HP Pavilion zv5220us Problems w/ touchpad, wireless, screen flicker

[linuxdummy]

Has anyone successfully configured this laptop using FC2? (HP Pavilion zv5220us)
Can someone share the step by step? Or has anyone created an automated script (or distro) that is specific to this laptop?

I'm using a customized workstation installation of FC2 2.6.6-1.435.2.3. I also tried the standard desktop installation option - same problems.

Dual Boot to WinXP - works great.

1. The problems are getting the touchpad to operate.
2. Getting the wireless to operate (broadcom 802.11b/g WLAN)
3. Screen flicker when switching from text mode to graphics mode during startup, but screen works fine in graphics mode. I can use all applications OK. Screen flicker also occurs when switching back to text mode using ctrl+alt+bksp. (Nvidia Geforce4 420 32Mb)

I've been reading all threads and 'googling' for a week. No luck yet with the following.
Tried;
1. installing synaptics driver
2. installing nvidia driver
3. reconfiguring xorg.conf, grub.conf, modprobe.conf
4. installed 16K stack kernel ( as per nvidia threads, however, the latest version 1.0.6106 README states that it now supports 4K stacks (which is default for FC2)

I've found references to Compaq r3000z which is similar in hardware, but I'm an infant newbie and don't understand how to follow the instructions. Building, compiling, and patching, are unfamilar skills. Let's not forget about dependencies and other conflicts that arise. I've already ran into the Nvidia's conflict with the 'rivafb' module. How does one disable a module, such as 'rivafb'? What else will be dependent on rivafb?

I'm getting lost and confused, and not making any progress.

Future concerns:
a. Haven't tackled reading NTFS yet. Hope this isn't as difficult. I would like to test compatibility between Excel97 and OpenOffice.org Calc; Word97 and OpenOffice.org Writer.
b. Basic networking to other older machines: linux 2.2.14-5.0 and Win98 machines.
c. Remote Access to home network: used VNC before, but does FC2 come with something else?
d. Live Video Conferencing -
i. internal: using home network: linux to win98, linux to winXP, Win to linux
ii. external: home network through router to through firewall, office to home network through router/firewall.

[linuxdummy]

Eureka!
I got my laptop's HP zv5220us (zv5000 series) touchpad to work. I tried using the synaptics driver, but after exploring all combinations (and 20 hours later) - no luck. As a newbie, I was able to create the required driver synaptics_drv.o and changed many settings in xorg.conf. I still do not understand how to apply the patch nor do I understand how to cut and paste a code segment from the README and "patch" it. Maybe someone can detail the synaptics instructions for us newbies in the future.

Despite not getting any results from the synaptics driver installation, I did manage to get the touchpad to work on boot up (the cursor moves in text mode). And for graphics mode (using the command startx), the /etc/xorg.conf file only uses one InputDevice identified as Mouse0 (not two as described in the synaptics driver notes).
Its parameters are:

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Default Layout"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
EndSection

Note that with only one inputdevice listed in xorg.conf I can plug in a USB mouse at any time and both the touchpad and the USB mouse simultaneously. I do not need two input devices ( one for the touchpad and one for the USB mouse)!

To activate the touchpad modify the /boot/grub/grub.conf file.
For every version of linux there will be a line containing kernel vmlinux change the statement to the following:

kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.7-1.494.2.2 ro root=LABEL=/ acpi=on i8042.nomux idebus=66 rhgb quiet

The i8042.nomux remedies a bug which prevents the touchpad from being recognized. With this one command no additional drivers are needed to activate the touchpad. No patches, no compiling, no installing. Very simple.

I will note that the right side of the touchpad which can be used for scrolling doesn't work and probably needs a driver. So I installed the synaptics driver, but it didn't fix it. My next effort will be to use the ALPs patch, when I learn how to apply the patch. I've read that all you do is type: patch -i < /path/to/alps.patch but the patch also has a patch which isn't in a file. I could cut and paste its contents in to a file but I'm wondering if there are any headers that are missing?

Moving on, the acpi=on insures that the powersaving features are enabled and the idebus=66 makes my system run faster. There are other hard disk drive optimizations that I will explore in the future located in the file etc/sysconfig/harddisks


Lastly, I will also note that I had screen flicker/scrambled text screens when using FC2 standard installation. The problem was in quitting/aborting graphics mode (using Ctrl+Alt+Bksp). The remedy was to install the latest NVIDIA driver. The NVIDIA driver installation was easy using graphics mode.

1. Retrieve Linux Display Driver IA32 http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux_...2_1.0-6106.html
(if you're graphics mode use webbrowser Mozilla, if in text mode type this:
lynx http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux_...2_1.0-6106.html <enter>
LYNX is a text only web browser.

Now find the link to download. When prompted save in the directory of your choice.

2. If not in text mode (still in graphics mode), goto terminal mode (right-click anywhere on the blue display and select Open Terminal) and get to appropriate directory ( cd /your/path)
3. type: sh NVIDIA*.run
4. answer prompts (note you will see a reference to a conflict with rivafb. Ignore this warnng. It doesn't affect the installation or the results.
5. Now modify the file /etc/X11/xorg.conf.
Make changes to the Module Section
Add one line Load "nvidia" and delete the Line: Load "dri"

Next change Video driver section:
Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard0"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "Videocard vendor"
BoardName "NVIDIA GeForce 4 (generic)"
EndSection

That completes the NVIDIA installation.

