Warning: do not buy an HP notebook to run Linux

Hi,

I bought an HP DV6 (1160TX, but that's not relevant).

It comes preloaded with Windows Vlista.

It seems to work fine with Vlista (except that Vlista can't access the full 4GB of memory that the notebook comes with - how stupid is that?). And, of course, it is soooo slow because Vista is just slow.

Under Linux (I've tried 2 distros) the damned fan comes on 20% of the time at full speed and full noise for no reason whatsoever.

So, every minute or so I get at least 10 seconds of a jet engine sound in my room.

This is completely useless as a laptop/notebook computer!

HP refuse to do anything to help.

Someone in HP knows the answer to this question, but HP is SIMPLY NOT INTERESTED in supporting a new customer.

It's a fan, for goodness sake!

It should come on when the unit is hot, and go off and stay off while it is cool. Pretty simple!

I will now be contacting my government's "fair trading" department to seek to get my money back.

It is my view that this product was misrepresented as a Notebook Personal Computer, whereas it is in reality "A Windows-only computer that cannot run any other operating system".

Had they advertised it that way, then I wouldn't have bought it and wasted literally 10 working days of my time trying to get it to work.

I hope this warning protects you from the frustration, money, and time wasting that it has cost me.

regards,
RR

 

No, they're not interested supporting Linux, which is not the OS your machine came with. Vista probably doesn't see all your memory because it's 32 bit. Perhaps if you posted in the Linux forum you could find some help for your issue instead of coming here to complain.

 

First, it is called Vista, not Vlista.

Second, a clean installation is typically recommended if you purchase a computer from an OEM such as Dell, HP, Lenovo, or Gateway. These companies subsidize their products by including software and trialware from various companies that can cause even a new computer to run slowly. Doing a clean installation from a Vista DVD will result in a much faster, smoother running computer.

Third, it is up to the knowledgable consumer to match software with hardware. To address 4 GB of RAM, you need a 64-bit OS. Windows Vista x64 is available on HP's website. You can try calling them and asking for a disk to be sent.

Fourth, the fan issues you've noted may have something to do with Linux itself. Vista's drivers will detect the temperature and change fan speed accordingly. It sounds like Linux is failing to do so. This doesn't indicate a hardware issue so much as a software problem. Since HP doesn't support Linux on your computer, you'll have to find the answer on your own.

Fifth, the machine clearly doesn't stop you from installing and using Linux, or really any OS you want. It seems then that your particular claim there has no merit. You should calm down and attempt to fix these issues yourself.

 

Hi,

I'm merely posting a warning to anyone considering an HP notebook.

Can't do that. It doesn't come with disks. The best I can do is burn and use the "system recovery" disks, which I've done.

Reloaded with those - everything is identical. Slow.

32-bit Linux can access the whole 4GB of RAM (using the PAE kernel).

So, you're not quite as knowledgeable as you may think.

The ACPI/DSDT specification that HP is involved with is designed to allow the BIOS and operating system to interact.

In there, the BIOS is supposed to define cooling devices, such as fans.

On this particular model, the ACPI/DSDT doesn't define fans.

So, the only way Vista could be controlling the fan is through some secret interface that should be published, in everyone's interest (except Microsoft's - which might explain HP's intransigence on this [i.e. monopolistic collusion?])

It's the 10 working days I've spent trying to find a solution to this and HP's "we don't care" attitude that probably makes me un-calm.

As for installing "any OS", the computer box actually says "This system requires a separately purchased 64-bit operating system and 64-bit software products to take advantage of the 64-bit processing capabilities....".

So, I've done that, and the computer is unusable because the uncontrolled fan makes it so.

HP cannot have it both ways. They cannot say "we only support Windows Vista" and also "requires a separately purchased 64-bit operating system ... to take advantage of [this computers' full] capabilities....".

HP didn't say "This computer can only use Windows. No other operating system is usable on this computer."

In fact, they've specifically said "a separately purchased 64-bit operating system", which I have.

The fan is a hardware device. It does not require any OS intervention. It should run when the computer is hot (faster as it gets hotter) and run slower or not at all when the computer is cool.

That's actually not rocket science is it?

I understand cooling can be more complex than that, if you so choose to design it that way, and in some cases it makes sense for the OS to participate.

Fine, so publish the mechanism by which the OS can participate. In fact, why not make it part of the ACPI/DSDT which is where it supposed to be!

regards,
RR

 

I somewhat agree with the other posters in this thread... but still, it is pretty jacked that HP would even say in the marketing materials that you need to buy another OS to get essentially what you paid for. I do seem to remember a while back there was some sort of thing where you could call MS and they'd send you Windows install discs as long as you had a valid PID for a small (like $5-$10) fee. I think you could even go between 32 and 64 bit within the same SKU. They may have discontinued the program though, or it may be US only.

 

You really have to love this guy..."Do not buy HP if you are planing to put Linux"
Oh NO...HP is out to get us with their no Linux policy ))
You are funny and I hope you know it, which Linux distros are you trying to install? Which version?
I personal use Ubuntu 8.04 on my almost 9 years old Omny600, with no problem or issues regarding fans and etc.
Second example, I am running Mandriva '09 on my dv6000, also no problem at all, even the temps are a few degrees lower than with XP and Vista, and the fans are quiet as a graveyard.
So...it could be a model issue, it could be a distro, or it could be user related, so please do not make statements like this and generalize about the brand that a lot of people are using with no problems.

