HARDWARE Gentoo AMD64 on HP Pavilion dv5000z

From Gentoo Linux Wiki

[edit] Introduction

The HP Pavilion dv5000z series is very new, and looks like a replacement of the dismissed zv6000 series (Turion processor instead of Athlon), or a smaller dv8000z (15.4" screen instead of 17"). I've installed Gentoo AMD64 on a dv5078EA, which is equipped with an AMD Turion 64 ML-34 processor, 1GB RAM, and 100GB hard disk.

0000:00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration
	Flags: fast devsel
	Capabilities: [80] #08 [2101]

0000:00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map
	Flags: fast devsel

0000:00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller
	Flags: fast devsel

0000:00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control
	Flags: fast devsel

processor	: 0
vendor_id	: AuthenticAMD
cpu family	: 15
model		: 36
model name	: AMD Turion(tm) 64 Mobile Technology ML-34
stepping	: 2
cpu MHz		: 1790.887
cache size	: 1024 KB
fpu		: yes
fpu_exception	: yes
cpuid level	: 1
wp		: yes
flags		: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt lm 3dnowext 3dnow pni lahf_lm
bogomips	: 3522.56
TLB size	: 1024 4K pages
clflush size	: 64
cache_alignment	: 64
address sizes	: 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management: ts fid vid ttp tm stc

I've found many useful tips in the articles Gentoo Linux 64bit on HP Pavilion zv6000 series notebook and Gentoo on HP Pavilion dv8000z, as well as in Ryan McGuire's page Gentoo Linux on new HP dv8000z, and I wish to thank their authors.

[edit] Partitioning

The notebook is shipped with Windows XP Home Edition installed on the whole hard disk. I've shrunk the Windows partition (to 15GB) by the tools provided by SystemRescueCD (qtparted, which runs ntfsresize; look at the NTFS Resize FAQ).

[edit] Booting and Networking

My first aim was to get Gentoo booting the quickest way. So I made a straightforward networkless stage3 installation following the Gentoo Handbook, setting CFLAGS="-march=k8 -O2 -pipe" in /etc/make.conf, and choosing the gentoo-sources kernel and the genkernel script to configure it. I emerged dhcpcd too, and added net.eth0 the the default runlevel.

Gentoo booted nicely, the fan was working, but I didn't get my eth0 interface configured, because:

8139cp: 10/100 PCI Ethernet driver v1.2 (Mar 22, 2004)
8139cp: pci dev 0000:06:06.0 (id 10ec:8139 rev 10) is not an 8139C+ compatible chip
8139cp: Try the "8139too" driver instead.

1. the kernel loaded the 8139cp module, but, as dmesg pointed out, 8139too is needed;
2. the RealTek card is named "eth1", while "eth0" is the firewire link.

So I added net.eth1 (a symbolik link to /etc/init.d/net.lo, as net.eth0) to the default runlevel and the row "8139too" to /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6.

lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root     6 Feb 26 00:47 net.eth0 -> net.lo
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root     6 Feb 26 03:36 net.eth1 -> net.lo
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root 24324 Feb 26 00:47 net.lo

8139too

8139too Fast Ethernet driver 0.9.27
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:06:06.0[A] -> GSI 22 (level, low) -> IRQ 22
eth1: RealTek RTL8139 at 0xffffc20000a26400, 00:0f:b0:bf:21:fa, IRQ 22
eth1:  Identified 8139 chip type 'RTL-8100B/8139D'
eth1: link up, 10Mbps, half-duplex, lpa 0x0000
eth1: no IPv6 routers present

My current kernel config is:

[edit] Graphics

0000:01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc: Unknown device 5955 (prog-if 00 [VGA])
	Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company: Unknown device 30a4
	Flags: bus master, 66Mhz, medium devsel, latency 66, IRQ 7
	Memory at c8000000 (32-bit, prefetchable)
	I/O ports at 9000 [size=256]
	Memory at c0100000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
	Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2

It was not a painless process. I installed Xorg-6.8.2 and ran Xorg -configure, but it only detected a VGA card and after startx the screen was ugly. When I replaced "vga" with "radeon" I got the message "no device found". The same when I emerged ati-drivers.

