HP DV2610US & Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon (7.10)
GUI Installation
DO NOT use the GUI installation method. It does not work. It will make you feel really bad for buying this laptop. Worry not. Use the text based installation. Once the installation is complete, it will come up with the GUI with restricted resolution.
Make sure you are connected to the LAN (and of course, you should be connected to the net). (Wifi does not work at this point). It will prompt you to install/use the restricted drivers for nVidia. Say Yes ! It will install the drivers. Reboot. You should have a proper display/resolution now. (It will prompt you to install the "drivers" for broadcom wireless. Do not proceed. They don't work and you won't need them).
Networking
In order to use the Broadcom Wireless card in HP DV2610US (and I think it also works on the recent AMD/Nvidia based laptops), you need to do the following:
- Disable the restricted drivers. You dont need them. The only way it all works is with ndiswrapper
- Install ndiswrapper (apt-get install ndiswrapper-common or ndiswrapper)
- Disable any Competing Drivers
Ubuntu has a kernel driver for this device that is called bcm43xx. In order to use ndiswrapper you must put the bcm43xx in the black list file.
echo 'blacklist bcm43xx' | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
The blacklisted module will not be loaded on reboot from now on.
- Download the "windows" driver from HP support
user@ubuntu:~ $ sudo wget ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp33001-33500/sp33008.exe
If the above driver does not work, trywget ftp://ftp.compaq.com/pub/softpaq/sp34001-34500/sp34152.exe
- Install Cabextract. Cabextract will be used to "extract" the windows drivers from the exe file.
user@ubuntu:~ $ sudo apt-get update user@ubuntu:~ $ sudo apt-get install cabextract unzip user@ubuntu:~ $ cabextract sp33008.exe
- Install the drivers:
user@ubuntu:~$ sudo ndiswrapper -i bcmwl5.inf
You should notice something like this (and it is normal)installing bcmwl5 ... forcing parameter IBSSGMode from 0 to 2 forcing parameter IBSSGMode from 0 to 2 forcing parameter IBSSGMode from 0 to 2 forcing parameter IBSSGMode from 0 to 2 forcing parameter IBSSGMode from 0 to 2 forcing parameter IBSSGMode from 0 to 2 forcing parameter IBSSGMode from 0 to 2 forcing parameter IBSSGMode from 0 to 2 forcing parameter IBSSGMode from 0 to 2 forcing parameter IBSSGMode from 0 to 2 forcing parameter IBSSGMode from 0 to 2 forcing parameter IBSSGMode from 0 to 2 forcing parameter IBSSGMode from 0 to 2 forcing parameter IBSSGMode from 0 to 2 forcing parameter IBSSGMode from 0 to 2 forcing parameter IBSSGMode from 0 to 2 forcing parameter IBSSGMode from 0 to 2 forcing parameter IBSSGMode from 0 to 2 forcing parameter IBSSGMode from 0 to 2 forcing parameter IBSSGMode from 0 to 2
- We can list the drivers, to make sure we have it installed properly
user@ubuntu:~$ ndiswrapper -l installed drivers: bcmwl5 driver installed, hardware (14E4:4324) present (alternate driver: bcm43xx)
- Bring up the driver:
user@ubuntu:~$ sudo depmod -a user@ubuntu:~$ sudo modprobe ndiswrapper
- This should bring up the driver. Reboot. Once you are back in the GUI mode, you should see that Wifi is up and you are shown the nearby networks
Thank You!! A friend of mine buyed this computer and asked me to install ubuntu, I used the graphical interfase to install but in safe mode, and finally installed the wireless card with your instructions :D
thank you again
Thanks, I hope this works. I just picked up this laptop for $699 from Fry's Electronics.
I'll post back with success hopefully. Were you able to get everything working, including webcam, bluetooth and firewire?
If all goes well, I'm gonna try and get a Verizon EVDO express card working in this thing.
And, by text install, that means the "alternate" ubuntu CD? It's been awhile since installing, and I think there's not a text install on the desktop CD.
I used the DVD which had the text installation method. Yyou should probably use the install DVD..
The Webcam/BT works .. I did not test the firewire .. but I think thats working too ..
Ok, I installed it with the GUI install w/safe mode. If you change the top & bottom menubar/taskbar to be displayed on the left & right instead, you can see the full dialog boxes during install w/ the 800x600 resolution.
nvidia restricted drivers worked flawlessly.
I had to use the alternate ndis drivers for mine, but wireless works fine now.
The webcam wouldn't work for me. I just installed the latest linux-uvc package from source, and it works fine in luvcview.
My webcam is 0x4f2:b016
You have to run it as:
luvcview -f yuv
Oh, I just realized maybe it worked all the while, I might have just needed to change ekiga to use v4l2 instead of v4l.
The only thing I haven't tried now is bluetooth, firewire, and multimedia card, but I think there's a good chance it all works too.
It's also blistering fast w/Compiz, whereas Vista w/o eye candy was excruciatingly slow.