Too Much Few

This is just my little experiment on my recently purchased HP Pavilion dv2715nr Entertainment Notebook PC with pre-installed Windows Vista Home which I don’t really like that much. So I decided to try and install Ubuntu 7.10, I inserted the CD, boot to Ubuntu, it’s flawless until i came to the point that Ubuntu cannot detect my Notebook’s Nvidia Go 7150m graphic card and it won’t start GUI and forced to be in Terminal Mode, I tried to start GDM manually but no avail it won’t start and I keep getting error about my graphic card but I never give up, I download the latest Ubuntu 8.04 Beta and run it although it still cannot detect my graphic card it continues on the GUI in 800×600 screen resolution after finishing the installation.

Ubuntu is now working on 800×600, it is now easier to install the graphic card, just go to Systems > Administration > Hardware Drivers you’ll see the NVIDIA Driver ready to install, if you don’t see it you must first enable the all repositories in synaptic (that was my own personal way) update Ubuntu the try to install again the Hardware driver. After installation you will be ask to reboot after that login and you have now higher screen resolutions available.

Yey! Okay, the graphic card problem is solve, what now? after several minutes of navigating Ubuntu, I just realized that It will be pain on the back to make the Webcam working on Yahoo Messenger (I guess you need kopete or Gyache to make it work, but Ubuntu’s default IM is pidgin).

Then the buttons, only volume and mute is working by default so the quickplay, dvd etc.. needs to be configure and assign hot keys (I’m too lazy to do that) and then the Remote for Media Center, what will be the use of the remote if I don’t have media center, I know there’s Mplayer for Linux but I really liked the GUI of Windows Media Center.

I also installed Windows XP but setting up and installing drivers is way too far annoying compared to Ubuntu. I was just lucky I have an additional PC with internet access because most of the drivers where not automatically detected and installed by XP so I still need to download it from HP web site, which on the other hand most of the drivers they provided is not working but luckily I was able to browse their forums to get all the drivers I needed. One of the worst thing I encountered is that the wireless driver provided in HP website was not working but wireless card driver for Dell laptop is working. Ok so all of the drivers has been installed and working but I noticed that even I have connected an earphone the built-in speaker is still on which can be frustrating if you want to watch porn silently. ^_^

And also after I installed XP my laptops Master boot record has been corrupted and the System Recovery boot options (F11) did not work.

With that on mind I decided to revert back to Windows Vista (I really like the system recovery!) and It’ll be permanent, I hope. If I thought of using Windows XP, Ubuntu / Other Linux Distro again I might just run in thru Virtual Machine or use Wubi that lets you install linux in Windows just like installing a program.

To sum things up:
HP Pavilion dv2715nr or maybe other HP notebooks are not advisable if you want to install Linux but If you’re not concerned on loosing some of the coolest feature of your notebook go ahead and try but be warned that it will not be a smooth path to choose.

Tip:
I recommend that you create first HP Recovery disk (if you have not done so) before doing any experiments on your unit especially when you are not 100% sure on what you are doing.