Linux Laptops Home

Installing Ubuntu 9.04 on an HP Pavilion dv3-1077ca

Last updated: 16-Aug-2010

General Hardware Specifications of Pavilion dv3:

Hardware Components	Status under Linux	Notes
AMD Turion X2 RM-72 Dual-Core Mobile Processor, 2.1 GHz	Works	No special procedure required during installation
13.3 in WXGA LED BrightView Widescreen Display, 1280x800	Works	No special procedure required during installation
ATI Radeon HD 3200	Works	No special procedure required during installation, but see below for caveats.
4GB, DDR2 RAM	Works	No special procedure required during installation
Fujitsu MHZ2250B 250 GB SATA Hard Drive	Works	No special procedure required during installation
Broadcom BCM4322 802.11a/b/g/n Wireless	Works	No special procedure required during installation, but using proprietary driver
SuperMulti 8X DVD R/RW with double-layer support	Works, but not well tested	No special procedure required during installation
Realtek RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigibit Ethernet	Not yet tested
ATI SBx00/RS780 Azalia controller w/IDT codec	Works (for basic sound I/O)	Requires small change to alsa-base.conf (see below)
Realtek SD/MMC/Memory Stick/xD Card Reader	Works	Tested with SD cards only so far. The module usb_storage must be loaded before use (see below)
LogiTech Webcam	Works (tested with Skype)	No special procedure required during installation.
AuthenTec AES1600 Fingerprint scanner	Not working	I'm not sure where to start with this.
Infrared Remote	Not working

This laptop is operating under Kernel version 2.6.28-11-generic

Setting up additional features for Ubuntu 9.04

In order to get Suspend mode to work, it was necessary to specify the i8042.reset option in menu.lst (see below). Otherwise the system does not re-enable the keyboard and touchpad on wakeup.

Unresolved issues

Fancy multimedia keys are not all functional. Volume up/down/mute and wireless on/off work correctly, but the mute light does not update and the other keys do nothing. Looking at the log messages they generate in /var/log/messages, it appears that several keys may share the same keycode.

ATI Radeon HD 3200 display is currently working, but only with the default drivers. So far, I have been unable to get proper video playback in either Skype or Totem with the proprietary drivers from ATI.

As of 10.04 LTS, the open-source ATI driver seems to work quite well. The proprietary drivers are no longer particularly useful

The codec appears to support a wide range of fancy features which are not accessible through the ALSA mixer interface. However, the Linux support is adequate to use Skype and other audio programs.
The wireless sometimes does not seem to wake up properly after suspend or hibernate. It seems to recover if I disable and re-enable wireless networking in the Network Manager.

Configuration Files

For audio support, edit /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf and append the line: option snd-hda-intel model=dell-m4-1. I attempted to use other options (e.g. hp-dv5), but they gave inferior results.

Update for 10.04 LTS: I have found that as of this release of Ubuntu, audio capture did not work unless alsa-base.conf includes the line option snd-hda-intel position_fix=1.

For suspend mode, edit /boot/grub/menu.lst and append the option: i8042.reset to the kernel line.
In 10.04 LTS, this fix is no longer necessary (or possible?)
To get the memory card reader working automatically, edit /etc/modules and append the line usb_storage. Without this tweak the system will only recognize the card reader if another USB storage device (e.g. a USB key) is installed before use, or if a card is inserted in the reader at boot time.

Contact Information

rdvincent @ gmail . com

Links:

This blog entry gave the correct tweak for audio.
Linux Laptops Home

I've made fairly extensive use of the USB interface and it seems to function with no problems. The VGA port works as a mirror for the LCD with the usual fiddling (a reboot is typically necessary). I've not tried the HDMI, external microphone, or the ExpressCard/34 slot. I've also not yet tested the Gigabit Ethernet port, but I will try to update when I have had a chance to use it.

I have verified that the headphone jack appears to function properly. Apparently this is not a given with some of the newer, hyperintelligent codec implementations.

I've also not yet tried to get the IR remote control or the fingerprint scanner working. Neither is especially high-priority for me.

The suspend/resume behavior has been very good once the appropriate change is made in the boot options. I've not had a chance to really test hibernation, but it appears to work.

Feel free to contact me with suggestions or questions.