Gentoo Linux on a HP Pavilion dv6105us

I had been using Slackware on my previous computer, and loved it. When I bought the HP dv6105 I was unable to install Slackware because of the 64 bit architecture. After a little research, I decided to use Gentoo, and I am glad that I did. Keeping in mind that simple is a relative term- especially with Linux- Gentoo makes installing, maintaining, and using Linux simple. Installing Gentoo GNU/Linux on a HP 6105 was a relatively straightforward process. There were a few snags, and I will discuss how I managed them on these pages. The topics are listed in the order which I addressed them in the install and setup. One thing that impresses me about Gentoo is their extensive and well-maintained "howto" documentation. I strongly urge you to browse through them before you start the process of installing and using Gentoo. It might help you to head off problems at the pass. Even if you do not, it is a good first place to start for answers when problems arise, and they will arise! Gentoo GNU/Linux HOW TO-WIKI. Here is a link to this web page's outline. If you find the information here helpful, or if you have any comments or questions, post them here. You can read comments and questions too.

If you don't have the app sudo, I suggest that you emerge it, then configure it with visudo. Any questions about sudo are answered here. The instructions given on this web site assume that you are a non-root user and have sudo installed and configured.

Installing

LiveDVD or LiveCD

Visit Gentoo's web site and download the LiveCD or LiveDVD. Spend some time reading some Gentoo howtos, especially about emerging and backing up to DVDs.

I do not want to dual boot, so I used the default partitioning scheme. It has a boot partition, a swap partition, and a root partition.

Filesystem      Size    Mounted on
/dev/sda1       23M     /boot
/dev/sda2       990M    <swap>
/dev/sda3       73G     /

Make sure to install the x-windows environment, KDE, and Gnome. I also suggest installing almost all of the available other apps, such as OpenOffice, Thunderbird, and Firefox. It'll keep you from having to 'emerge' them later.

After install is complete, fire up a terminal and:

sudo emerge sync && \
sudo emerge --deep --ask world

I suggest that you do this regularly to keep your software up to date!

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Kernel Upgrade

Getting, Patching, Compiling, & Installing

I am a little funny about this, somewhat of a control freak I guess. I want to make sure that the kernel is configured for my system, the way that I want it configured. I want the pilot module, Alsa, the proper USB setup, and a host of other things.

The best way that I have found to manage power is to use the suspend2 kernel, an app named cpudyn, and gnome-power-manager compiled from source. We'll discuss installing the kernel in this area, and the power management later.

Neither the stock kernel nVidia modules nor the Gentoo nVidia kernel module worked for my nVidia video card. So I only chose the VGA module from the kernel options. We'll fix this (in a painless manner) later. Also, the appropriate HD audio kernel modules [device drivers -> sound ->alsa ->Intel HD Audio] need to be selected for the sound card to work. If you want the battery monitor and/or power control applets, then you'll need to select some ACPI options.

Gentoo has an app for configuring and compiling your kernel. It is called 'Genkernel' and I have found it to be a little buggy. It also makes you boot from an initrd, and I find this to be an unnecessary step. So, having said that:

1) Download the kernel sources, the suspend2 patch, and my config file:

cd ~/Desktop && \
wget http://kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/linux-2.6.20.tar.bz2 && \
wget http://www.suspend2.net/downloads/all/suspend2-2.2.9.7-for-2.6.20.patch.bz2 && \
wget http://home.comcast.net/~jhall4888/config

2) Unpack the sources and the patch:

bunzip2 ./suspend2-2.2.9.7-for-2.6.20.patch.bz2 && \
cd /usr/src && \
sudo rm linux && \
sudo tar xjvf /home/your-home-dir/Desktop/linux-2.6.20.tar.bz2

3) Make a soft link (You'll need to stay root while working in the /usr/src directory):

sudo ln -s /usr/src/linux-2.6.20 /usr/src/linux

4) Patch the sources and configure:

cd linux && \
sudo patch -p1 < /home/your-home-dir/Desktop/suspend2-2.2.9.7-for-2.6.20.patch && \
sudo make mrproper && \
sudo make distclean && \
sudo make menuconfig

Now, you need to scroll to the bottom and select to load configuration from an alternate file. Type in the full path to the config file that you downloaded in step one.
Feel free to examine the options. This page assumes that you are using these values on a dv6105us computer. If you change anything before compiling the kernel, things may not work.

