Installing Fedora Core 6 x86_64 on HP dv2125 (Pavilion dv2000)

Last updated: 03/05/07

General Hardware Specifications of dv2125:

Hardware Components	Status under Linux	Notes
AMD Turion 64X2 1.6 Ghz	Works	Don't really know how to test things related to the dual core settings, but it seems fine
14.1 SXGA+ TFT Display	Works	Select Generic LCD Display in Installer - Only works at 1024x768 without nVidia driver.
nVidia GeForce Go 6150	Works	Install nVidia driver. Quick instructions here.
1024MB, SDRAM, 1DIMMs	Works	No special procedure required during installation
80 GB SATA Hard Drive	Works	Remember /dev/sda1 instead of /dev/hda1
DVD+RW Drive	Works	No special procedure required during installation - Not sure if burning works
Integrated Network Card	Works	No special procedure required during installation
Internal 56k Modem	No idea	Does anyone actually use these things?
Broadcom Corporation Dell Wireless 1390 WLAN Mini-PCI Card (rev 01)	Works	Install ndiswrapper, use HP Drivers To install drivers: download drivers, cabextract <drivername>, ndiswrapper -i bcmwl5, modprobe ndiswrapper On my laptop NetworkManager does not detect the wireless properly every boot, so I use a script: service NetworkManger stop modprobe -r ndiswrapper modprobe ndiswrapper service NetworkManger start
Some sort of battery	Works	No special procedure required during installation
nVidia Corporation MCP51 High Definition Audio (rev a2)	Works	No special procedure required. Insure that you do not have any other "audio devices" connected. Fedora detected my Logitech Webcam (with a mic) as the main soundcard, and I had to disconnect it and reload audio drivers to make it work right.
Media Keys/Remote	Mostly	.Xmodmap
Firewire	Don't know
Expansion Port	Don't know
5-in-1 Card Port	Don't know

This laptop is operating under Kernel version 2.6.19-1.2911.fc6

Basic Installation of Fedora Core 6:

I chose Fedora Core 6 because I'm lazy, and yum is easy.
Fedora Core 6 can be downloaded here.
Installing

Fedora doesn't require anything special. Note that the x86_64 version is perfectly capable of running x86 programs, so I would recommend using it if you can because it just adds more options. The only program I've found that doesn't work in Hamachi.

Post-Install modifications/tweaks

Since this is Fedora, you don't get anything that isn't free. I recommend doing the following:

Go to the Unofficial Fedora FAQ
Install everything you plan to use (mp3 support, flash/video plugins, DVD player, NTFS support, nVidia drivers, etc.)

Setting up additional features for Fedora Core 6

Media Keys

To make all of the media buttons except for the quickplay and DVD buttons, use my .Xmodmap file (rename this .Xmodmap and put it in your home directory). You will still need to set the keys for use in applications (I use Amarok, and there's a menu that says "Configure Global Shortcuts".
All of the keys on the remote work the same as the keys on the top of the keyboard, but some of them aren't mapped to keycodes. The quickplay and DVD buttons are also unmapped. There's a way to fix this, but I didn't feel like putting in the effort, since I don't use those keys anyway.

Beryl

I had some issues with beryl. If you have problems:

Look at my xorg.conf file. Make sure you have all of the nvidia 3D settings turned on.
Do not use SWCursor with Beryl, it will cause problems.
I got a whitescreen problem initially. Not really sure what fixed it. One fix is to set beryl to --use-copy, but apparently it's slower.

Unresolved issues

My mouse pointer kept disappearing. Adding the line HWCursor "No" to xorg.conf fixed the problem, but caused artifacting problems with Beryl. I solved the problem by disabling rhgb (redhat graphical boot - the graphical bootup thing, not really needed anyway). To disable rhgb, in the grub menu type "a" instead of enter, and then erase rhgb from the line.
Can't switch to virtual consoles while running Beryl. Apparently this is a beryl+nvidia bug. If you do switch to virtual consoles, you can still do things, you just can't see. When you switch back to X afterwards, it's a black screen with a pointer. To fix this, go to another screen, type root/password/killall-beryl (seperate lines) then switch back to screen 7).

Configuration Files

My xorg.conf

Mine is specific to Razer Diamondback mouse, but everything except mouse0 is for this laptop.

Remove everything between Protocol and CorePointer in my mouse0 section to make this generic (it probably won't break anything to leave it how it is, but it might be funky).

This file will not work without the nVidia drivers.

Contact Information

korin43@ google's mail (beat that spammers!)

Links:

HP Support for dv2125 (Drivers page for Windows XP is useful)
Fedora Core 6 Installation Guide
This page brought to you by RulingWars.