 

No worries here i wouldnt even consider running linux,on anything for that matter..............

 

Another ridiculous post. You don't buy a consumer grade HP laptop expecting Linux support. However, their business notebooks have pretty good Linux support. Nearly every notebook I've used runs hotter under Linux due to poorer power management support in the kernel. If you want to make it work better, then contribute to the development. That's open source software for you.

 

I was able to get my DV5 working properly under Ubuntu. EVERYTHING worked. It took a couple weeks of messing with it though, but it did work.

Ultimately i went back to Windows (currently on Win7 RTM), but only because i needed to use FL Studio (try using a realtime audio app in a virtual machine - NOT FUN).

The preinstalled vista doesn't recognize all 4GB because it's 32-bit. Try 64-bit Vista or Windows 7 RTM 64-bit. You'll be happy with it i guarantee. As for PAE, that's a dirty hack i'd rather not use. You got a 64-bit processor, why not run it native?

 

LOL linux and other noob OS's are crap. Microsoft OS rocks!!!

 

Wow, another expert here I see, all the way from London!

 

BAttery life is always sub par in Linux compared to windows. Nevertheless, I improved things a lot by setting the power management scheme to on demand, lowering screen brighntness, and enabling laptop mode. This has been discussed before, many times on the Ubuntu forums.

 

Not entirely true. It is sub par if you don't bother to enable powersaving options. My DV5 gets 1:30 in Windows. It got the same 1:30 in Ubuntu after enabling laptop mode, ondemand CPU governor, and brightness controls worked out of the box so i would just set them with my keyboard. Then after undervolting it got 1:50.

 

This. Is. Right.

My nx9420 <3 Fedora. Quite much.

 

Considering that the ACPI in my dv5 only supports Thermal Zones (i.e., temperature monitoring) on Vista, it's no surprise that your dv6 has problems. But I patched my DSDT to fix this particular problem, and have been running Linux on it from day one.

Overall I agree though; even though we are an HP software development partner I will not be buying any more HP laptops in the future.

 

How do you undervolt in Ubuntu?

 

See this thread.

 

My dh has a Dvt7. He has used Crunch Bang and now Mint on it. The only major issue he really had was trying to get the sound to work but was successful in finding a way. He also hasn't noticed the fan working harder. He hasn't done a battery test to see how long it lasts. He's going to pay attention to anything out of the ordinary. Now when he ran several Linux distros on his old Mac he did have issues such as the fan running on high speed and still running hot.

 

Sounds very much like the OP expected his downloaded Linux distro to have all of the device drivers and hardware temp/power control that the MSFT operating systems do.

Also sounds like the OP hasn't bothered to visit any of the linux support boards to ask two basic questions.

In spite of having the wrong expectations and not going after answers in an appropo forum, he's telling everyone here how wrong they are.

hmmmmmmm

 

I think you hit the nail spot on. Sounds a little bit like me the first time I tried to put linux on an old Compaq - I assumed, more or less without having given any thought to it, that linux was sort of like Windows and that any real differences would be immaterial. Well, as everyone else who's played with linux knows - linux is not Windows - not in terms of installation, not in terms of operation, and lastly, not in terms of visuals. In particular, linux is, and always has been, essentially a DIY affair, and the DIY aspect isn't just limited to doing the OS installation yourself.

Just like any DIY project, there will be store-bought things that just don't quite fit, and need to have a little bit shaved off here, or there, and then there are parts that you just plain have to fabricate yourself, and that involves a lot of work and know-how (and a heck of a lot of learning if you've never done it before yourself, which is why trying to set up linux on a schedule for the first time is a little like walking up to a biker gang and kicking over their bikes while they watch - you will get the tar beat out of you).

The OP ought to be glad that at least he doesn't have to go out and write most of his own drivers, the way it apparently used to be in the bad/good old days. Then he'd really have something to complain about.

 

Just a little thought under Linux, or any type of UNIX; try installing the powernow daemon which should enable CPU frequency scaling.

(fire up a terminal)
If in Debian/Ubuntu

apt-get install powernowd

just check the apt cache before hand to make sure that's what it's called:

apt-cache search powernow

or if running Red Hat based systems then through yum do:

yum search powernow

yum install powernowd

chances are that Red Hat will already have installed this, that goes for Fedora and CentOS as well.

To check this you can run: #ls /etc/init.d | grep powernow

(you need to run this from Konsole in KDE desktop environment or terminal in Gnome desktop environment if using any other Window Manager then should fire up xterm, aterm, eterm and all the other derivatives and you need to be root too meaning: su - )

I wouldn't recommend switching to BSD or Solaris as these OS's are more for Professional applications and you will need to compile or 'build' code from scratch with these systems.

To cut down on CPU and memory utilization you could also run ntsysv in RH based systems or rcconf in Debian based systems which you could then easily edit the RC startup scripts by selecting the services you wish to run at boot time under init run level 5 which is full GUI mode.

If still worried about CPU note that KDE4 seems to have a bug at least running KUbuntu 9.04 which should be same for Ubuntu Jaunty systems as well in that Plasma takes up 100% of the CPU cycles. I will get on to the developers about this I think as it's making my laptop run at 200 degrees F. Use Gnome 2 which is similar to Mac OS of old it's good and stable and doesn't take too much in terms of system power!

