Christmas is here… Linux on HP dv9000z

Hit the dv9000z page for the latest… 

Well, my Mac G3 Pismo (500Mhz/768MB PPC) has been a true warrior. I picked mine up second hand a few years back from a close friend whose company was upgrading to G4s. Running Debian on it has been great, though recently I find myself wanting to run Xen, browse YouTube (requires i386 libflash) and running out of battery (power adapter internal contacts require manual bending nearly ever other time I plug it in now). Today I am posting from my new dv9000z running Debian Sid. The only gamble was the Broadcom Wifi, which turned out to be a breeze, albeit with the clunky ndiswrapper. A quick overview of the features:

• WSXGA+ (1680 x 850) - Lots of desktop real estate - this was a requirement
• Turion X2 TL-60 - Dual Core, Hardware Virtualization, On-Die Memory Controller w/512KB cache per core - Runs AMD64 distributions - This was a requirement, and ruled out Lenovo or Macbook Pro (too bad)
• 2GB DDR2-667 RAM, Dual 80GB Drives - Plenty of RAM for OS Virtualization (Nexenta/Solaris, BSD, Windows, Maybe a trial OSX hack) - Software RAID, now allows me to use my laptop for mission critical work, without the risk of disk failure - This quickly became a requirement once I learned the HP laptops supported it. When drive prices come down, I will drop in more capacity. For now my main capacity requirement is for media, most of which will be NFS mounted from my new Thecus N2100 replacing my NSLU2 (due to memory limitations).
• Other Bells and Whistles including DVD burner, webcam, nice finish, good speakers, card readers and various I/O ports

Everything installed from Debian packages, which was nice. Kernel option pci=usepirqmask can lead to instability before X is loaded; noapic is totally stable, but breaks USB2. A quick overview of what I have completed/learned in the evenings of the Christmas break so far:

1. Disk Layout - I Installed Debian to the second hard disk (sdb), leaving the pre-installed, unconfigured Windows partition (with free Vista upgrade later) alone for now. Since I opted out of the $20 restore disk I will backup these partitions, using ntfsclone, in their pristine state before launching the default setup process, and then modify the partition tables and enable Software RAID. The partition layout on the first disk was as follows

Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 3135 25181856 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 8355 9598 9992430 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sda3 9599 9729 1052257+ 7 HPFS/NTFS

2. PCI Hardware - Below is an lspci from my current 2.6.18-3-amd64 kernel

00:00.0 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Host Bridge (rev a2)
00:00.1 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 0 (rev a2)
00:00.2 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 1 (rev a2)
00:00.3 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 5 (rev a2)
00:00.4 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 4 (rev a2)
00:00.5 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Host Bridge (rev a2)
00:00.6 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 3 (rev a2)
00:00.7 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 2 (rev a2)
00:02.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation C51 PCI Express Bridge (rev a1)
00:03.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation C51 PCI Express Bridge (rev a1)
00:04.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation C51 PCI Express Bridge (rev a1)
00:09.0 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP51 Host Bridge (rev a2)
00:0a.0 ISA bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP51 LPC Bridge (rev a3)
00:0a.1 SMBus: nVidia Corporation MCP51 SMBus (rev a3)
00:0a.3 Co-processor: nVidia Corporation MCP51 PMU (rev a3)
00:0b.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP51 USB Controller (rev a3)
00:0b.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP51 USB Controller (rev a3)
00:0d.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP51 IDE (rev f1)
00:0e.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP51 Serial ATA Controller (rev f1)
00:0f.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP51 Serial ATA Controller (rev f1)
00:10.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP51 PCI Bridge (rev a2)
00:10.1 Audio device: nVidia Corporation MCP51 High Definition Audio (rev a2)
00:14.0 Bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP51 Ethernet Controller (rev a3)
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control
03:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4310 UART (rev 01)
05:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation G70 [GeForce Go 7600] (rev a1)
07:05.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Ricoh Co Ltd Unknown device 0832
07:05.1 Generic system peripheral [0805]: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Host Adapter (rev 19)
07:05.2 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd Unknown device 0843 (rev 01)
07:05.3 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C592 Memory Stick Bus Host Adapter (rev 0a)
07:05.4 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd xD-Picture Card Controller (rev 05)


