HP to Kill Dell with Linux PCs

I have a HP Pavilion which, had I known about the Broadcom POS, I would not have bought.

However, after pulling down the Broadcom firmware package as described here: http://www.linux-geek.org/index.php/2007/04/22/dell-1390-nat...

You can see where I commented. With the Linux native bcm43xx driver _and_ the firmware package, it works fine with Debian Sid and now kernel 2.6.22

I had the same kind of problem when I bought the Sony Vaio I'm using right now. Sony had put a slightly different part identification number in their built-in wireless card, so the "standard" Linux Prism driver didn't recognize it. Two point-revisions of kernel later, a patch to the Prism driver had made its way through, and the card was recognized. So this is twice that my hardware has been "too new" for native Linux support.

All that said, I like the HP hardware. It's light, pretty and fast, with decent if not whopping graphics. I'm also running the thing with 32bit rather than 64bit distribution, because things like Flash and GoogleEarth don't work in 64bits yet. But the dual-core CPU is fun to watch. I wish this 2.8GHz monstrosity of a Vaio were dual-core too, it would make video transcoding faster.

Quoting: So this is twice that my hardware has been "too new" for native Linux support.

Using a Dell Vostro 1700 here, and I have a couple of problems with the hardware. 1) WebCam, although I haven't fooled with it much on the command line level, but PCLOS doesn't know what to do with it. I have OmniVision drivers downloaded, but the next point poses a bigger problem; 2) Soundcard, it's Intel ‎ICH8 HD Audio. The sound was working (not now...update broke it) but the mic has never worked. That makes Skype sort of pointless to me, and I pay for a year of service at a time. ;( It'll catch up (and fast, if I know PCLOS) but right now I am trudging along. The good thing is that I am so busy right now I don't generally have time to entertain myself on the PC. :)

As for wireless, I made sure to specifically order it with the Intel3945 card...I knew that would work.

Bob, the trick I found for my issues with the broadcom POS were solved with what appears to be a little known trick. First do a 'lspci' and identify the chip followed by 'lspci -n' and find the corresponding identity address. It will have a format like xxxx:xxxx. Then somewhere on the ndiswrapper wiki there is a device list that has those codes included, use the browser search function to find the xxxx:xxxx and use that driver, doesn't matter the manufacturer. Thats pulled me out of a hole a few times.

Also on the 64 bit issue, some distros things like Flash, GoogleEarth, Wine, ect, work fine right out of the box on. Sabayon x86_64 3.4a I have had no issues with. Everything worked right out of the box and package upgrades didn't break a thing.

*edit* Oops, forgot the part about using fwcutter to extract the firmware bits and pieces you need. After extracting you just need to copy them over to where ever Debian hides their firmware, honestly I forget where they have it but 'find / -name firmware' will pull it up no problem. I'd tell you but I don't have a Debian box currently. */edit*

Yes, I tried ndiswrapper first. It didn't work very well at all. Since using the native Linux driver was just a decision to go with Unstable rather than Stable, it wasn't a hard decision to make.

64bit can wait. It's not like 32bit is somehow "slower", and Mom won't care. As long as everything works. And it took a little bit of hunting, but now everything does in fact work. Well, everything except all the "media" buttons on the Pavilion.

_None_ of the pretty blue buttons works. Not screen dimming, not volume control, nada. I have a 10 year old laptop that runs Debian Sid where all the "media" buttons work, because what few they are are _hardware_ based rather than software.

No special Windows drivers needed, I can dim the screen. Woopie, that's the only laptop I have seen in years that can. I guess there's a reason I keep it around as my "last-chance" backup machine.

Funny thing about this new HP laptop: Flash works _better_ on it than it does on my Vaio. Konqueror can play Youtube videos, but Konqueror on this Vaio keeps getting "you have to update your flash player". It works if the video is embedded in a different webpage than Youtube.com, and Youtube works fine in Fire....ahem, I mean IceWeasel. Oh well, that's what I get with updating a system for years at a time and then comparing it to a completely fresh install without any cruft or orphan packages.

I think you missed the point Bob, your still using the bcm43xx module, your just manually extracting the firmware. The ndiswrapper wiki is just a handy spot to find the executable that you need to extract it from.

Oh. Then indeed I did miss the intent.

As long as the Ubuntu folks will extract it for me, I'm happy. I would prefer a native Debian package, but that's what's nice about having a huge community using a standard package format.