5) Compile and install:

sudo make bzImage && \
sudo cp arch/x86_64/boot/bzImage /boot/bzImage-2.6.20 && \
sudo make modules modules_install && \
sudo cp System.map /boot/System.map-2.6.20 && \
sudo rm /boot/System.map && \
sudo ln -s /boot/System.map-2.6.20 /boot/System.map

6) Make an appropriate /boot/grub/grub.conf entry.
My partitioning scheme is:

/       on /dev/sda1 ext3 (hd0,0)
/home   on /dev/sda2 ext3 (hd0,1)
<swap>    on /dev/sda3 swap (hd0,2)

and my grub.conf (menu.lst) looks like this:

default 1
timeout 2
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
#
title=GNU/Linux (Custom 2.6.20) (suspend2)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /bzImage-2.6.20 suspend2=/dev/sda3 vga=791

Note the suspend2=/dev/sda2 line. Make sure that points to your swap partition. If you don't remember where that is try this:

cat /etc/fstab

That should do it- reboot!

Rebuilding Non-Kernel Modules

Once you've rebooted you'll need to recompile the ndiswrapper module and nVidia video module. Download the nVidia module from the nVidia web site. You might want to go ahead and configure xorg.conf.

It's also a good ideal to emerge ndiswrapper prior to rebuilding your kernel. The nvidia and ndiswrapper modules are the only non-kernel modules, so they will both have to be rebuilt whenever you build and boot a new kernel. I have the Nvidia installer in my /usr/src directory. This way when I first boot with a new kernel, I log in as root and:

/usr/src/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-1.0-9746-pkg2.run && \ 
emerge --deep --ask ndiswrapper

and that does it!

Disable fsck on ext3 Root Partition

If you chose ext3 for your root partition then it should default to run a file system check (fsck) on this partition every 28 or so times that the system is rebooted whether it is needed or not. This is an unnecessary PIA. To stop it add the following to /etc/conf.d/local.stop:

/sbin/tune2fs -c 0 /dev/sda1
/sbin/tune2fs -c 0 /dev/sda2

Change /dev/sda1 & /dev/sda2 if necessary, of course!

man tune2fs

for an explanation...

Getting Config Information from the Kernel

Lets say that you lost the /usr/src/linux/.config file and want to build/upgrade the kernel. You can extract the configuration from a compiled kernel as long as you enabled the functionality in the kernel when it was built.

Uncompress new kernel sources and make the /usr/src/linux sym link. Then:

sudo /usr/src/linux/scripts/extract-ikconfig /boot/(yourbzImage or vmlinuz) > /usr/src/ripped.config

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Wireless Network

Software Requirements

If you need your wireless card working to access the internet to start emerging packages you'll need four packages. Ndiswrapper, the windows drivers for the wireless card, wireless-tools, and dhcpcd. I successfully use:

dhcpcd-2.0.8.tar.bz2

ndiswrapper-1.11.tar.gz

wireless_tools.28.pre16.tar.gz

And the Windows drivers.

Untar and install wireless-tools and dhcpcd. Then follow these directions to get connect to your wireless network using ndiswrapper:

http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/mediawiki/index.php/Installation

The eth0 card should work using the kernel 'forcedeth' driver. So you can also just connect a RJ-45 cable to your laptop and run the commands:

sudo ifconfig eth0 
sudo dhcpcd eth0

You may need to install dhcpcd first, try and see. Otherwise, just emerge ndiswrapper and wireless tools. You may have to unmask a few packages- refer to my portage files.