Alternatively try any of XFCE, Fluxbox, Blackbox, WindowMaker as these are cut down versions of GUI that just sit on your X server waiting for std input rather then using std out to output lots of flashy animations.

If wondering about good distros on Linux it is subjective but for hardware compatibility the best tend to be the most used meaning: Debian, OpenSuse, or Fedora.

For those of you that think Linux or UNIX in general is useless think again as most of the worlds super servers are UNIX based ) - if you use Yahoo at all they run BSD for their systems and if you use a cell phone then chances are that it's actually running off a Sun Microsystems server with Solaris OS sitting on top. This would be for RADIUS/LDAP authentication after the radio interface in your cell phone finds the local cell tower or base station. After that there are other systems in place in order to convert the cellular transmissions, meaning GSM2 or UMTS (for 3G protocols) to standard routable PSTN switched networks in order to communicate with other providers and land lines. Plus the ability route internet traffic via proxy over GRPS/WAP or HSDPA using CDMA.

Try doing those things with an MS based box and it's likely to go khabluey, also each time the system crashes or is restarted as that is the only way updates in an MS based environment can be performed users will loose network connectivity!!!! Which knowing MS would be frequently

Another tip for would be Linux/UNIX users is that Google is your new best friend, as most information can be found there and there are many forums available to use for getting assistance and help. www.linuxquestions.org is one of the best I've seen so far!

Well yeh, if any one needs to know anything else about how to get Linux/UNIX to work on a consumer based laptop you are very welcome to PM me

Cheers

 

The problem about Linux today isn't that it is still a DIY thing. The problem is that there are a million distros, each with their own small userbase, and each with their own issues. And those small userbases on their own find it really hard to fix the issues, but no way in hell would they accept collaborating with each other.

This is the main issue. Unity is the key to success, but no one in the Linux world seems to realize that. They're all using the same kernel and the same core utilities after all - why not use the same basic programs as well? The first step would be standardizing the sound system. No PulseAudio or Jack or any of that garbage, just focus all work on ALSA and make it more flexible. Allow it to do low latency or high quality depending on user requirements, and put all of this into one easy to use control panel. PulseAudio is yet one more layer of crud on top of ALSA, which inherently makes sound WORSE not better. Jack works well when it does work, but when it doesn't, it doesn't at all, outputting nothing but crackles because of buffer underruns, and this seems to be the case with most onboard cards.

PulseAudio and Jack both rely on ALSA. If ALSA is broken neither of those will do any good. So if ALSA is broken, why not fix it?

And the second major gripe would be font rendering. It's just awful. Open any web page and you'll see that regular fonts render too fat (wide), while monospace fonts render too small. Try to make the small fonts larger and you'll also make the fat fonts even fatter. With any fonts you install it is still the same. They need to get those proportions right.

I don't believe this is impossible to do - it's just that nobody really cares about it, and whoever asks gets booted out.

Something i have seen very often on Linux forums is that with Linux you are in complete control of your system, that you can make it do whatever you want, don't have to pay like for Windows, and that you're not getting spied on by Uncle Bill.

Well, i can turn off all error reporting, and voila, no more sending of data to MS. But unless you sign up to a bug reporting mailing list and post required data when you're having issues with Linux, chances are you'll never going to see them fixed. You still have to send data to Linux developers, Microsoft's system simply automates this feature which makes it better for less technical users. Then there's the Windows API which is very well documented, and this documentation is free for everyone. If you need to code something, using the Windows API isn't hard, not to mention that the compatible OSes are noted for every function, so you know exactly what to use for your desired target system. As for Linux, you have to take into account the multitude of desktop environments (and there's not only Gnome and KDE), the various sound systems (now that OSS4 is in things are getting even more complex), the type of video drivers used, blah blah blah blah.

Edit: Just noticed the above post. If you need to read that much just to get your CPU frequency scaling to work, then there's something very wrong. And btw, powernowd does not work with everything...

I do not think Linux is useless. It's doing a very good job on servers, as that's what it was designed for in the first place. But it is not yet ready for the desktop.

 

It can never be ready for Desktop.
Why?
Unless ALL Hardware Vendors support Linux new hardware that comes out always support Windows only until the drivers are updated to support them.
So if you want to get everything working out of box stick to older models.

Bill retired give him a break .
And I think Jobs is more of a control freak than Ballmers (so as to not confuse the 2 Steves) not to mention con artist selling hardware at higher cost.
Remember Apple is a Vendor (Read: hardware company) not software.
Just because they provide a customised Ubuntu like OS that SIMPLY WORKS doesn't mean they can charge it at a higher cost as Mark does it for Free and Linus is trying support EVERY HARDWARE available on the planet

 

Ok I do realize that there are many distros and I have been helping develop a few of them

But at the end of the day the kernels are all custom compiled when it comes down to each individual distro and yes they do all handle things in their own ways.

For that reason better to stick to the larger ones, Fedora is actually Red Hat's testing suite even though Red Hat you have to pay for but Fedora is free.

Debian is also ultra reliable and a very large package and user base although their packages are a little old!

For the average user I think that KUbuntu 9.04 is pretty good, even someone like my over 60 year old mom gets on with it and can do just about anything she needs to on it.

If fonts are an issue then Sun Microsystems Solaris has the best font rendering I've ever seen. I wouldn't go for Solaris 10 as it's a bit limited but Open Solaris or SXCE (Solaris Express Community Edition) are really good candidates. I am currently working with the Belenix team on the new release of their take on Solaris, as the kernel is completely Solaris just has the addition of a package manager and some great packages not available in Solaris by default unless you wana custom compile everything. Once that gets up and running it should be pretty awsome!!

