Recently in Maintenance Category

Issue:

"kernel: cdrom: open failed" errors noticed in /var/log/messages

Solution:

Edit /etc/hal/hald.conf and change /haldconfig/storage_media_check to false.

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:

1. Disable the restricted drivers. You dont need them. The only way it all works is with ndiswrapper
2. Install ndiswrapper (apt-get install ndiswrapper-common or ndiswrapper)
3. 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.

4. 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, try

   wget ftp://ftp.compaq.com/pub/softpaq/sp34001-34500/sp34152.exe
   

5. 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
   

6. 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
   

7. 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)
   

8. Bring up the driver:
   

   user@ubuntu:~$ sudo depmod -a
   user@ubuntu:~$ sudo modprobe ndiswrapper
   

9. 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

I run rdate every night to sync the clock and recently, it kept failing. I tested it manually, and found that when I ran "rdate -p" it kept outputting "Alarm Clock". I had to update rdate from source (http://freshmeat.net/redir/rdate/8862/url_tgz/rdate-1.4.tar.gz) and it works fine now. (and this was on RedHat 9)