Envy 14 & Linux

well thats too bad. i was hoping i would be able to :/

 

I hope HP refits the BIOS with more options in later versions. It's hope that dies last... ;-)

 

has anyone gotten ubuntu running and wireless working on the envy 17 ? mine has the broadcom wlan hardware. can't seem to get the broadcom drivers to install in ubuntu.

using the 32-bit version of ubuntu.

 

I don't know if this will help, but this is the fix for the broadcom card in the envy 14:

 

thanks...ill try to dig up the exact procedure and see if it works

 

Contact me it it does not work, I have written the tutorial that was quoted above!

 

Hi Ademmer,

Thanks for sharing your envy vs linux expertise with all of us! Vielen dank!

The great news is my envy with a quad core i720 will arrive in a couple of hours, I am so excited!! Already downloadig a fresh 64bits Ubuntu iso for it


cheers,

Ernst

 

You're welcome!

Do not forget to replace Ubuntu's original kernel with the patched one, providing you with backlight controls: Index of /~kamal/i915bri~3e

 

if it's not one thing it's another, that's what i've experienced over time with ubuntu installs across multiple machines. once i got the wireless working and fixed suspend (usb3 issue), restart and the system hangs during bootup. tired of having to go into the OS and operate on it. ubuntu's the most popular linux flavor, it should work well with many types of hardware.

 

Just run it in a VM using Workstation or Player... works fantastic for me with none of that trauma

 

i enjoy the autonomy and independence of a true dual-boot system, when one OS isn't doing great, the other can be used ....

virtual machine depends on windows health.

 

Hi guys,

It took a while o respond because I did not have all the time in the world to configure my envy i720 but finally it is up and running with ubuntu 10.4.

Overall I am very very pleased with it. It did cost a sh*tload of money but I find it is worth every euro.

Build quality is fantastic! Hardware issues none whatsoever, no cpu whine, no noticable keyboard flex, nothing.

The screen is gorgeous, I love the chicklet keyboard and the system is blazing fast.., the usb ports are tighter than I have encountered on other laptops but I consider that as a plus. On my Vaio for example I found the usb ports a bit too loose.

There are a few things that I encounter that are solely due to ubuntu or proprietory vendor drivers: random wifi disconnects and the touchpad sometimes behaves annoyingly

I am about to install the free ESX server software now: than it is VM time baby !

cheers.
.

 

Good news everybody!

The release notes on the newly updated fglrx say that ATI has added EyeFinity support!
ATI Catalyst? Proprietary Display Driver

Whether or not this actually fixes fglrx for the 5650 in the Envy 14 is yet to be seen. I'm about to try it out and will update. Wish me luck...

 

Hey guys. I got ubuntu running up fine, except the switchable graphics. When it asked to update the ATI driver I said yes, but after the reboot I have a black screen. I think ademmer described this as the black console. I'm a noob and cant figure out how to fix it. How do I blacklist the ATI module without going into the OS?

Thanks in advance.

 

Doesn't look like the new fglrx works either....yay....

Heilwasser, unfortunately the fbdev drivers segfault on this machine....so failsafe doesn't help. Instead you can boot into your installation medium. Select 'Try ubuntu' from the boot menu.

Once you have a desktop open Terminal and do these commands

Code:

mkdir root
mount /dev/sda# root
cd root/etc/X11
nano xorg.conf

Now change fglrx to intel then press CTRL+X and save the file and exit
Now reboot and you should be OK

 

Oops...Heilwasser, change the # in sda# on the second line to whatever number your Linux root partition is. Do you know how to find this using fdisk?

 

Hey jbrechtel, I followed your exact instructions and it worked perfectly!

Much thanks! I guess I will have to stick with the Intel drivers for now since that whole switcheroo business isnt perfect yet either. Thanks again!

 

Heilwasser, glad it worked for you. If you don't have desktop effects after that then you may want to just delete your xorg.conf completely. Looks like the default Ubuntu installation doesn't have one and just relies on what X finds as the defaults.

I had to find this out the hard way...

 

hahaha, I'm watching Futurama now and that just reminded me of that. GOOD NEWS EVERYBODY!

On a more serious note, I cannot wait to dual boot Ubuntu on my Envy 14... This thread will surely come in handy

 

That was intentional.....

