Linux Technical Notes; System Ram; Audio - HP Z Series Maintenance And Service Manual

14

Linux technical notes

HP offers a variety of Linux® solutions for HP workstation customers:
● HP supports Ubuntu on some HP workstations.
● HP supports Red Hat® Enterprise Linux (RHEL) on HP workstations.
● HP certifies and supports SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop (SLED) on HP workstations.
For Linux setup and restore procedures, see the user guide for your workstation.
NOTE: After you set up the operating system, make sure that the latest BIOS, drivers, and software
updates are installed.
CAUTION: Do not add optional hardware or third-party devices to the workstation until the operating
system is successfully installed. Adding hardware might cause errors and prevent the operating
system from installing correctly.

System RAM

HP supports different amounts of total RAM in various HP workstations, based on the number of
hardware DIMM slots and the capabilities of the system.
The total memory supported for each configuration is listed in the Hardware Support Matrix for HP Linux
Workstations at http://www.hp.com/support/%20linux_hardware_matrix.

Audio

All HP workstations come with built-in audio hardware. The audio hardware is supported by the
Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA) drivers included with all modern Linux distributions.
The audio hardware provides basic playback and recording features. The ability to simultaneously play
audio from multiple sources, such as applications and CDs, is provided in the ALSA driver that provides
audio mixing. The performance of software audio mixing and playback is greatly improved in ALSA
version 1.0. 1 3 and later.
After the driver is installed, the optional NVIDIA and AMD graphics cards that are supported in
HP workstations also provide audio functionality over HDMI. The signal can be passed through the
DisplayPort™ connector to a monitor with audio capabilities. The vendor driver must be installed. Such a
configuration might present two audio hardware choices. If you do not hear sound through the speakers,
one possible reason is that the graphics card (default) is selected for audio output instead of the
DisplayPort. Check the audio settings (for example, Sound in gnome-control-center).
In some systems, embedded Intel HD graphics may also present a similar HDMI audio device that can be
used through the DisplayPort interface. No proprietary driver is needed for this device, just a sufficiently
recent kernel.
Linux technical notes 105