuntu?
I never got WINE to work, but what is it that allows you to do that?
thanks,
Hi Joesp,
Actually, I’ve never run WINE either. When I installed Ubuntu, I just repartitioned the hard drive so that there was a Windows partition and a Linux partition. When I want to use Windows, I just boot up Windows. (It’s very rare that I happen to want to use Windows. It’s more of a case of needing to do so, and even that is relatively rare.)
If you have questions about how to do the partitioning, see the video I linked above. It’s a thorough and amusing step-by-step guide.
Hi Gordsellar,
I just ran across your website randomly through some googling on the HP DV2000. I just wanted to tell you that there is a solution to your ALSA woes in the pipeline.
Tobin Davis, an ALSA hacker, has been working on a series of patches for the ALSA 1.0.14rc3 release which adds much better support for our HP DV2000 laptop. I just set up his latest patches, and now headphone/speaker automute works, the microphone port works, as does the built-in mic on the monitor.
If you’d like to get this working, I have a HOWTO on my blog about it:
http://www.pixelmonkey.org/2007/03/18/dv2000-alsa-patches/
Enjoy,
Andrew
Andrew,
Thanks! I’ll try this tomorrow! I’m blown away by the coolness of Ubuntu people who bother to comment on blogs about such things, offering info on fixes t other users. Very cool.
how did you partition your hard drive and install windows in the partition? i tried doing dual boot once but failed. i used a q-parted to partition before. but since hp comes with like partition in hard drive for installing windows i couldnt figure out how to do it. i did make a back up cd of the default partition used for reformatting and tried working it out. in the end i ended up with just ubuntu which is kind of not working properly. eventually i changed back to windows. i would really love to learn ubuntu since it looks awesome and my prof recommended it to us, but dont want to move to it completely because i need familiar OS that works for me.
Hi there,
I pretty much followed the instructions in the video linked above.
Okay, pretty much. My PC is an HP with a Windows Quikplay partition and a Windows partition. I left the tiny Quikplay partition alone, and defragged the Windows partition after a clean reinstallation.
Then I put in the Ubuntu LiveCD and when Ubuntu showed up, I clicked on install. Ubuntu rebooted the PC and loaded itself.
At that point: I re-partitioned my drive. Since my main partition — the Windows partition — was mostly empty, I just repartitioned it into two main partitions: I made the existing Windows partition about 15 or 16 Gigs. The main data partition (FAT32), which was about 50 Megs (but see here!), and then I made a final partition for Ubuntu. Mind you need a root and a swap partition on this last partition, so you create two logical partitions within it, the bigger one for Ubuntu and one of the recommended size for the swap partition. (Which they say should be the last partition on the drive.)
Review: If you start out with 2 partitions — one Windows and one Windows Quikplay (usually a single gig in size) you should end up with the following:
-1 Gig Quikplay partition
– ~16 Gig Windows partition, probably NTFS
– ~? (remaining space) data partition, FAT3
– ~15 Gig Linux partition, further partitioned as follows:
– – – 14 Gigs logical Ubuntu parititon (root)
– – – 1 Gig logical swap partition
One bit of advice, with Ubuntu. If what you try doesn’t work the first time, hunt around for better instructions. You can usually find a fix for things on the ubuntu forums. But you need to be willing to try things a few times. Once you get used to it, you might find Ubuntu more comfortable than Windows. I know I now do. But you need stick-to-it-ive-ness to get there.
Good luck!
Gord