There are lots of simple tutorials out there for both ndiswrapper and wireless-tools (iwconfig, iwlist, dhcpcd). Here is a script that I use at system startup to detect my wireless network and connect if it is present.

As I wrote earlier, it's a good ideal to emerge ndiswrapper prior to rebuilding your kernel because the nvidia and ndiswrapper modules are the only non-kernel modules.

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Video & Mouse - X11

sudo emerge --deep --ask synaptics 

sudo /sbin/modprobe evdev

sudo emerge --deep --ask gsynaptics

sudo emerge --unmerge xdm kdm gdm && \
sudo rc-update del xdm && \
sudo rc-update del kdm && \
sudo rc-update del gdm

3D Desktop Effects with Beryl!

Make sure that you are using at least the nVidia driver version 9746. Get it from nVidia's web site.

My /etc/X11/xorg.conf file has all the entries that you'll need to enable 3D and get Beryl working properly. Here are the additions:

Section "ServerLayout"

    Option         "AIGLX" "true"          

Section "Module"

    Load           "dbe"
    Load           "glx"

Section "Device"

    Option         "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "True"

Section "Screen"

    Option         "DPMS" "TRUE"
    Option         "DisableGLXRootClipping" "True"      
    Option         "TripleBuffer" "true"                
    Option         "XAANoOffscreenPixmaps" "true"       
    Option         "DRI" "true"                 
    Option         "RenderAccel" "True"
    Option         "AllowGLXWithComposite" "True"
    Option         "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "True"

Section "Extensions"

    Option         "Composite" "Enable"

Unmask several files: /etc/portage/package.keywords. Don't worry, you'll be prompted :-)

Install the packages:

sudo emerge --deep --ask \
mesa \
glitz \
beryl-manager \
beryl-settings \
beryl-plugins \
beryl

Restart the X-server with ctrl-alt-bs or a system reboot.

Run

beryl-manager

now, with both compiz and beryl I had problems with black gui windows. I tried installing glitz from cvs, and that didn't help. Some web pages talked about nVidia and video memory issues- whatever. The problem was actually easy to fix. In the Beryl manager select "Advanced Beryl Options" then "Rendering Platform" then "Force AIGLX".

Alternativly, you can select "copy" from "advanced Beryl Options" -> "Rendering Path". Do one or the other, not both.

You'll need to add two lines to your ~/.bash_profile in order to run some Java apps like Limewire:

AWT_TOOLKIT=MToolkit
export AWT_TOOLKIT

Man, that was easy. Now I have a perfectly working 3D desktop, and hopefully so will you!

[ Screenshot 1 ] and [ Screenshot 2 ]

I would appreciate feedback about how this went for you, and if you had any problems with the install or configuration! Please leave comments or questions here.

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Sound

Alsaconf, Alsamixer, and the Intel HD Modules

sudo /usr/sbin/alsaconf

sudo emerge --deep --ask alsa-utils

sudo alsaconf

alsamixer

sudo /sbin/alsactl store

alsactl store

sudo rc-update add alsasound default

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Tweaking Gnome & Power Management

sudo emerge --deep --ask acpid && \
sudo rc-update add acpid default && \
sudo emerge --deep-ask suspend2-userui && \
sudo emerge --deep --ask hal && \
sudo rc-update add hald default
sudo emerge --deep --ask gnome-power-manager 

sudo vi /etc/hibernate/common.conf

RestartServices NetworkManager

su

USE="-gnome" emerge --deep --ask xscreensaver && \
USE="acpi acpid" emerge --deep --ask gnome-screensaver && \
cd /usr/share/doc/gnome-screensaver-2.16.2/ && \
gunzip migrate-xscreensaver-config.sh.gz && \
chmod +x migrate-xscreensaver-config.sh && \
gunzip xscreensaver-config.xsl && \
./migrate-xscreensaver-config.sh /usr/share/xscreensaver/config/*.xml && \
mv *.desktop /usr/share/applications/screensavers/ && \
cp /usr/lib64/misc/xscreensaver/* /usr/libexec/gnome-screensaver/ && \
emerge --unmerge xscreensaver

CPU Frequency Scaling

One big way to decrease power use is to decrease processor use when it isn't needed. The daemon cpudyn will do that for you. sudo emerge --deep --ask cpudyn && \ sudo rc-update cpudyn default Add the CPU Frequency scaling monitor applet to your gnome-panel, and you can see it in action!