As I discovered the hard way, you should emerge --sync and emege portage before configuring X, because the video card (ATI Radeon XPRESS 200M 5955) requires a recent ati-drivers package. You also should add the folowing lines to /etc/portage/package.keywords:

app-admin/eselect ~amd64
app-admin/eselect-opengl ~amd64
x11-drivers/ati-drivers ~amd64

because the ati-drivers package and the ones it requires are masked.

Then:

1. enter BIOS Setup to set "UMA+Sideport" and 128M of shared video memory in the video preferences (otherwise, DRI doesn't work!);
2. create a realistic /etc/X11/xorg.conf file; I've used the one provided by Ryan McGuire: xorg.hp-dv8000z.3d-WORKING.conf;
3. run aticonfig --initial --input=/etc/X11/xorg.conf; this edits your xorg.conf file and sets the resolution to 1024x768;
4. run aticonfig --resolution="1280x800,1024x768,800x600" to get the native resolution;
5. cross your fingers and run startx ;-)

My current kernel config:

[edit] Devices

When you can boot, connect to a network, and get X-window working, you can go on. So, let's go on...

[edit] Synaptics Touchpad

If you do not do anything, you get normal mouse functionality. To add the special touchpad features, such as horizontal and vertical scrolling, just add "x11-drivers/synaptics ~amd64" to /etc/portage/package.keywords and check the article Synaptics Touchpad.

[edit] USB Support

You can check the Gentoo Linux USB Guide. USB 1.1 (OHCI) and USB 2.0 (EHCI) are both supported:

[edit] Sound

0000:00:14.5 Multimedia audio controller: ATI Technologies Inc: Unknown device 4370 (rev 02)
	Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company: Unknown device 30a4
	Flags: bus master, 66Mhz, slow devsel, latency 64, IRQ 7
	Memory at c0003400 (32-bit, non-prefetchable)
	Capabilities: [40] Message Signalled Interrupts: 64bit- Queue=0/0 Enable-

No problem. Just check the Gentoo ALSA Guide.

The sound portion in your /etc/modules.conf should look like:

##  ALSA portion
alias snd-card-0 snd-atiixp

##  OSS/Free portion
alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0
alias sound-service-0-0 snd-mixer-oss
alias sound-service-0-1 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-3 snd-pcm-oss
alias sound-service-0-8 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-12 snd-pcm-oss
alias /dev/mixer snd-mixer-oss
alias /dev/dsp snd-pcm-oss
alias /dev/midi snd-seq-oss

options snd cards_limit=1

My current kernel config:

[edit] CPU Frequency Scaling

Well, I checked the Gentoo Linux AMD64 FAQ, but I've preferred another way, without cpudyn.

I configured cpufreq in my kernel:

Power management options ---->
CPU Frequency scaling  --->
[*] CPU Frequency scaling
[ ]   Enable CPUfreq debugging
<*>   CPU frequency translation statistics
[ ]     CPU frequency translation statistics details
Default CPUFreq governor (performance)  --->
---   'performance' governor
<*>   'powersave' governor
<*>   'userspace' governor for userspace frequency scaling
< >   'ondemand' cpufreq policy governor
<*>   'conservative' cpufreq governor
---   CPUFreq processor drivers
<*>   AMD Opteron/Athlon64 PowerNow!
< >   Intel Enhanced SpeedStep
<*>   ACPI Processor P-States driver
---   shared options
[ ]   /proc/acpi/processor/../performance interface (deprecated)

I chose "conservative" instead of "ondemand" because of the description of the "conservative" governor in make menuconfig: "If you have a desktop machine then you should really be considering the 'ondemand' governor instead, however if you are using a laptop, PDA or even an AMD64 based computer (due to the unacceptable step-by-step latency issues between the minimum and maximum frequency transitions in the CPU) you will probably want to use this governor."

Then I emerged cpudyn, but whenever i did cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor I got "powersafe".

Moreover, I think I ran into those "unacceptable latency issues": now and then my mouse, the download of a web page, or whatever else stopped a few seconds.

So I have removed cpudyn from my runlevel and added

echo conservative > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor

to /etc/conf.d/local.start. I think that my notebook is working better now ;-)

[edit] To be continued

I'm going to configure more of my system and to add other sections here.

I've just wanted to share my first results, hoping they are useful to somebody ;-)