Linux on HP Pavilion 3270 Notebook

Purpose

The purpose of this page is to help others configure Linux on their Hewlett Packard Pavilion 3270 Notebook computer. Much more useful information on how to install Linux on other HP laptops is on Werner Heuser's page TuxMobil - Linux on laptops, PDAs, mobile phones .

Hardware Description

Processor	AMD-K6, 475 MHz
Memory	64 Mb (8Mb devoted to video), 100 MHz
Hard Drive	6.0 Gb
CD-Rom Drive	6x DVD-ROM
Diskette	1.44 Mb floppy
Display	14.1" 1024x768 XGA TFT
Modem	Internal ESS ES56CVM-PI 56K, V90
Mouse	Synaptics Touch Pad
Sound	ESS Maestro card (version 3?)
Video	Trident Cyberblade i7 AGP card
Ports	1 USB, 1 serial, 1 parallel, 1 port replicator, 1 RJ-11 modem jack, 1 microphone, 1 headphone, 1 PS/2 mouse/keyboard, 1 Kensington lock slot
PC Cards	1 Type I, II, or III, zoomed video support
Weight	7.0 lbs
Price	~$1900 (Best Buy)

Installation

I installed RedHat 6.2. When I attempted to fire up the GUI installer, I got 320x200 resolution, which was unusable. I then switched to the text installation which went smoothly. If you enter Setup (the F2 key), you can configure the machine to boot off the RedHat install CD-ROM, so a pcmcia.img boot floppy is not needed.

The fips code on the install CD had no problems in resizing the partitions.

Here's fdisk -l /dev/hda:


Disk /dev/hda: 240 heads, 63 sectors, 776 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 15120 * 512 bytes

   Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1             2        39    280224   84  OS/2 hidden C: drive
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary:
     phys=(38, 15, 63) should be (38, 239, 63)
/dev/hda2            39       377   2562336    b  Win95 FAT32
/dev/hda3   *       378       776   3016440    5  Extended
/dev/hda5           378       380     22648+  83  Linux
/dev/hda6           381       388     60448+  82  Linux swap
/dev/hda7           389       776   2933248+  83  Linux

I didn't understand what the first partition was for but several references on Linux on Laptops page explained that it was used for the suspend and hibernate modes (which work fine under Linux). The boundary warning seems not to affect things and has been reported by others on that page.

LILO was configured on the Linux root partition according to its own documentation.

X-Windows

Evidently XFree86 3.3.6 in RedHat 6.2 supports the Trident Cyberblade card. However, all three configuration tools, XConfigurator, x86config, and XF86Setup lead to 320x200 resolutions. Since two people on Ken's page noted that LCD panels are easy to fry (one reported doing so), I was hesitant to make up monitor refresh rates for these configuration tools and, of course, the laptop monitor isn't one of the choices in the tools' menus. Finally, I found an XF86Config file for this machine in comp.os.linux.x and used it. It uses XF86_FBDev device instead of XF86_SVGA but works just fine. Not only do you get a penguin on boot but you get a "much better" VGA console: 128x48.

Here's XF86Config:


Section "Files"
    RgbPath	"/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb"
    FontPath "unix/:-1"
EndSection

Section "ServerFlags"
EndSection

Section "Keyboard"
    Protocol	"Standard"
    AutoRepeat	500 30
    XkbKeymap   "xfree86(us)"
EndSection

Section "Pointer"
    Protocol    "PS/2"
    Device      "/dev/psaux"
    Emulate3Buttons
    Emulate3Timeout    50
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier  "notebookTFT"
    VendorName  "HP"
    ModelName   "notebookTFT"
    HorizSync   31.5-90.0
    VertRefresh 55-90
Modeline "1024x768" 75 1024 1048 1184 1328 768 771 777 806 -hsync -vsync
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "Trident CyberBlade (generic)"
    VendorName  "Unknown"
    BoardName   "Unknown"
    VideoRam    8192
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Driver "FBDev"
    Device "Trident CyberBlade (generic)"
    Monitor "notebookTFT"
    Subsection "Display"
        Depth       16
        Modes       "1024x768"
        ViewPort    0 0
	Modes       "default"
    EndSubsection
EndSection

USB

I have a USB Iomega 100Mb Zip drive which I wanted to get working. However, 2.2.x kernels don't seem to have the correct USB support. However, I now use the 2.2.16 kernel with 2.3.x USB backport described on the Linux USB page with great success. By following the instructions there and adding to rc.local the lines


if [ $(uname -r) = "2.2.16" ]; then
	modprobe usb-storage
fi

which loads the USB driver necessary to drive the Zip, it works well. On one occasion I had USB timeout errors, however, during an extended file transfer.

However, the 2.2.16 kernel is not compatible with RedHat 6.2's pcmcia-cs distribution. See /usr/src/linux-2.2.16/Documentation/Changes for the version that is compatible. I'm using a slightly newer pcmcia-cs version, 3.1.17, and it seems to work fine.

LILO

Here's lilo.conf:


boot=/dev/hda3
map=/boot/map
install=/boot/boot.b
delay=5	# for systems that boot too quickly
linear
default=linux-2.2.16
# vga necessary for frame buffer
vga=791

image=/boot/vmlinuz
	label=linux-2.2.14
	read-only
	root=/dev/hda7

# Includes pcmcia-cs 3.1.17, USB 2.3.x backport
image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.2.16
	label=linux-2.2.16
	read-only
	root=/dev/hda7

image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.0
	label=linux-2.4.0
	read-only
	root=/dev/hda7

other=/dev/hda2
	label=win98

The vga parameter specifies the resolution to the frame buffer device.

Other

The boot process doesn't seem to recognize the sound card, and I've not pursued trying to get it to work. The built-in modem appears to be a PCI Winmodem. On a lark, I tried the Lucent Winmodem software on the Linux Winmodem site to no avail. I think it's doomed.

I have a LinkSys PCMCIA EC2T network card which worked "out of the box" with the 2.2.14 RedHat kernel. Since my school uses DHCP, I needed to alter my /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 file


DEVICE=eth0
NETMASK=255.255.0.0
NETWORK=10.12.0.0
BROADCAST=10.12.255.255
ONBOOT=yes
DHCP_HOSTNAME=frabjous
BOOTPROTO=dhcp

to include the last two variables. (I don't think the DHCP_HOSTNAME variable makes any difference, however.)

Conclusion

It works well and I'm delighted with it. If you found these instructions helpful, please give back to the Linux Community in a similar way.
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Last modified: Sat Dec 30 09:48:33 CST 2006
Comments to O. William McClung