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DVD Burning

CUI- Mencoder, Dvdauthor There are many ways to rip and burn DVDs from the command line. One easy way is to use vobcopy, but it will often fail with the `bad block` protection that many manufacturers use, or if there are actual disc errors. The way to rip and burn most DVDs successfully is to use mplayer/mencoder to rip the movie, dvdauthor to create a dvd image, and growisofs to burn the dvd. Make sure that you emerge all of those apps, as well as libdvdread, libdvdcss, and any other necessary utilities or libraries. # Pull out the a/v stream with mplayer and encode it into # the proper mpeg2/DVD format with mencode: # man mplayer or go to www.mplayerhq.hu for more info... mencoder -oac lavc -ovc lavc -of mpeg \ -mpegopts format=dvd \ -vf scale=720:480,harddup \ -srate 48000 -af lavcresample=48000 \ -alang en -lavcopts acodec=ac3:abitrate=192:\ vcodec=mpeg2video:vrc_buf_size=1835:vrc_maxrate=9800:\ vbitrate=4600:keyint=18:aspect=16/9 \ -ofps 30000/1001 -o movie.mpg dvd:// # Make a DVD image with dvdauthor: dvdauthor -o ./dvd movie.mpg dvdauthor -T -o ./dvd GUI- K3B, K9Copy There are; however, feature-rich GUI applications for ripping and burning CDs. I use k9copy to rip the DVD and create an iso image, and k3b to burn the iso image to a DVD+/-R. k9copy will shrink your large DL movie so that all of the contents fit onto a single DVD+/-R with no noticeable quality loss. Linux kernels(as of this writing) have low default memorylocked resource limit, which causes the "unable to anonymously mmap 33554432: Resource temporarily unavailable" error message when trying to burn DVDs. To sidestep this error issue the following command prior to burning a DVD: su - ulimit -l unlimited k3b

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Syncing With Jpilot - USB and WiFi

1) Configure Udev (necessary for USB sync only):

You'll need to make a change in /etc/udev.rules.d/50-udev.rules. Open that file with vi or some other editor, and find the header:

# tty devices

Find the line that starts:

KERNEL=="ttyUSB[0-9]"

Change what is on that line to:

KERNEL=="ttyUSB[0-9]*", NAME="tts/USB%n", SYMLINK="pilot" OWNER="YOUR LOGON NAME" GROUP="users", MODE="0777"

Or leave users as is and add yourself to that group.

The pilotport is now either /dev/pilot or /dev/tts/USB1

2) Configure jPilot: If you haven't done so: sudo emerge --deep --ask pilot-link pilot-backup jpilot In jPilot go to "File -> Preferences->Settings" Change "Serial Port" from "/dev/pilot" to "net:any" You can use the highest serial rate.

sudo /sbin/ifconfig wlan0

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Misc. Issues

OpenOffice.org

I couldn't get OpenOffice-bin to work due to a "can't find libXext.so.6" error. It seems that my libraries for emulation of 32bit x86 on amd64 needed updating.

