Saturday 15 December 2007

Fedora 8 on HP Compaq 6715b laptop

First run:
  • check media (check ok)
  • continue (anaconda crash...)
reboot...
  • check media (skip)
  • continue (no X install method - X detection failed)
  • ... let disk druid do the partitioning (remove linux only partitions and create new ones - we'll see how Vista likes that one)...
  • install Grub on /dev/sda6 (MBR is reserved for vista because it behaved badly on previous installs)
reboot... (boot into Vista to see if all is ok with it... checked out ok, used neosmart easybcd to change the boot loader)
another reboot... booting to Fedora 8
  • Booted into text mode, system-config-display croaked...
  • off to the drawing board...
  • somehow eth0 failed to establish connection via dhcp... ran dhcpclient manually
  • installed livna repo (http://www.mjmwired.net/resources/mjm-fedora-f8.html#yum)
  • installed amarok, mplayer, xine (the goodies we need to have a distro multimedia capable)
  • installed ATI proprietary drivers from livna kmod-fglrx and
  • ran yum update to get current (~450MB worth of upgrades... on 100mbit link + package upgrade time = ~1h)
reboot
  • (forgot to change the runlevel so had to do init 5 first) but other than that PERFECT Xorg picture! yaaay!
  • fglx_glxgears measures around 200 in window mode and ~60 in fullscreen mode 1680x1050
  • tried to install some packages via pirut (system-config-packages) and got _REALLY_ slow download speed and unresponsive pirut windows at time.
  • ATI driver seems to be having some problems at times (creates shadows on parts of display that dissapear only after exiting X server session).
The conclusion:
After twiddling around a bit and setting up software and the hardware
the conclusion is that f8 is currently not really ready for everyone (for instance my wifi card did not work correctly, networkmanager did not discover any wifi networks and even manual configuration failed - keeps asking for password. I could not install ndiswrapper from an rpm package because there was no kmod for the updated kernel I am running... so unusable for me -
untill I find enough time to get all the bits and pieces running that is ;)

PS: suspend to disk works perfectly now as it seems (only tested a couple of times) (suspend to RAM fails to awake again

UPDATE (27.12.2007): after running yum update today all the above mentioned defects were fixed. WiFi now works perfectly - without ndiswrapper even and the later can be installed since there is a kernel update available now... So thumbs up for Fedora 8! I'm off fiddling with it now ;)

9 comments:

Unknown said...

hi. ive just been setting up my 6715b, after install kmod-fglrx i can get X to work, but only in 1280x1024 there is no WSXGA 1680x1050 option in the screen res dialoge. Can you help me?

Unknown said...

...answering my own question in case anyone else finds this....

answer is don't use driver v 7.12, use 7.11!

..:: neonatus ::.. said...

my fix was (as noted in another post on this blog) to use radeonhd driver (no 2D, 3D acceleration though). Will try with the 7.11 driver too ;)

Unknown said...

where did you find the radeonhd driver?

..:: neonatus ::.. said...

Ok, two things... the latest (v8.1) ATI driver does work (downloaded, build F8 packages, installed), about the radeonhd driver (which is full opensource driver), you can read in one of my other blog notes - here

Regards N.

Unknown said...

Could you post a step by step process of installing Fedora 8, I have the same laptop but am clueless as to configuring the xserver and as to downloading the drivers. Also, I would like to maintain a dual boot system for when I'm in a pinch and need MS for whatever reason.

Unknown said...

sorry. I can't. got way too much work to do over the next few days. Have a go. The easiest way to get it installed is to plug in an external monitor and switch too i as early in the boot as possible. Then have a google for help installing the ati drivers (available from their site) use the v7.11 drivers.
once you get all that working you will need to get the wifi card working with ndiswrapper. again, google and you probably find a step by step for fedora. sorry can't help more. got to go.

..:: neonatus ::.. said...

Well notes/HOWTO's about installing GNU/Linux (in dual boot and other configurations) can be found all over the net. Specific installation of ATI's latest drivers should be something like this:
Go to ATI/AMD web page and download the latest driver for your version of processor and machine (mine is integrated/x86 32bit).

The file is named ati****.bin (the stars are written there because there is a version and CPU architecture mentioned there).

You need to have some development packages installed so that you can build the kernel modules (check this site for info: http://www.mjmwired.net/resources/mjm-fedora-f8.html#kernelheaders ).

Than you run ./ati***.bin --buildpkg Fedora/F8 and it will build the appropriate rpm packages for you to install (if all the build dependancies were sattisfied).

After that you just install the rpm packages with yum localinstall packagename.rpm

That should be it... run aticonfig after that and you should be set...

I know the instructions are a bit scarce but Google to the rescue ;)
If you need help with specific issues don't be afraid to ask.

Regards,
N.

Jerry said...
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