hp has lost a customer for life

Between dad and I we have owned every advanced calculator that HP has made . Yes even the 41 that cost more in inflation adjusted dollars that any laptop used by anyone on this forum. It is bad enough that I had to give microsoft $100 for software that I had planed to delete but it turns out that there is no wireless driver that works with linux and my laptop. My computer is defective. It does not work. Even if HP solves this problem today they have wasted enough of my time that I'm not going back. My HP will be used as bait to catch a thief. It will be permanently disabled and I fully expect to be compensated by the thief.

 

What type of HP notebook do you have? Have you asked any of the experts in the Linux forum about drivers for this notebook?

 

Good for you.

 

I'm sorry about your troubles, but iffy driver support is just a fact of life when using Linux on a laptop. While I understand that people feel it is the vendors responsibility to provide drivers, if they did not sell the OS then they cannot be held to account for something not being supported by it. But I freely encourage you to speak with your wallet and if you find a vendor with better over all Linux support please share your experiences.

That said, HP's linux support in general is pretty good -- they were consistently better at supporting Linux with their printers, for example.

Linux support on their business class notebooks is pretty good as well -- I'm writing this post on an nc8430 under Fedora Core 6 and the ipw3945 driver works well.

I believe the Thinkpads are also pretty good on Linux, although I haven't had the pleasure myself.

 

Please note that HP does the support for the OS shipped with the unit only. ( and it's normal and correct ).

 

http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/
There are other ways of getting the Broadcom WiFi cards that HP favors to work under Linux but start there.

I blame HP for not forcing Broadcom to publish open source drivers for their cards (and for that idiotic whitelist in the HP BIOS that locks out non-HP miniPCI wireless cards), but solutions are easily found if you ask Linux people rather than HP. Since just about everyone uses Broadcom (if they don't use Intel) you'd have to deal with this for just about any notebook vendor.

 

Let's just be clear on this: HP isn't at fault for your troubles. They don't support Linux (though I think everyone agrees that it would be nice if they did). You should have known that when purchasing your notebook. Yes, things like their BIOS lock outs are tricksy, but they don't want people doing things that are unsupported.

As far as Linux WiFi goes, we have a few forum members that excel in Linux. Let me think...Lysander, Guatam, notebook_ftw, and BigV are names that pop up immediately in my head. EDIT: brainstretch apparently is another Linux guru, didn't realize!

Hardware wise, it isn't HP's fault. Intel drivers are available for Linux, as are one of two others brands of WiFi cards. Broadcom support apparently sucks, and so do others. You can probably change your card to get one more Linux friendly, but this time you need to do your research to find out what card has Linux drivers available.

With a little time with some of the more Linux-saavy members around here, you'd be surprised how much more you can get figured out with their help.

 

have you tried using vista, i have it on two machines, and overall happy with it...if you dig into vista, you will find out there is a lot more there than xp.

 

see ya. .

 

I have to agree with both sides. yes HP should provide linux drivers but they are not obliged to as long as they offer an operating system with their system upon purchase. you simply bought a laptop for a purpose without first finding out whether it will serve your purpose. running linux you should have been aware that drivers for it arent easy to come around and therefore you should have made sure prior to purchase.

When you buy a family car, do you blame the manufacturer if you cant put 18inch wheels on it, cant modify the computer or cant fit a huge turbocharger? What you choose to do outside it's intended operation is your responsibility. I think you are probably angry at spending all this money, deep down you know you shouldve done your homework but you need someone/something to blame for your miscalculation.

 

I agree. HP is not responsible if a hardware is not compatable with Linux. HP is just a vendor and they don't make the components. The hardware vendor should be responsible. I too tried Linux on an Averatec laptop and that too didn't have Linux support for wireless.. Broadcom wireless card. Why not go the Linux forum to see if you can find an answer for your trouble?

 

[Edited by Moderator]. HP doesn't advertise that Linux will work on their laptops. So it's their fault for not having tried every linux distro you might care to install, every kernel version from every crazy slackware, ubutu, redhat, etc version aneone might care to install? (which by the way you haven't bothered to even list) Didn't YOU do YOUR homework and learn that linux has spotty driver support? Did you even check the lists of linux supported hardware to make sure there was support before you bought? You're basically saying you went to a car dealer, bought any old car off the lot, and then are pissed because it won't drive off-road through mountain country like you see trucks do on ads. Now you're arrogantly saying you demand to be appeased without having done what I would consider the most basic homework?

I'm no MS fan, but your position is arrogant and ill-informed. I hope they DO lose you as a customer forever so we don't have to put up with your attitude on the forum. Check before your buy if you want something specific purpose.