 

New ATI fglrx driver still fails with "unknown BIOS". Let's hope the vga_switcheroo guys make any progress in getting fglrx to work. Plan B: xf86-driver-radeon will support Evergreen chips (like HD 5650) 3d support at some time in the future. Maybe it's the nearer future!

 

I asked HP support if they have any plans to issue a BIOS update to make switching GPUs possible in BIOS.

First, they replied I can do this in Windows. Then, I replied I don't plan to use Windows and this BIOS option would be extremely helpful for people not using Windows, but Linux, for example.
Then, they replied that Linux doesn't come bundled with Envy, so they don't support it.
Then, I replied that I do not want any Linux support, but just an answer if a BIOS update is planned.
They replied in a tone You can imagine: "Unfortunately, we are sorry to say, blah blah blah..."

So no go, no BIOS updates planned.

How did Your emailing go, ademmer? Did they say something similar to You?

 

Pretty much the same over here although I sent them multiple links, where Windows users complained about switchable graphics issues to show, that this feature would also be valuable for Windows users. The told me that they redirected my request to the "according department" but I consider this blah blah.

 

Hi
Just letting you know if you use a 2.6.24 kernel with vgaswitcheroo, you can easily change the video card in linux. Just wondering if anyone know the model number of the intel card shipped with the envy 14's. I have a envy 14 that was shipped with a Broadcom i changed it out for a intel card and the bios told me the wifi card isn't support blah blah blah.

 

I'm to understand it is an Intel Advanced-N 6200 in mine. (USA, custom built, quad core Envy14)

 

Hey, already thought about replacing the Broadcom with an Intel card but I was told that the BIOS might complain. Now that's what's happening to you! Please keep us posted if you were able to fix this, maybe by using an wifi adapter of the original series.

How much have you paid for the wifi adapter?

BTW: vga_switcheroo works fine over here with kernel 2.6. 34 (I think your kernel version was a typo). But even then, fglrx refuses to work. radeon works fine but has no acceleration.

 

I came from holidays and I have mi envy to make different proves xD.

I will read everybody, bye.

 

Having some annoying issues with Ubuntu on my Envy 14.

First off, I had the same problem after I updated my ATI drivers --- black screen on reboot. I am not re-installing Ubuntu and things seem to be fine. The jumpy mouse makes it almost unusable in many cases, but I can fix this by simply using a wireless mouse until (hopefully) the issue gets a fix.

The bigger problem is that I *cannot* seemingly reinstall Windows. I get a black screen almost every time. I made a reinstall disc off of those .box files mentioned in the thread, and as soon as Windows started after reading the disc, the screen went black. I tried another method, same problem.

Any idea how I can get Windows back on this machine?

 

I installed ubuntu, and like everyone says, the first time i enabled the ATI driver the screen went black on restart. So i figure i'd stick with the intel graphics

However i have a bigger problem with the complete inability to detect any temperature sensors on ubuntu. Fan controls also doesn't seem to work (actually speedfan doesn't seem to detect the fan on windows in the first place)

The strange thing is that linux when idle is significantly hotter than windows. I'd say maybe 40C vs 25C?

Anyone got any tips on this?

 

Damn... I'd say thats a pretty serious problem. I'm really digging Ubuntu so far, so I hope this can be fixed.

Also, anyone know why Ubuntu would only be detecting 2.4GB of system memory when my computer clearly has 4? Under System Monitor it says only 2.4GB...

 

Read how to deal with vga_switcheroo: Andreas Demmer Review: Running Linux on the HP Envy 14 [updated]

What does

Code:

cat /proc/meminfo | grep -i MemTotal

say?

 

Sounds like ACPI is not working correctly. What do

Code:

cat /proc/acpi/fan/FAN0/state

and

Code:

cat /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/TZ00/temperature

say?

40C isn't hot! Have you disabled ATI graphics with vga_switcheroo (howto: http://www.andreas-demmer.de/en/2010/07/18/testbericht-linux-auf-dem-hp-envy-14/)? And 25C seems unrealistic to me, anyone can confirm 25C with Windows?

 

My GPU idles around 40C (in Windows, I don't have Linux yet), give or take a degree or two.

 

Same with me.

 

Just measured my core temp at 30C when i'm still on the ATI card idling. Now when i switch to integrated graphics, i'm idling at about 25-27C. Is this unusual? (I-5 450 if that makes any difference, both were on windows, measured by speedfan, no external cooling)

With decent gaming, it brings the temp up to 50-60C on windows

So basically when i'm on Linux, i'm actually only on the intel graphics card while the ATI card is also drawing power.
I'll try that switcheroo thing and see if i can get that to work.
Actually it would be great if the next a bios update would allow you to disable switchable graphics

My ubuntu does detect the 4gb ram though.


