Linux Mint on a HP Pavilion dv6500z (6565en)

Hey guys.

Here's the problem: I'd like to give Linux a try, but coming from Windows, I'm completely new to Linux world, so I know basically nothing about it. I'm looking for a distro that's quite simple to use and is compatible with my HP Pavilion dv6565en notebook. (AMD Turion x64 CPU, Geforce 8400M GS GPU, NVidia Forceware chipset, Realtek ethernet, Broadcom Wireless (bcm4312 I believe))

At first I did some research and found that Ubuntu would probably be the best bet for me. So I downloaded the LiveCD (64bit amd version) and gave it a shot, but it didn't boot properly. I got to the startup screen (where you have options to "Start Ubuntu", "Start Ubuntu in Safe Mode" etc), from there I chose "start ubuntu" and after some loading it gave me an error saying that linux cant find drivers for my video card and that I could either try to fix it or run it in safe mode. Whichever option I choose, I just get a fullscreen dos-like commandline screen and that's it. I also get the same results when trying to "Start Ubuntu in Safe Graphics mode" at the first place.

So I booted back to Windows and burned the other distro I downloaded, the Linux Mint. That booted just fine and everything worked out-of-box from the Live CD. Except that I could not connect to the Internet. I tried connecting to a cable as well, but with no success. So I searched the web a bit more and found a few tutorials that told to run windows drivers with ndiswrapper to make a Broadcom 43xx wireless card work. I tried doing so but with no success. It might have something to do with the fact that all the cards in the tutorials use "bcmwl5.inf" and "bcmwl6.sys" drivers, but mine are "bcmwl6.inf" and "bcmwl6.sys".Though I might have done something wrong as well, because as I said earlier, I'm a total noob when it comes to Linux.

Also, could it have something to do with the fact that I'm running it off a Live CD instead of my hdd? I'd install it to my hdd right away, I even have a partition ready for it, but before installing I'd like to be sure that I can actually get it to work. Plus if I do something wrong it's easier to start from zero when running off a Live CD.

Any help?

Thanks,
Hendrik.

 

Maybe you sould try the ubuntu x86. I had no problems running it in my dv8000, the nvidia drivers worked fine, I don't know if it will work with the geforce 8, but you should try.

 

I guess you got the dell mini-wireless huh?

I got it working on Fedora 8 x64 so it's doable.

Google this-> bcm43xx-0.3.2-offline.tar.gz (you need to be connected to the internet in order to install it).

 

Hey.

Finally I got everything working in Mint (actually the solution was so easy that I'm a bit embarrassed to tell you - the other end of my network cable was connected to a wrong port on my router ). Installation went fine and everything works fine, except wireless, but I'm sure that's just a matter of fiddling around with it a bit, as I'm still learining to use the Linux environment.

But now I have another problem: my laptop runs very hot with linux. In windows XP, with firefox, winamp and MSN open, the cpu temp is ~35C celsius and the fan is really quiet or even completely off. But in Linux with the same situation (firefox, messenger client and terminal open) the cpu reading was almost 60C celsius and the fan was on full speed. That's definitely not normal. Any help

 

Humm, I wander how did you boot up on LinuxMint 4.0. I can boot on 3.1, but can't make it on 4.0. I also went through upgrading 3.1 to 4.0 on my V3000Z. Everything just stuck on the boot time.

I had no choice but went back to Ubuntu 7.10 AMD64 again.