Usually if there is a bug with Linux chances are that it has already been reported as once into the Linux mentality people generally are quite happy to get more involved of which MS doesn't allow you to do unless you pay them.

Also just from personal preference, Windows has no CLI based option at all which is a disaster. The MS DOS prompt is useless and doesn't even have the dig utility installed to perform DNS record lookups. One has to rely solely on nslookup here. Also no built in SSH client and remote management of MS systems is pretty poor as you can't telnet or SSH them you have to rely on rDesktop which takes up more bandwidth then the CLI tools hence increasing latency and delay times if one can connect at all in the first place.

Then if you want to run a service on an MS based system you have to upgrade to MS server and pay for that and on top of that pay for the license fees. Uh it's a hassle!!
More so if you wana setup a mail server too as the Exchange is waaay over priced. When you can get something that even works with Outlook and Blackberry server and push email for free....

Also the good thing about UNIX based systems is that you can get into the guts of the systems and hack the hell out of them if you know what you're doing. This makes for a really powerful package as you can even re-write the OS if so desired! And did I mention the ability to work from CLI too?? :-D uh now that is nervana

 

well i have gotten ubuntu to work out of the box no fussing around. I just downloaded the 64 bit 9.04 version off thier website, installed inside windows rebooted and viola everything worked (well the only thing i had to do was choose to install 180 drivers for my 9600gt)

 

You mean you used something like VMWare or Sun's Virtual Box and ran Ubuntu as a virtual machine??

Or did a dual boot otherwise that statement doesn't make sense! The only operating system where you can run different instances of OS's or even different OS's themselves inside a host based OS is Sun Microsystems Solaris as you can run each instance within something called a zone. Other then Citrix mainframes which are hypervisors need a host based OS to run Xen which then allow you aggregate all your virtual OS's onto one box.... but that's known as virtualization and is a completely different thing to running a desktop based system.

 

In addition to why use UNIX based systems in the first place, the answer for the standard user would be simple:

- No need for antivirus
- No need for anti spyware
- no slow startup times due to many system processes being initialized at boot
- much more difficult to hack with default config almost impossible with properly secured config
- way more stable then MS
- do not need to restart system each time something is upgraded or updated, instead restart the service
- you can configure it from anywhere round the world provided you have port 22 opened on your NAT and have the SSH server installed and running
- you can work with either GUI or CLI
- you can fully customize the system to your own hearts extent
- you are free to reverse engineer any proprietary software or drivers then rebuild them as GPL versions
- it's totally free
- you can run MS based apps under wine which is system32 emulator
- you can run MS products on their own virtual instance contained within a VM (virtual machine)
- you also get to learn a lot about computing too and how a system works
- if running BSD, Solaris, AIX, HP-UX you can impress most people as they haven't heard of these systems before provided you know how to use them and don't end up backfiring when botching config or so

But at the end of the day it all is subjective as some people are sworn to Win or OSX and they are totally used to that which is fair enough. Obviously I am a UNIX engineer so it is a bit different for me to be commenting or participating even in a consumer based argument but still these systems do have a lot of strengths at the end of the day and will always have a large following in consumer and pro markets.

Although servers are really where UNIX stands on its own as it can easily handle 128, 256 or more processors on one machine - yes I am talking about large scale mainframe systems. But in a desktop environment once you are used to the working with these systems they are really powerful and fun. That does include hacking out Xorg on FreeBSD in order to get the Xserver to run to be able to have a GUI.

 

Sounds like HP add some proprietary crap that has messed up the Linux support. I have a dv9700t, and it works perfectly with Kubuntu 9.04 (i.e., everything works automatically).

Consumer laptops tend to use proprietary technology that can make it rather difficult to access all the hardware in Linux. If you must buy a consumer laptop, you should wait until all of that proprietary hardware has been reverse engineered and support for it has been added.

While Microsoft's abuse of its monopoly to prevent Linux usage by subverting open standards is despicable, you have to deal with reality and make sure that a particular piece of hardware is supported before you purchase it.

 

That sounds interesting. Any more details please?

CLI? You don't wanna know what i can do with that little command line in Windows. And for SSH there's PuTTY which is lightweight and works perfectly fine. Oh and UltraVNC. Who said you have to use Remote Desktop?

Most people do not need to run a mail server. The ones that do, have a dedicated Linux machine for running Apache/email/whatever. We are talking about Linux on the desktop (well, laptop) here.

See that's why the GUI never gets any attention, because all of the CLI guys in Linux. 99% of computer users need some sort of GUI. What, we're in punch-card age again? I wasn't even born when those were around btw, my grandfather told me about those. You can rewrite the whole system, yes, of course. But that takes time, and time = money. And you need to google, edit cfg files, compile, google, edit cfg files... for something that worked on Windows out of the box.

Ubuntu has developed a Windows-based installer. Do your homework.

A user with good security practices does not need antivirus or antispyware under Windows either. I haven't used an antivirus product in over 3 years. I have four Windows machines with internet and without AV and all my files are still clean. The oldest installation of Windows i have is a TinyXP Platinum 2 install, which is 3 years old and has gone through lots of hardware changes yet still boots in 20 seconds and is as snappy as it was when it was first installed.