:~$ cat /proc/acpi/fan/FAN0/state
status: on
:~$ cat /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/TZ00/temperature
cat: /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/TZ00/temperature: No such file or directory
:~$ cat /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/TZ00/temperature
cat: /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/TZ00/temperature: No such file or directory

 

Hi everyone,

I'm a new Linux user and are dual booting Ubuntu 10.10 Alpha 1 (kernel 2.6.35) with windows 7. I get the black screen after booting into Ubuntu and cannot get rid of it no matter what I do. I have followed Andreas' suggestions of blacklisting the radeon module and running the "update-initramfs -u) command after it (Ubuntu does not package mkinitrd anymore). Upon reboot I still get the black screen but the radeon module no longer shows up under lsmod. I'm officially out of ideas and any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance
Jay

 

Its fixed, I just realized that when Ubuntu loads, the default brightness it set to the screen brightness being totally turned off. Now I have to work on booting up with a default screen brightness. Interesting......

 

Correction... Now that i measure it with cpuid hardware monitor, i'm idling at around 45C, so i think there was something wrong with speedfan's temp monitoring. (though cpuid claims i have a i5 520M running)

 

I might just be bursting in here.. but does anyone get any better battery life on Linux than on Windows ? I'm getting a few min better on Ubuntu than Windows on a crappier laptop..
is it the same with envy 14?

 

Not right now, as a matter of fact the average battery life on Linux out of the box without some tinkering is about a third to a half of what is on windows 7. This is mainly due to problems with the discrete ATI GPU sucking power even when its not loaded as a module as outlined by Andreas Demmer in his blog:
Andreas Demmer Review: Running Linux on the HP Envy 14 [updated]

Hope this helped...

 

I updated my post above as I managed to turn the ATI card off with vga_switcheroo. The runtime on battery with Linux is now somewhat comparable with Windows. Not exactly as long, but roughly similar.

 

So... is there any advice for a new linux user on how to update the kernel?

 

You would not want this if you are new to Linux, trust me! ;-)

If I cannot keep you from trying, use this guide: Digital Hermit - Kernel-Build-HOWTO

 

Well I am very sad I dont know why but my envy in Windows with the battery full and the screen low, only with wifi and surfing in the internet, the battery doesn't arrive to de 4 hours of life, it doesn't arrive to de 2,30 hours, I have to configure something.

Thanks.

Bye bye.

 

hey guys i'm a linux virgin and was just wondering.... why linux? why do people like it? what do you do with it? It's just i would like to get into it but i really don't know anything about it.

 

Let's try a very shallow comparison. I have been a Linux user for ages and I am therewith not really unbiased.

• Linux is free (as in freedom of speech): You can read and contribute to Linux source code
• Linux is free (as in free beer), at least most distributions
• Linux is available in different distributions which are suited for special needs
• Linux distributions offer package managers: All software, updates etc. is managed in one place where Windows only offers Windows/Office updates in one place and every app comes with its own installer
• Linux has a mighty shell which makes it preferrable for administrators where tasks are quicker to do with typing instead of clicking
• Linux does not necessarily need a GUI and consumes lesser resources on servers
• Some Linux software is around for decades and rock stable.
• Linux offers you choice in GUIs (GNOME for beginners, KDE for power users, XFCE for older machines etc.)
• Linux directory layout, driver concept etc. is completely different from Windows and takes some time getting used to it
• Linux is told to be more secure because it has fine grained access permissions and makes it hard for malware to perform damage as long as you are sensible enough to make use of limited permissions
• You get thousends of apps for free

I do not want to conceal some advantages of Microsoft Windows:

• You are used to it
• Every hardware nowadays supports windows where Linux supports most of it but not all of it. Sometimes it's hacky to get hardware working
• You are used to your beloved Windows tools and need to let go: Few Windows software runs well on Linux (with WINE emulation)

 

Anyone can help me? Thanks.

Bye.

 

Is your display dimmed? Is your discrete ATI card turned off with vga_switcheroo? Other things I did: Andreas Demmer Optimizing KDE’s energy profiles

 

But the problem is on windows, can you help me?

 

You have read what the title of this thread is, haven't you? ;-)