If you did the emerge sync/emerge world step after install from above, this shouldn't be a concern. If it is:

emerge sync

Then:

emerge --search emul-linux-x86

emerge all of the emul-linux-x86-* packages, and then OpenOffice-bin should work

sudo emerge --deep --ask \
emul-linux-x86-baselibs \
emul-linux-x86-compat \
emul-linux-x86-gtklibs \
emul-linux-x86-java \
emul-linux-x86-medialibs \
emul-linux-x86-qtlibs \
emul-linux-x86-sdl \
emul-linux-x86-soundlibs \
emul-linux-x86-xlibs

Next, it seems that the Gentoo build of OpenOffice does not come with a spell check dictionary. Easy fix:

emerge --deep --ask myspell-en

Also- it is helpful to visit Gentoo's site before emerging a package to see what USE flags are available. For instance, I needed to use almost all of the USE flags for Mplayer in order to get it to play Windows files and DVDs. If you run into problems with masked files or other errors, a quick search of Gentoo's site will yield many helpful results.
Here are my /etc/portage/: package.keywords, package.unmask, and package.use files

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Printing

Type into a console

sudo emerge --deep --ask cups && \
sudo emerge --deep --ask hplip && \
sudo emerge --deep --ask xsane && \
sudo rc-update add cupsd default && \
sudo rc-update add hplip default

To use the HP scanner edit /etc/sane//dll.conf file. Add "hpaio" to the top of the list, and comment out all of the other HP drivers.

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Palm Pilot Resets After Every Sync or Attempted Sync

1. Download the DataViz Tech Tool & install it on your handheld
2. Open the "DataVizTech" app on your handheld
3. Tap the upper left hand corner of the screen to view the menu
4. Select Advanced Options
5. "Delete Preferences"
6. "Delete Temp Database"
7. Perform a soft reset by pressing the reset button inside the hole on the back of the handheld

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Acrobat Reader Problem

There came a time when I couldn't launch Acrobat Reader. I would get the error:

james@localhost ~ $ acroread
expr: syntax error
expr: syntax error
expr: syntax error
expr: syntax error
expr: syntax error
expr: syntax error
expr: syntax error

If this happens, you need to change some lines in the acroread script:

james@localhost ~ $ whereis acroread
acroread: /usr/bin/acroread /usr/X11R6/bin/acroread
james@localhost ~ $ sudo vi /usr/bin/acroread

Then make the following two changes:

418#           echo $mfile| sed 's/libgtk-x11-\([0-9]*\).0.so.0.\([0-9]\)00.\([0-9]*\)\|\(.*\)/\1\2\3/g'
419        echo $mfile| sed 's/libgtk-x11-\([0-9]*\).0.so.0.\([0-9]*\)00.\([0-9]*\)\|\(.*\)/\1\2\3/g'

644#    MIN_GTK_VERSION="240"
645    MIN_GTK_VERSION="2040"

It seems that this wasn't an acroread problem, rather a problem that was due to a GTK+ upgrade. Here is where I found the fix.

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Problem Starting `gnome-settings-daemon`

There was an error starting the GNOME Settings Daemon.
Some things, such as themes, sounds, or background settings may not work correctly.
The Settings Daemon restarted too many times.
The last error message was:
There was an unknown activation error.
GNOME will still try to restart the Settings Daemon next time you log in

This error comes from not having something installed or running when you are trying to start a Gnome session (most likely hald or dbusd). To figure out what the problem is boot into a Window Maker or FVWM session as root and type `gnome-session`. The subsequent terminal output should give you enough information to figure out what is going on.

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32-bit Browser Plugins on a 64-bit System

This was initially a problem for me. Adobe Flash, Java, and other plugins either aren't available or aren't stable with 64-bit browsers. There are apps like 'nspluginwrapper', but they do a somewhat incomplete job. The answer is easy. Emerge the precompiled 32-bit binary. That way you can continue to use 32-bit browser plugins, and it works great, I believe that is also how OpenOffice, a 32-bit program, is able to work in this architecture.

sudo emerge --deep --ask mozilla-bin && \
sudo emerge --deep --ask mozilla-firefox-bin && \
sudo emerge --deep --ask openoffice-bin

And so-on...

