[LAU] query re: HP notebook

[Mark Knecht]

On Tue, Nov 11, 2008 at 7:49 AM, Dave Phillips <dlphillips at woh.rr.com> wrote:
> Mark Knecht wrote:
>>
>> Dave,
>>   I own one but have never set Linux up on it. I have to have Windows
>> on it for my options trading and with only 80GB there just isn't
>> enough space left after putting some music in iTunes.
>>
>
> :)
>>
>>   I will say that I like the screen a lot. It's a 17" wide screen and
>> looks quite nice playing movies. It's an AMD/nvidia box like the one
>> you're talking about, although likely not the same model as I got mine
>> 18 months ago.
>>
>
> Pretty close though. The hd is much larger on the machine I'm considering.
>
>>   I would personally NEVER buy a laptop without first at least
>> booting a Gentoo install CD, and likely 2 or 3 others, to ensure that
>> it can see all the hardware. Once the install CD has booted you can
>> run something like lspci and get readings on what hardware is in the
>> box. Check to see that you're getting full speed from the disk drives
>> as that's probably the most critical for making the machine useful
>> early on. If you don't get full speed disks don't buy it unless you
>> are certain you can get chip set support later on.
>>
>
> Ah, that one has me stumped. How do I check for full speed operations ? With
> hdparm  or something else ?

Yeah, that's what I've done. First look at dmesg to figure out how the
distro is identifying your drive - hda, sda, etc., and then hdpam -tT
/dev/hda, etc.

Note that if you don't get full speed operation it doesn't mean Linux
doesn't support it - just that the boot kernel on your CD didn't do
it. At that point you probably have to do some study to determine how
to proceed. This is all chipset stuff so jot down some PCI ID's and
chip name/numbers and retire to Google or the LKML to get more info.

>
> I figured I'd slip a Dyne live disc in the thing to see if everything works.
> I also have a 64 Studio live disc to take along.
>>
>>   If you want or need clarification on any of this contact me online or
>> off.
>>
>>
>
> Many thanks (again), Mark. :)
>
> Best,
>
> dp
>
>

You're welcome,
Mark