Windows 7 boots faster than Ubuntu.

When playing a movie with Compiz enabled my whole machine would hang. When playing certain games (even after i had entirely removed Compiz), i would have to drop to a text terminal to kill the process because it would hang. Yeah, it's so stable. It is stable when there is no audio or video involved.

People reverse engineer Windows apps all the time. It's called cracking. And btw... Reversing proprietary software is still illegal, regardless what system you do it on.

I sure hope you are kidding with Wine. It FAILS for anything involving more than DirectX 3 graphics. Hell, it doesn't even support that "limited" Windows command line entirely.

You cannot get realtime audio in a virtual machine. I compose music in FL Studio so that is very important for me. And please do not even attempt to mention Ardour.

Yes you learn a lot about computing. But are those abilities ever going to be useful? If you won't become a Linux developer or a server administrator, no. I'd rather be a Windows developer.

I'm not sworn to Windows. But i know it inside out, and trust me, it is more flexible than you believe it is. Linux will always have a large market in servers, but not yet on the desktop.

 

I have run ubuntu and redhat perfectly on my Hp2510p.
Ubuntu even ran fully out of the box with no modifications needed for the hardware (except my WWAN card).
I have used linux some what, although I´m a novice when it comes to linux i do know how to edit the odd config file.
I just allways end up going back to windows as it supports more software.
Yes there are tons of software for linux that would do what i need of it.
But the fact is I have a better understanding of windows.
Linux is in my mind a great idea, it just hasn´t been adapted so that anyone can use it(yet).

As for getting 64bit dvd´s of vista. Have you called Hp about it?
I called Hp service and talked to them about getting a 64bit disc.
And not only did I get the 64bit disc I also got the 32bit dvd sent to me for free.

And if that doesn´t help you can always request new dvd´s from microsoft:
http://www.microsoft.com/Windows/windows-vista/compare-editions/64-bit.aspx
It´s not free, but close to it.

/ Santzia

 

ubuntu now has an option in install like a program inside windows, it removes to need to repartition you drives and such, to uninstall you just uninstall like a program.

 

Thanks, this was originally posted by Th3_uN1Qu3

I am sorry I have no knowledge of Windows stuff for a while now as I don't use it. Got rid of it a few months back totally from my systems and I'm entirely happy with my combination of Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris and OpenSolaris, and HP-UX.... not to mention Cisco IOS for routers, wireless access points and switches.

I've actually just spent the whole evening developing a new GUI for the Gnome2 desktop environment to be launched with the new release of Belenix. www.belenix.org

Basically it is a derivative of OpenSolaris which in turn is based on Solaris 10 and is actually known as Solaris 11. Solaris Express Community Edition, SXCE, is known as Solaris 11+ with Solaris Express Developer Edition SXDE being used only internally to develop apps. Difference is in the h/w compatibility, please check the HCL's on the OpenSolaris web site for more info.

Belenix basically will bridge the gap between Linux and Solaris, where Solaris is well known for running on over 200 CPU's at once in just about every telco and ISP around it doesn't have many GUI based apps or anything substantial for multimedia. Belenix claims to change all that, with the soon to be released version 0.8 ultra stability is promised with loads of GPL based apps to boot with main desktop running KDE4 or Gnome2.

Should run on almost any machine, I've had 0.7.1 running on a laptop no one's ever heard of before unless you're in the UK and it runs fine no bugs and creaks.

The new software repo is going to be massive and also since it uses Java as the main backend to the GUI although was written in C originally already SXCE and OpenSolaris look pretty amazing: www.opensolaris.org for more info!

I'm not sure why people would still need Windows actually, I pretty much throttle my machines to death the way I use them but yet they've never let me down at all. I think actually I stopped using Windows seriously after XP SP2 came out. Ever since then it's been virtual sitting on a vdi image from Sun's Virtual Box which is normally turned off!
That said I have saturated my 20Mb internet connection, filled up all 4TB of disk space I have in my machines and still manage to run a healthy combination of desktop and server systems to boot. Try something like 15 servers including SPARC and x86 based chips plus multiple desktops and laptops. For normal desktop usage Linux is fine and very stable I have never had any problems with it even after hacking the thing out to pieces.

Considering my whole entire life is on my machines outside of work of course they really are an insentive never to go back to Apple or MS operating systems. For multimedia stuff in terms of Pro Audio, Video, and graphic design Apple is still the best unless you want to go over to IRIX mainframes from Silicon Graphics but not everyone has a few hundred thousand dollars lying around for that! I should know about Apple and studio work I have a recording studio at home too which is centralized around a 733MHz G4 and Mackie DXB digital desk which actually runs Windows XP .

But in my view it's entirely about what the individual wants from the machine. In comparison to Windows I think UNIX based systems are much faster in every respect. No registries to worry about no page file usage and then there's the ZFS file system which is unbelievable!!!!

But then again UNIX is not for everyone especially if you are used to .exe or .msi files and pointing, clicking and dragging which I personally find tedious. Now with Vista though I am totally lost. Too many menu's and weird areas where things are at, when colleges ask me for assistance on Vista I usually tell them to go somewhere else as I have no idea is so tedious and long winded.

 

Funny , but I run Suse , Ubuntu ,solaris and a few other OS on my HP laptops , and 32 bit os will not see the whole 4gb . N idea where OP is getting his info .