Also, remember that the most current versions of things are most often masked. So, if I didn't know this I would be stuck with, lets say, Flashplayer 7, which is useless in modern times. A quick peek at www.gentoo-portage.com shows me that Flashplayer 9 is available, but it is masked by the '~amd64' keyword. So I:

sudo chmod 0666 /etc/portage/package.keywords && \
sudo echo "net-www/netscape-flash ~amd64" >> /etc/portage/package.keywords && \
sudo emerge --deep --ask netscape-flash

If you want or need the latest versions of applications, then you will find yourself doing this quite often. See my package.keywords file as an example of just how many files need to be unmasked in this manner.

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Amaya- W3C's Browser and Web Page Editor

This is the result of many hours of research, trial, and error.

Not sure you need all this, but emerge it if you don't already have it installed.

sudo emerge --deep --ask wxGTK cvs mesa mesa-progs

Get the source for Amaya and un-tar it.

wget http://www.w3.org/Amaya/Distribution/amaya-sources-9.53.tgz && \
tar xzvf amaya-sources-9.53.tgz

You'll need to replace a c-source file.

wget http://svn.librdf.org/view/*checkout*/raptor/trunk/src/raptor_utf8.c?rev=1965 && \
mv ./raptor_utf8.c?rev=1965 ./Amaya9.53/redland/raptor/raptor_utf8.c

Replace the libwww files with new ones from cvs. I couldn't get it to compile otherwise.

cd ./Amaya9.53 && \
rm -fvr libwww

cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@dev.w3.org:/sources/public -z3 checkout -rAmaya libwww && \
cd libwww && \
perl config/winConfigure.pl && \
libtoolize -c -f && \
perl config/winConfigure.pl && \
aclocal; autoheader; automake; autoconf

Patch it to work on 64-bit architecture.

 
cd ../Amaya &&\

wget http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-amaya/2007JanMar/att-0030/fix_ftbfs64.diff && \
patch -p1 < fix_ftbfs64.diff

Configure and compile per the W3C web site's instructions.

mkdir obj &&\
cd obj &&\
../configure &&\
make

Check the binary...

bin/amaya

Make sure that your xorg.conf has an uncommented

Load        "GLX"
Load        "dri"

sudo make install

I got the binary to work flawlessly. In fact, I wrote this section with it. I couldn't get `make install` to work, nor could I move the binary and get it to work.

So, having wasted an inordinate amount of time getting this far, I am quitting for now.

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Pretty Fonts

Install the Window$ Fonts

The default fonts with most linux distros leave much to be desired. This is easy to fix. Just:

• Find a machine running windows, and zip up c:\windows\fonts
• Drive the zipfile to your *real* computer, and unzip the fonts into /usr/share/fonts/misc or some other directory that is listed in your xorg.conf file as a 'FontPath' Under 'Section "Files"'

Samba and Networking with Window$

sudo --deep --ask samba
sudo rc-update add samba default

Now, lets say you have a computer with XP, netbios name 'acer' and a share named 'james' that you want to mount on your real computer. You want to read and write as user 'james' from group 'users' with password 'pass'

sudo smbpasswd -a james
sudo smbpasswd -e james
sudo mkdir /mnt/share
sudo chown james.users /mnt/share
sudo echo "//acer/james /mnt/share smbfs   user,rw,gid=users,uid=james,password=pass,user=james 0 0" >> /etc/fstab

Now, configure your Samba server to allow connections from the XP computer, and create a share from the real computer

sudo vi /etc/samba/smb.conf

and add:

[global]
workgroup = Shellbark
netbios name = dv6105us
server string = HP dv6105us Laptop GNU/Linux
security = share
name resolve order = bcast hosts

[share]
path=/home/james
valid users = james
read only = no
create mask = 0777
directory mask = 0777

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My Laptop's Specs

LSPCI

LSHW

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My Desktop

Custom Wallpaper

Want this cool wallpaper that I made? Click here.

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Nursing Stuff

Here are two articles that have been published in a peer-reviewed journal:

Neuroradiology Procedures

Procedural Sedation

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