3. dv9000z Debian Installation Notes - Etch RC1 Installer, upgraded to Sid
• Graphical Installer did not have working mouse support (Synaptic or External USB), used expert.
• Do not use the ALT-Fn consoles during the install; My installation froze when I tried to observe the other consoles during download of packages.
• Once installed, immediately add pci=usepirqmask to the kernel boot options, or the system freezes sporatically (Better than noapic that breaks USB2).
4. Wireless BCM4310 - (as seen in lspci above) is enabled easily with ndiswrapper
• I used the 64bit Windows driver (sp33008.exe) suggested by WiskeyTangoFoxtrot
• Note this link is the same as the HP link, so I am not convinced about the differences WiskeyTangoFoxtrot suggests (64bit vs 32bit).
5. nVidia GeForce Go 7600 - (as seen in lspci above) is enabled easily with the nVidia 9631 drivers
• These were in experimental pending the Etch release, so I went straight to the 9631 version - I assume it was required given the newness of the Go 7600
6. Installation Transcript - Right from my .bash_history ; non-related stuff removed

// Add pci=noapic, unlesss stable USB2 is required.. then gamble with pci=usepirqmask (which I have found stable after GUI loads with some kernels)
vi /boot/grub/menu.lst
reboot // Add debian-multimedia.org, sid and experimental repositories
vi /etc/apt/sources.list
// Set default to unstable (so all experimental does not come down)
vi /etc/apt/apt.conf
apt-get update
apt-get upgrade
apt-get dist-upgrade
// Add the gpg keys for debian-multimedia to avoid unwanted warnings
gpg –keyserver hkp://wwwkeys.eu.pgp.net –recv-keys 1F41B907
gpg –armor –export 1F41B907 | apt-key add -
// Grab the current nvidia stuff
apt-get install nvidia-glx nvidia-xconfig nvidia-settings
// Grab the 9361 nVidia drivers
apt-get install nvidia-kernel-source/experimental fakeroot patchutils kernel-package devscripts build-essential
apt-get install module-assistant
// Auto-build and install nVidia packages against the current kernel
m-a a-i nvidia
apt-get install nvidia-glx/experimental
// Reconfigure Xorg, selecting ‘nvidia’ driver and resolution, otherwise defaults
dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg
// Test out new module
modprobe nvidia
// Add ‘nvidia’ to the list
vi /etc/modules
apt-get update
apt-get upgrade
apt-get install apt-listchanges
apt-get install apt-listbugs
apt-get install vim screen
// Check how hot my new laptop is getting
cat /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THRM/temperature
// See what ndis* related packages exist and grap ‘em
apt-cache pkgnames | grep ndis
apt-get install ndiswrapper-utils-1.9 ndiswrapper-source ndiswrapper-utils ndiswrapper-common
// Auto-build and install the ndiswrapper packages
m-a a-i ndiswrapper
apt-get install cabextract
// Downloaded sp33008.exe using my web browser in the background
cd downloads/
ls
cabextract sp33008.exe
ndiswrapper -i bcmwl5.inf
ndiswrapper -l
lsmod | grep bcm
ndiswrapper -m
// Some weird output from having both the 1.1 and 1.9 ndis-utils but all fine
cat /etc/modprobe.d/ndiswrapper
modprobe ndiswrapper
// Take down my wired connection to test wireless
ifconfig eth1 down
// Set my essid and basic WEP key (these are unique to me)
iwconfig wlan0 essid Westshore
iwconfig wlan0 key 4165551212
dhclient wlan0
// IT WORKED - awesome; I have had this fail on MANY BCM4306 cards (HP nx6325, WPM54G PCI)
ifconfig
routre
route
iwconfig wlan0
// Add ‘ndiswrapper’ to have it load automatically
vi /etc/modules
// Modify my interfaces to bring up wlan0 automatically
vi /etc/network/interfaces

7. The Disabling IRQ #7 problem that was breaking the USB 2.0 (known issue) was resolved by switching to pci=usepirqmask. Next I neet to test out the webcam and cardreader, verify other remaining I/O ports that appear to be working (firewire, Bluetooth, Sound jacks, external video, ExpressCard) and fire up the Xen kernels.
8. Other dv9000 links
• Fedora Core 6 on Intel Version - Proof the graphics should work fine
• Ubuntu 6.06 on V3000 (Similar Hardware) - Found the 64bit ndis driver
• Gentoo on dv6000z - Found the pci=usepirqmask option
• Linux on Laptops discussion - Ongoing discussion on the HP nForce laptop hardware
• HP Supports Debian! (Okay, this is just FYI)

I have now patched nvidia drivers for use with Xen sucessfully; Unfortunately I can’t get Xen up with ‘noapic’ and with pci=usepirqmask, nvidia module loading causes reboot. Time to look at 2.6.19 or other apic options for Xen.