 

Just tell me if you fixed the damn gnome panel icons as it would be about time. They keep moving around when the screen resolution is lowered and don't go back when it is restored. Not even a complete panel lockdown keeps them in their place.

No registry but a million cfg files, most of which you will have to deal with at one point. Linux has swap which is the same as the pagefile in Windows. Granted it's being used a bit less than the win swapfile due to better memory management, but it still bogs the system down to a crawl when it is. Never heard of ZFS.

And it is faster when you are doing "nothing much really". In my case it ended up to be much slower than Windows since i needed certain things that i could only run in a XP VM (such as Yahoo Messenger and FL Studio, and just try running a realtime audio app in a virtual machine... I did actually manage to complete a song in that configuration, which is pretty amazing. But i will never do it again).

Vista is a bit more complicated, yes. But just turn off UAC and it'll get much better. Windows 7 made these things much easier, the first time you see a UAC prompt you get a little link at the bottom of the message box which allows you to configure UAC (or disable it entirely), with no reboot required. And at any time, if you don't like a feature, you can always turn it off. And personally i whip out a command prompt all the time if doing mass deletion/renaming, or passing arguments to programs instead of "create shortcut, right click, click properties... " Btw, Vista and Win7 come with a "command prompt here" menu by default (shift + right click and you'll have that and some more advanced options), Linux (at least Ubuntu and Mandriva which i have used) does not. For a OS that's based on the command line a lot, that's ridiculous. Does Belenix have that feature?

As you can see i'm not afraid of the command line, or of spending a couple weeks to get my system running the way i want it. I just have some specific requirements that i cannot do without. One is low-latency glitch-free audio, and the second is proper font rendering, not that blurry disproportionate mess. And so far Windows offers both, Linux offers none. Should i mention to you that ASIO4ALL, the Windows driver that allows low latency on the crappy onboard chips of my laptops, is free? It's not open-source, but it's free and it works wonders.

 

ZFS is BSD or Solaris not Linux, has ext2/3/4 as filesystem with swap yes of which ZFS eliminates altogether! Config files aren't that much all stored /etc unless your looking at specific files like zone files or so for DNS server which get stored in /var. Still is really easy to go into a terminal and edit them

All Linux versions come with a command prompt as far as I am aware! Since they are based on UNIX at the core they need it. Ubuntu definitely does as I run KUbuntu and it has the Konsole in KDE4 or Gterm in Gnome2, also it really isn't a command prompt but more a shell as you interface 100% with the system on this so the only one that would screw up is you!! Since the system only does what you tell it depending on which shell you're using; bash, dash, zsh to name a few.

Belenix is not Linux it's Solaris which is more of a pure UNIX system, please see AT&T Bell Labs from the 70's to find out exactly when UNIX came about and what it was....

Sounds to me like you want an Audio workstation for Music production! Linux isn't the best for this, Solaris and BSD haven't even bothered with apps for it so you're really only 2 choices go to Windows or OSX. Nothing beets Logic and Pro Tools unless you're a Cubase user but then again I would still fork out a few grand or tens of grand for a nice Pro Tools system maybe even go HD with 192KHz sampling frequencies. And maybe go for a Digidesign ICON interface desk too )

If like me you are a fan of MIDI then Logic is the best but for audio it sucks and ever since Apple took over from Emagic I have not liked in one bit! Too bad I don't have any time anymore to play around making tracks, working 7 days a week doesn't leave one with much spare time :-(

 

Just want to drop in a recommendation here - use Droid fonts on your Linux box to get really good font rendering. Do remember to enable subpixel smoothing (a.k.a Windows Cleartype).Droid font is freely released by Google as part of the Android project.

Also, OSS 4.1 is coming up as a linux sound system that will "just work" - low latency and all the jazz. It is already part of the Arch Linux repository.
Just my $0.02

 

RedHat released their Liberation font sets quite a while ago.

Also, look around for Luke Owens 'LDO' font sets. LDO is a pretty good typographer and is meticulous about things like glyph hinting and supporting as much of the Unicode character set as possible. His font sets can quite easily replace much of the cruft that MSFT distros.

Droid fonts:

http://benno.id.au/blog/2007/11/14/android-filesystems

LDO Fonts:

http://www.fontspace.com/luke-owens

RHEL Liberation Fonts:

https://fedorahosted.org/releases/l/i/liberation-fonts/

 

Well then what does it do when it runs out of memory?

I was talking about the GUI OPTION right-click -> command prompt here. You could call it "terminal window here" or whatever. Would save a lot of typing and tabbing.

I use FL Studio and sometimes Cubase, i am still learning it as it's a bit overwhelming. It's exactly like people say - FL Studio is easy to learn but hard to master, while Cubase is harder to learn but easier to get what you want once you learned it. Apple is way overpriced. And my onboard sound chips all do 192kHz... I run them at 96 though. And unfortunately i don't have tens of grand to drop now. I know i will have them, but it's gonna take a few years.

Till they get proper ALSA compatibility no one is really going to give a damn about OSS4. See what i was saying above about the non-standard sound system... They need to decide once and for all. And what exactly is their definition of "low latency"?

I had the droid fonts. Yes they were nice. BUT. They would only work on the desktop GUI. For some reason, no matter what i did, web pages would still use that stupid fat Sans font whenever they would feel like it... DejaVu Sans, is it? Subpixel smoothing in Linux is a blurry mess compared to Windows ClearType, they say it's because there are certain MS patents that don't allow them to make it right... I don't believe them, as i know very well that there are more ways than one to do something.

