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HP Armada 7400 Software Installation Manual

Installation of linux
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Download this manual See also: Operation & Installation Manual
White Paper
June 1999
0206-0799-A
[
]
Prepared by Portables Software
Marketing
Contents
What is Linux? ..............................................3
Key Features..................................................3
Linux Availability .........................................5
Commercial Portables...................................5
Services Support............................................6
Linux on Armada 7400 & 7800 ...................6
Hard Disk Support ........................................6
What To Expect...........................................10
Installing RedHat 5.2: .................................11
Installing with SuSE 6.0 .............................15
Questions and Answers...............................22
List of Tables
TABLE 1 - SUMMARY OF LINUX
DRIVERS ......................................................6
Installation of Linux on Compaq
Armada 7400 and 7800 Portables
Abstract: According to a recent press article, "Linux runs faster, makes
better use of pre-emptive multitasking and uses only a fraction of the memory
required by a Windows or Mac OS. Notebook batteries last much longer on a
Linux system, partly because it knows how to put the processor to sleep when
idle. It is more stable, crashes far less often and is easier to fix then
1
Windows."
The Linux operating system was originally developed on desktop Intel
Architecture systems. As such, Linux was developed without portable
features. Recently, Linux added support for features that portable users
expect such as Advanced Power Management (APM), PCMCIA cards, and X
windows video drivers for LCD panels. Many other features of portables are
so implementation dependent and have no analogy in the desktop world that
the Linux developers have not considered adding these features.
example, each portable manufacturer has their own implementation of device
swapping and docking stations.
This paper provides a summary of the Linux operating system, its history and
features. Also covered are pointers on installation, methods to enable APM,
PCMCIA, Internal modem, Compaq Netflex, and X Windows on the LCD
panel and use on Armada 7400 and 7800 notebooks as well as Compaq' s
Commercial Portables position and strategy on the Linux open source
operating system.
Compaq recommends upgrading to the latest system BIOS available at
www.compaq.com
.
Linux specific information related to features and Year 2000 compliance has
been obtained from the official Linux web site
1
(David Bragi, Portable Computing, March 1999)
For
http://www.Linux.org

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Summary of Contents for HP Armada 7400

  • Page 1: Table Of Contents

    Also covered are pointers on installation, methods to enable APM, PCMCIA, Internal modem, Compaq Netflex, and X Windows on the LCD panel and use on Armada 7400 and 7800 notebooks as well as Compaq’ s Commercial Portables position and strategy on the Linux open source operating system.

  • Page 2: June

    Other product names mentioned herein may be trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective companies. Copyright ©1999 Compaq Computer Corporation. All rights reserved. Printed in the U.S.A. Installation of Linux on Compaq Armada 7400 and 7800 White Paper prepared by Portables Software Marketing First Edition (June 1999)

  • Page 3: What Is Linux

    Installation of Linux on Compaq Armada 7400/7800 Portables What is Linux? Since its inception in the early nineties, Unix-based Linux has been highly visible in the academic and research community, used primarily for e-mail, web servers and bulletin boards. With the source code and the operating system freely available over the Internet and potentially twelve million users worldwide, there is evidence that Linux may be in the process of gaining acceptance for commercial applications.

  • Page 4: Linux Advantages/Disadvantages

    Installation of Linux on Compaq Armada 7400/7800 Portables § Support for networking: - TCP/IP networking, including FTP, telnet, NFS, etc. - Netware client and server - Many networking protocols: the base protocols available in the latest development kernels include TCP, IPv4, IPv6, AX.25, X.25, IPX, DDP (Appletalk), Netrom, and others.

  • Page 5: Compaq Computer Corporation

    Armada portable products. Compaq has run compatibility tests under the latest RedHat distribution (version 5.2) on Armada 7400 and Armada 7800 notebooks. Compaq is also investigating the feasibility and support issues related to conducting certifications on selected models of Armada notebooks.

  • Page 6: Services Support

    Installation of Linux on Compaq Armada 7400/7800 Portables 1 – S ABLE UMMARY OF INUX Linux Video driver - S3 ViRGE/MX Audio driver – ESS-1879 Setup & Diagnostics Compaq Netelligent 10/100 PC Card Infrared Cardbus and PC-Card (PCMCIA) Support Services Support Within North America, a ten incident call pack can be ordered from Compaq Computer Corporation customer services as part number QR-SMLNX-B1 for a fee of $1320.
  • Page 7 Large Hard Drives The latest Armada 7400 and 7800 models offer hard drives greater than 8GB in size. Linux supports large hard drives because it accesses the hard drive on a sector basis (LBA) instead of the older cylinder-head-sector (CHS) method.
  • Page 8 Video Support Armada 7400 and 7800 products use the S3 ViRGE/MX (86C260) with 4MB of video RAM and all models use TFT LCD panels which support resolution up to 1024x768 pixels. The S3 ViRGE/MX is located on PCI Bus 1 that operates at 66MHz.
  • Page 9 Linux not being able to use the port(s). Infrared Support The Armada 7400 and 7800 products use the SMC FDC37C951FR Super I/O chip, which contains a 4Mbit infrared port. The default resources assigned by the BIOS for this device are: “I/O=0x2F8-0x2FF, 0x100-0x107, IRQ9, DMA5”.

