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Notes on installation and compatibility of Ubuntu with Compaq laptop computers.

Summary

Details

Compaq Presario 305

• Known to work: video card, sound card, USB, touchpad, expansion base unit.

• Not out of the box: ACPI (need to use APM instead - see http://barnski-linux.blogspot.com/2004_12_01_barnski-linux_archive.html#110353334244922101 here for more details), multimedia keys, resume/suspend (even using APM).

• Untried: Modem, irda.

Compaq Presario 705 EA

• Known to work: Video card, sound card, USB, touchpad, all other ports.
• Not out of the box: Scrolling button below touchpad. Problems with ethernet.
• Untried: Modem, wireless (PCMCIA).

Compaq Presario 1247

• Known to work: video, sound, touchpad, CD-ROM, battery level.
• Not out of the box: USB, PS/2 Port, all 'windows' buttons in case.
• Untried: Modem.

Compaq Presario 2800

• Known to work: video, sound, wired networking, touchpad, ACPI, DVD, CDRW

• Not out of the box: wireless networking (see WifiDocs/Device/CompaqW200)

• Untried: modem, parallell, s-video, binary ATI drivers, pcmcia

Compaq Presario V5000 series

• Everything work "out of box" except broadcom 4318. Got it working very easy with http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=197102&highlight=ndiswrapper+howto.

• Untried: Modem, S-Video, VGA out, Expansion port

Compaq Presario R3000/R3205

• Install with "linux noapic". Works out of the box except:

  • Touchpad configured by following all steps in the SynapticsTouchpadHowto including comments.

  • Wireless chipset is from broadcom. It is possible, with some work, to use this chipset under linux with AMD64! See http://www.runithard.com/HOWTO-BCOM64WIRELESS/. It seems to be a good howto. I (ArthurPeters) have experienced some crashes, but it is quite usable. For i386, s more complete discussion is here: http://cmb.phys.cwru.edu/kisner/linux/compaq-r3000/

• Untried: Modem, irda, possible more.

Compaq Presario R3120US

• Works out of the box, with the exception of the Broadcom BCM4306 wireless network controller. Use either ndiswrapper or the bcm43xx kernel module (with bcm43xx-fwcutter) as two possible solutions.

• For the ndiswrapper driver, see http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/mediawiki/index.php/List and search for SP29361.exe. After downloading it, cabextract the contents to a directory of your choice and use the included bcmwl5.inf/sys.

• Did not test "linux noapic" during installation. Use your judgment.
• Did not test the Nvidia winmodem.

Compaq Presario V2000

• Used ndiswrapper to install WinXP drivers. Went to Network Settings, manually entered ESSID, set to static IP address, entered IP address and Gateway address. My router is linksys. My wireless is broadcom.

From WillemMeints Tue Apr 19 08:53:26 +0100 2005 From: Willem Meints Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2005 08:53:26 +0100 Subject: Compaq Presario 2137EA Message-ID: <20050419085326+0100@https://www.ubuntulinux.org>

All works, use the fgrlx driver for X.org (you can download and install it afterwards using sudo apt-get install xorg-driver-fglrx) Add acpi=force as kernel parameter in grub to support ACPI. The battery monitor is acting a little weird in my installation, maybe some bug. Though acpi -V on the console works fine.

Compaq Presario V2000Z

Dapper (Kubuntu)

• Wireless didn't work (Broadcom Corporation BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g] 802.11g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 02)).

• Wireless worked after following instructions on http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=1071920&postcount=1 up to 4B, then following instructions on http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=1084114&postcount=43 , then messing with the "Wireless Assistant" under the K menu.

• Note: Upgrade from Breezy (Ubuntu) broke the install, so I reinstalled from scratch.
• Hibernate didn't work.
• Volume buttons don't work. They did on Breezy (Ubuntu).