And it's not only the fonts themselves, especially annoying is the proportion (lack thereof) between regular and monospace fonts. The monospace font appears a lot smaller than it should. Simply put, web pages look like garbage.

Do you see any difference between the Liberation fonts and the disproportionate fat defaults that are DejaVu? I don't. They are exactly the same garbage.

Didn't have the opportunity to test the LDO fonts but as long as web pages would still use the damn DejaVu Sans all the time, i doubt they would really help. As i said my gripe wasn't with all the fonts - i had Droid fonts on my desktop and they looked nice - but once i opened a web browser all went to hell.

 

Just installing fonts doesn't do a lot for you except when manually selecting fonts in Word.

You need to educate yourself on font replacement and substitution in browsers as well as in windows itself. It's very easy but not a common topic of discussion. Browser subs and OS subs are two releated, but separate things. If you're serious about trying to clean things up you will need to learn both.

I've changed all my system web defaults to use the new Segoe font, everything looks very nice.

 

For a glimpse into ZFS please see output below, the filesystem uses something called an rpool which the swap is stored on a virtual partition called /tempfs but also can have many forms and is powerful to even colonize unused space on nfs mounted partitions to act as extra memory. Also since the hard disk itself doesn't get partitioned, you don't need any slices on a primary partition which the UFS or UFS2 partitioning systems used to do. Please Google for more information!

Code:

Sun Microsystems Inc.   SunOS 5.11      snv_116 November 2008
-bash-3.2$ df -h
Filesystem             size   used  avail capacity  Mounted on
rpool/ROOT/snv_116      17G   8.4G   6.6G    57%    /
/devices                 0K     0K     0K     0%    /devices
/dev                     0K     0K     0K     0%    /dev
ctfs                     0K     0K     0K     0%    /system/contract
proc                     0K     0K     0K     0%    /proc
mnttab                   0K     0K     0K     0%    /etc/mnttab
swap                   400M   536K   399M     1%    /etc/svc/volatile
objfs                    0K     0K     0K     0%    /system/object
sharefs                  0K     0K     0K     0%    /etc/dfs/sharetab
fd                       0K     0K     0K     0%    /dev/fd
swap                   399M   368K   399M     1%    /tmp
swap                   399M   104K   399M     1%    /var/run
/dev/dsk/c3t0d0s0       21G    18G   3.1G    86%    /mnt/raid
rpool/export            17G    23K   6.6G     1%    /export
rpool/export/home       17G   159M   6.6G     3%    /export/home
rpool                   17G    66K   6.6G     1%    /rpool

Please see the attachment for the answer! This is what the new Belenix (Solaris) release will have as GUI!! There is still a lot of work to be done as this is only a preliminary test for it, icons and other things still need to be sorted out but the basics are there....
For the Gnome2 desktop, the other will be KDE4 of which looks totally different and handles things in a dramatically different way.
Won't post screenshots here but you are welcome to visit the belenix site and download the live cd when version 0.8 gets released!
Btw this hack has been ported from Debian Etch which I used to run about say 2 or 3 years ago. So it is quite an old desktop design but very effective, sort of like a cross between an old Amstrad and Hollywood OS which is used as the graphical front end to shows like CSI and NCIS.

Will have to remake some scripts though soon in order to build another system monitor into the desktop as we need to see everything that our machine is doing in front of us in a HUD.

 

I changed EVERYTHING. Firefox, Opera (spent a crapload of time figuring what went where in the advanced font options of Opera). The browsers would still use the stupid DejaVu whenever they felt like it. I tried everything to override them but it didn't work.

 

Try this, obtain any font pack or rip off the ones from Windows.

Should be somewhere like c:\system\system32\fonts or so.....
and copy them over to your linux box.

Then open a terminal windows:

Code:

ls /usr/share | grep fonts {lets make sure the directory is there first} 
su - {become root user}
pwd {check the current directory that we're in}
cd {let's move to font directory}
cp -r [font_name] /usr/share/fonts {recursively copy everything into the fonts directory}

If in Gnome at this point go to System->preferences->appearance

Click on fonts and then change accordingly.

If I remember correctly!! I had to install some mathematical fonts once while writing an article on DSP convolution of which I used OpenOffice.org on my Debian system at that time so it is possible. Just Google if you get stuck, I mean no point in complaining before you've explored ALL possibilities!

 

Have a look at the .reg file

(I take NO responsibility for anything connected to the use, disuse, misuse, etc, etc of this file.)