  • Page 10: What To Expect

    {Ctrl Alt Fn +}. The Armada 7400 and 7800 has a hot key sequence, Fn-F4, to switch between panel only, external monitor only and simultaneous display. The S3 video BIOS has been customized to implement this functionality. On Linux Fn-F4 video...

  • Page 11: Installing Redhat 5.2

    Linux does not support hot docking of the notebook. All devices with the exception of USB are supported. Installing RedHat 5.2: This sample installation assumes an Armada 7400 with 32MB RAM, 4GB hard drive and Microsoft Windows 9x using the entire hard drive and creating a dual boot Linux and Microsoft Windows 9x environment.
  • Page 12 Installation of Linux on Compaq Armada 7400/7800 Portables 11. Fips will then prompt to backup the boot sector (partition table). Answer Yes and make sure the boot floppy is not write protected. 12. Fips will then display three columns: Old Partition (size) Cylinder (start of new partition) New Partition (size).
  • Page 13 Installation of Linux on Compaq Armada 7400/7800 Portables 18. PCI Probe which finds the S3 Virge/MX. Compaq has occasionally observed the PCI Probe not finding the Virge/MX. If this happens Setup will present a list of video controller, choose S3 Virge/MX.
  • Page 14 Installation of Linux on Compaq Armada 7400/7800 Portables 12. Comment out all the lines beginning with Modeline 13. Add the following Modeline entries: Modeline “1024x768” 79.95 1024 1040 1216 1328 768 768 777 802 Modeline “640x480” 35.36 640 656 720 832 480 480 486 501 Modeline “800x600”...

  • Page 15: Installing With Suse 6.0

    Installing with SuSE 6.0 This sample installation assumes an Armada 7400 with 64MB RAM, 6GB hard drive and Microsoft Windows 9x using the entire hard drive and creating a dual boot Linux and Windows 9x. We will use Linux fdisk’ s advanced capabilities to gain access to all 10GB of the drive.
  • Page 16 Installation of Linux on Compaq Armada 7400/7800 Portables 12. Fips will then display three columns: Old Partition (size) Cylinder (start of new partition) New Partition (size). The default values minimize the size of the Microsoft Windows 9x partition, leaving no extra space for Microsoft Windows 9x.
  • Page 17 Installation of Linux on Compaq Armada 7400/7800 Portables 23. NFS, if you need it say Yes. This example doesn’ t 24. The news-from address, keep same as host 25. Access to nameserver. If Yes then Setup wants a numeric IP. This example is using DHCP so say No.
  • Page 18 Installation of Linux on Compaq Armada 7400/7800 Portables 13. cd to /opt/oss 14. Execute ./soundon 15. If you installed the sample wav files test the driver by using the oss play utility, i.e. play /usr/share/sounds/wav/zuluchnt.wav 16. Execute aumix and adjust the volumes with the arrow keys, make sure the mic is very low.
  • Page 19 Installation of Linux on Compaq Armada 7400/7800 Portables ‘ make config’ Pure command line tool, if you make a mistake then you must restart from the beginning. The next two are much nicer. ‘ make menuconfig’ Text mode menu interface ‘...
  • Page 20 Installation of Linux on Compaq Armada 7400/7800 Portables IP optimize as router not host = No IP tunneling = Yes IP aliasing support = Yes IP PC/TCP compatibility = No IP reverse ARP = No IP disable path MTU discovery = No...

  • Page 21: Installing Linux With Windows Nt4

    Installation of Linux on Compaq Armada 7400/7800 Portables System V and Coherent fs = Module UFS fs = Module BSD disklabel support = Yes SMD disklabel support = Yes 18. Character Devices: Standard/generic serial support = Yes Digiboard support = No...

  • Page 22: Questions And Answers

    NTFS. Questions and Answers Is Compaq late to the Linux market and behind competitors like HP, Sun, IBM and Dell? No. In fact Compaq has been participating in various Linux projects for at least four years. From the “Digital Classic”...
  • Page 23 Installation of Linux on Compaq Armada 7400/7800 Portables new release of the Linux Kernel. For example, RedHat Linux 5.2 has embedded support for a variety of hardware components. Refer to the list at: Will Compaq preinstall a Linux distribution on its systems? Compaq has over 35,000 resellers worldwide who can preinstall Linux and offer Linux solutions for customers who request it.

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Armada 7800

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