well it is time for the venerable and trusty ibm thinkpad t22 to be retired to a test machine and to buy a new laptop.

i settled, after some study, on an hp dv2000. it has a stack of features that i liked, such as dual core centrino, a separate nvidea graphics card, a gig of ram and a 100 gig drive. plus lots of nice ports on the side of the machine to plug stuff into, a built in web cam, wireless, etc and it looks pretty funky too (i am sick of being jealous of j’s ibook).

it cost about $2000 australian which is pretty good for the package. it comes with windows media centre, which being windows is going to get blown away soon with ubuntu dapper drake. i also bought a 300 gb external usb maxtor drive and a bluetooth logitech mouse. i don’t know how this last one is going to go under linux!

here goes with the install …

  1. i put in the ubuntu cd and restarted - say goodbye windows! all seems well apart from an error message about pcmia, which is hardly surprising
  2. up to preparing the disk space. this post here http://weblog.jcraveiro.com/artigos/review-ubuntu-hp-pavilion-dv1597ea/ has some relevant points to make, but seeing as i don’t care about keeping windows i’ll use the “largest continuous free space” option.
  3. nup, that didn’t work! so it is back to manually editing the partition table … actually i cannot be stuffed doing that so i just erased the whole disk. why do i want a dvd player on my laptop anyway when i have a tv?
  4. must remember to install the smp kernel for the dual core
  5. drive partitioned and set up, so the installer is now copying across some files
    installer finished so now removing installer cd and restarting
  6. ubuntu up and running! that took all of about 15 minutes to get going
  7. now i’d better install the smp kernel. ah bollocks the bluetooth mouse and network aren’t working yet - probably due to the security on my router. here’s a good link though http://yergler.net/Ubuntu_on_the_HP_DV2000 and here too http://yergler.net/Ubuntu_on_the_Inspiron_E1505 and this might be useful as well http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=87919
  8. network is going ok now — misstyped wep key! — so now will install smp kernel
  9. interesting read here http://www.ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-75827.html so i just started synaptic and selected the linux-686-smp option which is a metapackage for a number of other packages that support smp. it’s a big download
  10. well the smp kernel is installed and works perfectly, and the machine just flies under it! i’ll leave the 386 kernel in place just in case i need it. the performance of this under smp is astounding and it’s only a 1.73 ghz dual core.
  11. now for the bluetooth mouse …
  12. hmm, running hcitool scan didn’t work at first so i had to press the reset button on the base of the mouse. now it gives me the mac address of the beast, so now i just follow the instructions here http://yergler.net/Ubuntu_on_the_Inspiron_E1505 to get the device working under bluetooth
  13. excellent! the bluetooth mouse works! now i have to put an entry in /etc/default/bluez-utils as specified here http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=87919
  14. damn that doesn’t work when rebooting … a little more investigation is required here

well that’s about enough for the evening, i’m off to bed. more fun tomorrow night.


  1. Fouad

    So how do the final installation of Ubuntu on DV2000 go? Can you visit the Ubuntu-Wiki at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupportMachinesLaptopsHewlettPackard and add all the above information for others to read and follow for their DV2000 installations? Would love to hear from you on how Ubuntu is doing on your DV machine!

  2. Fadi

    So how do the final installation of Ubuntu on DV2000 go? Can you visit the Ubuntu-Wiki at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupportMachinesLaptopsHewlettPackard and add all the above information for others to read and follow for their DV2000 installations? Would love to hear from you on how Ubuntu is doing on your DV machine!

  3. Fadi

    Hi,

    I’ve successfully installed Ubuntu on my DV2000 laptop, enabled smp kernel duo core support, now I needed some help on how to install the video graphics card to enable the built in web camera, mic, and the standard built in modem and blue tooth? Can you help me with this?

    If there are drivers for Linux out there to support this, can you point me to them?

  4. zac

    I managed to get the built-in webcam working using http://linux-uvc.berlios.de/

  5. kJulio

    Hi guys, similar laptop as you (dv2172ea).
    Installed Edgy Eft from scratch.

    The fan keeps running (it is quiet but it is running).
    Under windows the fan shuts off sometimes (but it is on almost all the time).

    Do you notice the same behaviour?

    How long does your battery lasts?

    Thank you,
    kJ

  6. john

    how i want to enable and install webcam from notebook hp pavillion dv2000.
    Thats note already have a webcam??
    So, the question is…
    1. What the command to install that webcam
    2. How to enable it after install webcam.
    tq

  7. john

    I have a notebook hp pavillion dv2000 which that notebook already have a webcam. My question is, how i want to install that webcam and
    how to enable or using it after install

  8. mark

    Hi, I have a Hp Pavilion dv2000, everything on it is fine, exept for the built in webcam.
    It’s very tempremental, it works some days and others I have to reboot the laptop up again in order for it to work. It’s located in quick player. I click on the part in quick player where the webcam is, and this blue circle spins around in the middle of the screen, some times the blue light comes on at the top when it’s working, and other times it spins around and the quick player box comes up in the middle of the screen. I havn’t a clue how to sort it. I just turn the bloody thing off and reboot again sometimes this sorts it, but not always. can anyone help me please?

  9. mark

    Hi, I have a Hp Pavilion dv2000, everything on it is fine, exept for the built in webcam.
    It’s very tempremental, it works some days and others I have to reboot the laptop up again in order for it to work. It’s located in quick player. I click on the part in quick player where the webcam is, and this blue circle spins around in the middle of the screen, some times the blue light comes on at the top when it’s working, and other times it spins around and the quick player box comes up in the middle of the screen. I havn’t a clue how to sort it. I just turn the bloody thing off and reboot again sometimes this sorts it, but not always. can anyone help me please?

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