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\FontSubstitutes]
"MS Shell Dlg 2"="Segoe UI"
"MS Shell Dlg"="Segoe UI"
"Helv"="Segoe UI"
"MS Sans Serif 8,10,12,14,18,24"="Segoe UI"
"MS Serif 8,10,12,14,18,24"="Segoe UI"
"MS Sans Serif"="Segoe UI"
"System"="Segoe UI"
"Microsoft Sans Serif"="Segoe UI"
"Tahoma"="Segoe UI"
"MS Serif"="Segoe UI"
"Times New Roman"="Segoe UI"
"Times"="Segoe UI"
"Small Fonts"="Segoe UI"
"Tms Rmn"="Segoe UI"
"Arial"="Segoe UI"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Fonts]
"Arial (TrueType)"="segoeui.ttf"
"Arial Italic (TrueType)"="segoeuii.ttf"
"Arial Bold (TrueType)"="segoeuib.ttf"
"Arial Bold Italic (TrueType)"="segoeuiz.ttf"
"Times New Roman (TrueType)"="segoeui.ttf"
"Times New Roman Italic (TrueType)"="segoeuii.ttf"
"Times New Roman Bold (TrueType)"="segoeuib.ttf"
"Times New Roman Bold Italic (TrueType)"="segoeuiz.ttf"
"Tahoma (TrueType)"="segoeui.ttf"
"Tahoma Bold (TrueType)"="segoeuib.ttf"
"Microsoft Sans Serif (TrueType)"="segoeui.ttf"
"MS Sans Serif 8,10,12,14,18,24 (VGA res)"="segoeui.ttf"
"MS Serif 8,10,12,14,18,24 (VGA res)"="segoeui.ttf"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\MuiCache]
"@themeui.dll,-2037"="{Segoe UI, 8 pt}"
"@themeui.dll,-2038"="{Segoe UI, 8 pt}"
"@themeui.dll,-2039"="{Segoe UI, 8 pt}"
"@themeui.dll,-2040"="{Segoe UI, 8 pt}"
"@themeui.dll,-2041"="{Segoe UI, 8 pt}"
"@themeui.dll,-2042"="{Segoe UI, 8 pt}"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\FontMapper\FamilyDefaults]
"Swiss"="Segoe UI"
"Roman"="Segoe UI"

 

Uh... I didn't know Linux had a registry... :laugh:

 

Uh... I thought we were talking winderz. Sorry, my bad.

 

Linux is UNIX as what people call Linux is really only an open source kernel surrounded by GNU and GPL apps running an X server which is where GUI fans get their graphic desktop environments from. Otherwise Linux is only a UNIX screen if you turn X off.

What is UNIX? I described it earlier as being developed by AT&T's Bell Labs for research purposes back in the 70's. Yes it's had ages to evolve and turn into something amazing but since it was designed by researchers for researchers it means that really it's true uses come at the academic level with only the 'average Joe' knowing where to point click and what apps they like best. The UNIX shell is the most powerful thing about Linux, HP-UX, AIX, IRIX, Cirtix mainframes, BSD, Solaris and all other UNIX based systems as you can write code, run applications, parse events, debug and all other really cool things from it which the Windows commnd prompt is only that a simple command interface.

Try browsing the web from the Win command prompt it won't work, but you an on a UNIX shell running Links or Lynx

But having been saying everything I have here on this forum about UNIX based systems they are complicated and not for the laymen so if too much for you and you don't understand the difference between an x86, Alpha, SPARC, or Power6 uP there's always Windows or Mac OSX.... to keep the average user society happy

Ok time to go to work, frame relay, ACL's, NAT/PAT and OSPF routing services coming up -- I love Cisco IOS :-D

[edit]
For updating fonts please see above ......

If can't find the font directory we know that we have a Journaled file system being ext3 so let's make use of the indexing capabilities!

Again drop to a shell prompt and su -

Code:

updatedb
locate fonts

Now that we know the directory it is in we can cd to it or cp our font files or recursively copy a font folder.

To change fonts in browser may need to do a bit of Google'ing find the config files or alternatively write a script or 2 to capture anything going into stdin and writing that with a different type face to stdout.....

HTH

 

we're getting way off topic here, but......

Have you tried the KDE font manager Kfontinstaller? It works on lots of platforms, not just KDE.

And from the Scribus project comes Fontmatrix. This is Good Stuff and was last updated about 3 weeks ago.

 

This is quite true as Linux vs MS is an argument or debate that's never gona end at the end of the day I think we have actually deviated from the original post which was the fact that HP didn't support Linux which quite rightly they don't need to!

As a Linux or UNIX user one must learn to support themselves and be ready for whatever comes up. As for h/w support check the HCL's (hardware compatibility lists) and apart from that you need to do some research too. Ok my position as a UNIX and Cisco IOS engineer means that I don't use computers like the average user but I think the debates that have gone on for a few pages now are endless and supporters of each system will always try to say that 'their systems' are the best.

I think probably this will still be debated 100 years down the line but even now it's kind of an old topic and getting a bit boring quite frankly.

But I must disagree with anyone claiming that one cannot run an operating system on a device as that's nonsense you just need to have the knowhow of how to make it work which may even mean cross compiling, linking or whatever!

So by all means DO RUN Linux on an HP, certainly as I am interested in 2; a netbook and a Compaq 15.4" I will not only be running Linux but many other systems as well making a triple or quad boot system ;-)

So I think that should answer that!

For h/w it seems HP uses Broadcom radios at the 2.4GHz or 5GHz range which is fine: NDISWrapper then use the ini or inf was it.... from the XP or Vista CD or even the website as that is the best place to get up-to-date drivers then go from there!!!!!

So simple!

 

We should get this moved to its own topic. Btw, one of my HPs has Atheros and the other one Broadcom. Didn't test the Broadcom but Atheros is supported natively, and also supports that lovely monitor mode, and we all know what that is used for.

I don't want to browse the web from a command prompt. I want a usable GUI. Sure, when i feel like hacking at something i'll open a terminal, but for everyday use i want the GUI to do everything properly.

And btw, i can surf the web from DOS if i want to, and in full graphical goodness. There's Arachne.

 

Get off my lawn or lan for that matter.