Breezy

• Upon installing everything, after ejecting the Install CD and rebooting, the system would get stuck on "Starting hotplug subsystem". The reason why this happens is because alsa tries to load the hda-intel module which is looking for an intel sound chip which doesn't exist in the system (this is the AMD/ATI version of the V2000). The fix for this (what I did) was to use Knoppix 4.0.2 LiveDVD (since it doesn't have alsa) to edit the etc/hotplug/blacklist file and add 3 modules (I added 3 lines but only one of them works.) _hda-intel_, _hda_intel_, and _snd-hda-intel_. After this, my system would boot but X had problems starting with the ati driver. Since the system was still usable, you can edit the Corg config file (/etc/X11/xorg.conf) and change _ati_ to _vesa_. Reboot the system and you're done.
• I still haven't used the system enough to get the wireless working although it should be straight forward.
• The touchpad was detected and worked fine except that X didn't detect that it has a horizontal scroll. Vertical scroll works properly.

Compaq Presario V2402us

• Standard Breezy Install works well.
• After a clean install of breezy: ACPI, ethernet, touchpad, DMA, and processor throttling all work out of the box.

• Default "ati" xorg driver caused lockups for me upon logout or X shutdown. This can be fixed by installing ATI's fglrx drivers. See mlomker's guide at: http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=78466

• Suspend can be enabled easily-
  1. Backup the file to be edited:

     • sudo cp /etc/default/acpi-support /etc/default/acpi-support.BKUP

  2. Edit the file so that the #ACPI-SLEEP=true line is not commented (line 3):

     • gksudo gedit /etc/default/acpi-support

  3. Restart your computer so that the changes can take effect. Suspend can now be accessed by pressing Fn+F5, or through the logout menu.

• Hibernate also works if you follow Griffin3's guide, which can be found at: http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=75443&highlight=suspend2

Compaq Presario 2500

• Standard Install works well.
• CPU frequency scaling for the Pentium 4 worked on Debian, so it should work under Ubuntu, altough I haven't tried it yet.
• ACPI functions (sleep, hibernate, etc) don't work yet.

• Lock screen on lid close works.

• Beryl under Edgy Eft: If I remember correctly, this tutorial worked perfectly for me:

  http://wiki.beryl-project.org/wiki/Install_Beryl_on_Ubuntu_Edgy_with_AIGLX

• Ripples & rain effects don't work.

• Beryl under Feisty Fawn: still trying...

• Compiz under Feisty Fawn: Works directly. (I recommend also installing the compiz-extra and compiz-gtk packages to have more fun&functionality )

• I recently had some problems with the PC shutting down abruptly. But I have the same problem under Windows. I believe it's caused by overheating (Pentium 4...).

  That's what prompted me to install cpufreq under Debian (I found out that the temperature went up to 70 deg C!). ->Problem solved by opening and cleaning the laptop (make sure to follow the disassembling instructions from the manual available on the compaq site).

Compaq Evo N1015v

• Standard Hoary install work ok.
• Video, Sound, USB, PCMCIA, Ethernet and Touchpad all work.
• X driver is detected as ati but can also use radeon (Chipset is Radeon IGP 320M)
• Suspend doesn't seem to work but I havn't tried fixing it.
• CPU frequency adjustment works.

Compaq Armada 7400 (6300/T/6400/D/M/1)

• Standard Breezy Badger (5.10) install almost works ok.
• Graphics card issues. Breezy 5.10 'live' - comes up w/three resolutions - 1024-800-640 - correct.
• Graphics card issue in more detail - hard drive install - asks for confirmation of the same three supported resolutions - 1024-800-640 - correct. Unfortunately at install completion only lowest common denominator 640 resolution is available - unlike 'live' - odd. Same problem after installing all default updates. Command line hacking required to get it to work?

Compaq Armada 7400 (6300/T/6400/D/M/1)

• Dapper installs fine, but sound doesn't work out of the box and power management is off
• To fix the sound, do a "sudo modprobe snd-es1688" and add it to the end of /etc/modules
• To make things like shutdown and suspending to work, you need to disable ACPI, which can be done by doing a "sudo {gedit/mousepad/nano/whatever} /boot/grub/menu.lst" finding the line that starts "# kopt" and adding "noapic acpi=off" to the end
• Xubuntu runs like a dream-- very responsive for a seven year old laptop.

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