Now the following steps adds the 1280x800 screen resolution.
Change the Monitor and the screen section within xorg.conf

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Monitor Vendor"
ModelName "LCD Panel 1280x800" # different from original file
HorizSync 31.5 - 100.0 # different from original file
VertRefresh 30.0 - 100.0 # different from original file
Option "dpms"
UseModes "16:10" # insert new line
EndSection

# notice many lines changed
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Videocard0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 16
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 16
Modes "1280x800" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
Modes "1280x800" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
EndSection

Now create a new section and insert it anywhere after any of the EndSection statments in the xorg.conf file.

Section "Modes"
Identifier "16:10"
Modeline "1280x800" 107.21 1280 1360 1496 1712 800 801 804 835
EndSection


6. save changes to the file
7. now if you use ctrl+alt+bksp you'll be able to see want you're doing.
Lastly, if you would rather boot into text mode than graphics mode change one number in this file:
/etc/inittab
Original entry:
id:5:initdefault:

Change Entry to bootup to Text mode:
id:3:initdefault:

Save changes: Reboot will now leave you in text mode.

Then to enter graphics mode. At the prompt, enter the command 'startx'
Now use graphics and text mode flicker/scramble free.

Also, when probing the CPU speed, the powernow technology from AMD throttles back the CPIspeed to 800 Mhz. This is normal.

Future concerns: The AMD XP-M 3000+ is a K8 hydrid but the standard installation for FC2 uses Pentium-Pro (M686). I will try a new stripped down (no SCSI, no RAID, no Joysticks, etc.) kernel recompile using the K8 processor designation and compare benchmarks.

Note haven't gotten to wireless yet.

PS - if you're in real trouble and you can't get a visible screen on bootup, then enter single user mode and change settings in grub or xorg.conf.

Shutoff computer.
PowerOn.
when you're at the GRUB screen (where options are to select Linux or Other) type a lowercase 'a' Now you need to type a 'space' and a '1' after the word quiet. Press enter.
This now will boot up the computer in single user mode ( no graphics). Now you'll be able to see what you're doing. You can now modify the files that created the problem.

[linuxdummy]

Forgot to mention that in FC2 - 2.6.7, this kernel core uses 8k stacks. So ingore concerns regarding the NVIDIA driver needing 8K or 16K stack version of kernel core. If you're a newbie DO NOT INSTALL the 8k nor 16k stack versions of the kernel. This is not an issue.

I got the NVIDIA display driver to work using only 4k stack in Fc2- 2.6.5 ( whatever this is, the information surrounding the NVIDIA driver is confusing to newbies. It's not an issue for HP zv5220us.) The latest NVIDA driver now supports 4k stacks. So any stack size is OK. I've tried all three: 4, 8, 16. No problems, but ...

My only comment as a newbie is that if the kernel core has a custom label such as 2.6.6-1.435.2.3.16stk or stk16 it causes the installation of the NTFS module to fail (this module is needed to read WinXP files from the other partition). So installing future modules is problematic for newbies. For newbies, it's best to use standard kernel cores. It's easier to maintain, modify and upgrade. Custom kernel cores break future default module installations.

[Cooltrip71]

hey ld, did you get the built in wireless working? i think our laptops are slightly different, but i'm sure the wireless is similar as the display was.

[flaviarnn]

My HP Pavillion Notebook (zd7000) has WLAN Broadcom 802.11b/g, and it's working on my fedora 2.
I downloaded NDISWRAPPER last version from http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/.
Follow the next steps as root to configure your WLAN device at fedora linux:
Install a 16 stack size kernel (you can get one at http://www.linuxant.com/driverloader/wlan/full/downloads-fc2-kernel-i686.php). Unfortunatelly, the 2.6.8-16k kernel version freezes sometimes at linux startup :(.
Extract the files from ndiswrapper-XXX.tar.gz (XXX stands for version number) with
tar zxvf ndiswrapper-XXX.tar.gz
Enter the directory extracted, and run
make install
Now, edit your /etc/modprobe.conf file, adding the following lines:
options ndiswrapper if_name=eth%d
alias eth1 ndiswrapper

Insert the Driver CD that came with your notebook, and find the wireless dir that contains the WLAN driver (in my cd the driver path is /mnt/cdrom/swsetup/wlan/). Inside this directory, ther is a .inf file (in my cd, it's the bcmw15.inf).
Run
ndiswrapper -i INF_FILE
Where INF_FILE is the inf_file complete name (to me, INF_FILE is /mnt/cdrom/swsetup/wlan/bcmw15.inf).
After that, if you run
ndiswrapper -l
The command output should be
DRIVER_NAME hardware present
Now run
modprobe ndiswrapper
To see the modprobe results, run
dmesg | grep ndiswrapper
And check if ndiswrapper is listed.
At this time your wireless device should be recognized properly, as a /dev/eth1 device.
To check the device and to configure your network, run
system-config-network
Your wireless device must show up as ndiswrapper configured device at the hardware tab.

PS: If your driver is a exe file, you have to run the exe file in a windows system. It will generate a directory (the directory you've choosen during the installation process, usually) containing the inf file. You will need the inf file, and the sys file with the same name (in my case, there is a bcmw15.sys file in the /mnt/cdrom/swsetup/wlan/ directory). This files must be accessible to your fedora linux so you can run the "ndiswrapper -i INF_FILE" command. Make sure the linux can access the sys file in the same path of the inf file.

Hope it works for you....
Flavia