HP ZE4318EA Notebook and Fedora Core 1

Following is my experience with loading Fedora Core 1 on the HP Pavilion ze4318ea notebook PC. I've previously installed RH9 (after some editing of many configuration files), but I wanted to test the new kernel + XFree which added support to IGP320M, so...

The Good News:

• Built in ethernet works well with natsemi module.
• USB support is good, with some warnings.
• Good 15" display.
• Affordable price.
• Video: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon Mobility U1 is recognized/supported (2D only).
• Sound: works flawlessy.
• ACPI: works, after modifying the grub.conf file.
• cpufreq does work.

The Bad News:

• PCMCIA: OZ6912 PCMCIA seems to work (yenta_socket), but I haven't tested it.
• Modem: Haven't tried it, I have little need for it. A driver exists (Linuxant), but you have to pay ($14.95) for using it fully.
• USB 2.0 missing.
• IrDA missing.
  

Hardware:

• AMD Mobile Athlon XP 2000+ (1.67Mhz)
• 256 MB DDR SDRAM (exp. to 1GB, using 2x512MB PC266 SoDimms)
• 15.0" XGA TFT (1024 x 768)
• 20 GB Hitachi Travelstar 40GN 4200RPM Hard Disk
• QSI CD-RW/DVD-ROM SBW-241
• ALi 5229 (1533 PCI-ISA bridge) ATA-100 IDE Chipset
• ALi M5457 AC-Link Modem (Conexant)
• ALi USB 1.1 Controller
• ALi M5451 AC-Link Sound Chip
• National Semiconductor DP83815 (MacPhyter) Network Chip
• ATI Radeon IGP 320M Integrated Graphics Processor, shared memory architecture; 8, 16, 32 or 64 MB video RAM
• ATI AGP (4x) Bus
• O2 Micro OZ6912 Cardbus Controller (PCMCIA)

Output of /sbin/lspci:

00:00.0 Host bridge: ATI Technologies Inc: Unknown device cab0 (rev 13)

00:01.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc U1/A3 AGP Bridge [IGP 320M] (rev 01)

00:02.0 USB Controller: ALi Corporation USB 1.1 Controller (rev 03)

00:06.0 Multimedia audio controller: ALi Corporation M5451 PCI AC-Link Controller Audio Device (rev 02)

00:07.0 ISA bridge: ALi Corporation M1533 PCI to ISA Bridge [Aladdin IV]

00:08.0 Modem: ALi Corporation Intel 537 [M5457 AC-Link Modem]

00:0a.0 CardBus bridge: O2 Micro, Inc. OZ6912 Cardbus Controller

00:10.0 IDE interface: ALi Corporation M5229 IDE (rev c4)

00:11.0 Bridge: ALi Corporation M7101 PMU

00:12.0 Ethernet controller: National Semiconductor Corporation DP83815 (MacPhyter) Ethernet Controller

01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon Mobility U1

BIOS:

Be sure to get the latest BIOS from the HP site. Mine is KA.M 1.59 and I guess it solves the problems others had with the USB Legacy Support option (see below). Elsewhere, it was suggested to reduce in the BIOS the amount of shared memory from 64MB (default) to 16MB, since the IGP320M isn't suited for heavy 3D work: I just didn't do that! :)

Install sequence:

This is the sequence used to obtain a dual boot setup. If you don't mind trashing the supplied OS, just use point 1 and skip to point 9!

1. Modify BIOS settings to disable legacy USB support (more on this later).
2. Download Knoppix 3.2 CD or later image, burn the CD. Or get another Live CD distro with qtparted included.
   Note: Do NOT use Knoppix 3.4, as it doesn't seem to work on this notebook!
   
3. Turn off the VM paging in XP (so that the upper part of the HD is not used anymore).
4. Defragment drive in XP, make sure defrag does not leave data in upper part of drive space - re-run if necessary.
   Note: This is very important, or you will trash your XP partition!
5. Open a command prompt and issue a chkdsk c: /F, eventually scheduling the scandisk for the next reboot.
   Note: This is very important, or you will trash your XP partition!
6. Reboot under XP and let chkdsk scan the disk: it will probably find some bad allocated sectors and fix them.
   Note: This is very important, or you will trash your XP partition!
7. Boot from Knoppix 3.2 CD.Use knoppix nousb if you did not disable legacy USB support.
8. Open a terminal window, type su to become root, then use qtparted to resize the NTFS partition and then create swap and root '/' partitions, and optionally /boot, /home, ..., as you prefer. Rememeber to not reduce the XP partition too much!!!
   Note: This is very important, or you will trash your XP partition!
9. Boot from Fedora Core 1 (or the distribution of your choice) install CD, pick your installation type and have a break... Having a first run with linux mediacheck is always a good thing(TM).
10. Choose 'Generic Laptop Display (1024x768)' in the X configuration.
11. Reboot with new kernel.

You can also reboot under XP, so it senses the new size of the HD and you can turn back *ON* the VM paging (with 256MB it's a necessity under M$ OSes).

ACPI:

Turning on ACPI was as easy as adding acpi=on in the /etc/grub.conf file just before rhgb.

IDE:

The IDE bus controller will operate at 33MHz, but the c4 stepping used in this laptop can be run at 66MHz by adding idebus=66 in the /etc/grub.conf file just before rhgb. Is it any faster? I didn't run any hdparm tests, so I cannot tell for sure. But it doesn't hurt anyway. Oh, don't forget to enable 32bit IDE operations in the BIOS too (I can't understand why it defaults to 16 bit).

USB:

After you are up and running in FC1, I suggest you to switch back the USB Legacy Support to Enabled. Failing to do so may lead to problems with some USB devices. In my case, the Speedtouch USB ADSL modem (stingray) didn't work at all with such option Disabled. YMMV. I have now a running Speedtouch usermode driver and I hope to also test the kernel one ASAP, and report here.

Ethernet:

The natsemi module works like a charm.

PCMCIA:

I don't have any PCMCIA card to test this. Elsewhere I've read that a few problems may arise due to IRQ assignments with the yenta_socket driver used.

Sound:

Using the trident driver suggested in the FC installation led to no problems at all. Only the internal beep is too loud, but I'm lazy...

X-windows:

The only thing not working (apart from 3D acceleration) was the autodetection of the LCD screen, but use of the Generic Laptop Display was just enough to make it work.

Useful references:

• http://www.linux-on-laptops.com/ the place you should be coming from! :)
• http://w1.894.telia.com/~u89404340/touchpad/index.html for using fully the Synaptics Touchpad
• http://sourceforge.net/projects/omke for getting the special blue keys working
• http://www.linuxant.com/drivers/ for the WinModem drivers (free/demo upto 14.4kbps, $14.95 for the full V.92/FAX version)
• http://www.knoppix.net/about.php for informations about the Knoppix live CD distribution
• http://synchronicity.hopto.org/nocho/linux-ze4315us-slack-9.1.html this is the place I started from
• http://www.matts-workshop.com/hp_ze4325us_rh9.shtml a very similar laptop, with instructions for RH9
• http://manticore.2y.net/ze5155.html for step by step instructions on how to build and install some drivers
• http://sole.infis.univ.trieste.it/~drzeus/presario2120ea.html
• http://www.it-cockpit.de/index.php?page=/linux_on_hp_ze4360/index.php
• http://tuxmobil.org