KANOTIX64 on the HP L2000 (Lance Armstrong notebook)


This short page describes my success and efforts at installing and using the Kanotix64 Linux distro on my HP L2000 (Lance Armstrong edition) notebook. I now have a nearly fully functional Linux system, lacking only Bluetooth and media card support. I hope this info helps other users of this notebook.

It's great to have an x64-specific system, in spite of early adopter fears. Having a working box at this early stage of OSS development and support for a 64-bit consumer notebook is a testament to the hard work and prowess of OSS developers - i am very grateful.

The notebook was acquired in Fall 2005, but it wasn't until early 2006 that i took the plunge to avoid using the Software from Satan on the machine's internal hard drive. I had deleted as much Windows software as possible from the system, and had rolled Cygwin, CygwinX, openoffice.org, and The GIMP onto the system.

I did not experience success using Ubuntu, Fedora Core, and one or two other x64 live CDs available at the time - until i downloaded and ran Kanotix 64bit Lite (release 2005-4). This live distro is on a single .iso image, and contains nearly 600MB of software. Kanotix64 booted, then worked almost out of the box on my notebook. Note that i write 'almost,' as there were two important things i had to do: a) get wireless networking working, and b) have the display working to my satisfaction.

Quick and Dirty Install

Here's a short synopsis of how i configured my system:

1. downloaded and burned Kanotix64 2005-4

2. booted to an English mode via the GRUB menu

3. ran QTParted from the KDE panel menu to create a Linux partition

4. used fdisk to create a partitioning scheme:

/dev/hda1 - ntfs (retaining a small install for testing)
/dev/hda2 - ext3
/dev/hda3 - swap

5. formatted the ext3 and swap partitions

6. ran the Kanotix-gui installer (via KDE's panel) to install

7. rebooted

Problems and Solutions

The first problem is that one must use ndiswrapper in order to initialize, configure, and use built-in 802.11g card. Some folks might say, "So what? What's the big deal?" Well, IMHO, this is not the way to go.  Much better would be for OSS developers to be able to have the specs in order to develop working drivers to be included with the Linux kernel - as it now, the POS Broadcom wireless NIC won't work unless you first use a PCMCIA or USB adapter NIC to download the driver, or use some form of USB media to copy it into the file system.

Hint: Use Kanotix' Network Card Configuration Tool from the KDE panel's KANOTIX menu to set and save wireless settings *after* you install the driver using ndiswrapper like this:

ndiswrapper -i bcmwl5.inf
ndiswrapper -m
depmod -a
modprobe ndiswrapper

The next problem was initially more frustrating, but the solution was easy. I had tried the SLAX live CD, and would have loved to have kept using it, but unfortunately, it is 32-bit and the NIC driver would not work. However, SLAX easily configured a 16bpp 1280x768 desktop.

Hint: Use xconf after logging in, then use startx for SLAX.

Unfortunately, Kanotix64 would not and (the current release) cannot correctly configure 1280x768 for this notebook. The solution was to examine the SLAX-configured xorg.conf file and to:

1. insert a 1280x768 modeline:

# 1280x768 @ 60.00 Hz (GTF) hsync: 47.70 kHz; pclk: 80.14 MHz
Modeline "1280x768" 129.859 1280 1368 1504 1728 768 769 772 814 +hsync +vsync

2. use a portion of the SLAX "Device" section for the ATI card:

Section "Device"
Option "RenderAccel" "1"
# sw_cursor is needed for some ati and radeon cards
Option "sw_cursor"
#Option "hw_cursor"
Option "NoAccel"
#Option "ShowCache"
#Option "ShadowFB"
#Option "UseFBDev"
#Option "Rotate"
Identifier "Card0"
# The following line is auto-generated by KNOPPIX mkxf86config
Driver "ati"
VendorName "All"
BoardName "All"
BusID "PCI:1:5:0"
EndSection

I enabled the "sw_cursor" option, then instructed Xorg to use the ati driver and fed in the card's PCI Bus ID. Do NOT enable acceleration using this driver.

3. With a DefaultColorDepth setting of 16, i could just then use:

SubSection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1280x768"
EndSubSection

in the "Screen" section of the xorg.conf file.

4. And more importantly, save the file xorg.conf under /etc/X11 with READ-ONLY permissions, as xorg.conf is normally generated on the fly every time X is started!

for example:

chmod 444 /etc/X11/xorg.conf

The result is a nice 1280x768 display WITHOUT the hassle of using a proprietary ATI driver or having to use Fedora Core or SuSE and a Livna rpm. If you're not comfortable with editing your xorg.conf, you can use mine, with the normal caveats (i.e., at your own risk!).

Touchpad Madness

Touchpads are cool, but i really miss the eraser pointer on my old IBM StinkPads. Short of using an external mouse, i had to find a workaround for the insipid autoscrolling and tapping enabled by default on the Touchpad. Thankfully, the qsynaptics client is included with KANOTIX64 in order to turn these features off - but you'll need to add the program to your desktop menu. Settings are saved in a resource file in your home directory.

Timely Solution

Another item that cropped up was an out-of-whack system time, evidenced by a much faster than normal KDE panel clock. The notebook's BIOS seems to keep OK time, so at first i simply updated the system time from the hardware clock via a crontab entry. I know that NTP can also be used, but the notebook is not always on the net:

# m h dom mon dow user  command
*  *    * * *   root    /sbin/hwclock --hctosys

However, the best way to handle this problem had already been published elsewhere:  Simply use the following option in your menu.lst or grub.conf or kernel boot argument file:

no_timer_check

Time-keeping on the box seems fine after using this option.

Todo and Things Done

Other software items or changes i add or make to the system will be listed here. For starters:

5/16/06:
The problem regarding Openoffice.org is solved! I have found that by downloading the current non-JRE 2.0.2 Openoffice.org Linux x86 tarball, and then 'debianizing' the rpms into a .deb package and installing works just fine!

Normally this would be somewhat tedious and complicated for newbies (though not insurmountable for most experienced Linux users) to accomplish manually via the command line. But i found Ben Park's Oct. 2005 OO-debian shell script, then modified it for the current Openoffice.org stable release (2.0.2 at this time). Here's the script., which will download, then convert the RPMs to .deb format. I ran the script as root, and then when finished, installed the package with:

dpkg --force architecture -i openoffice-2.0.2.deb

Openoffice.org will be installed under /opt, but under KANOTIX, all any user then has to do is use the soffice command from the command line.

Whoo hoo! Now i have Oo on my system!

4/27/06:
Alas, as most x64 users know, one has to go through some machinations in order to run openoffice.org on this notebook and its ilk at this time (the problem is in the 'core' Oo package?). Life is too short, so i'm not going to go through the hassle and hoops that i've read about just to use Oo - sorry! Even worse, the current version of abiword (2.4.2) for x64 isn't that stable either! What to do?

My solution was to dig up a licensed copy of ThinkFree 3.0 i had stashed away in a folder on my iBook's desktop. This suite includes a word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation client - and works great with no problems at all under KANOTIX64 (and other Linux distros).

I'll use ThinkFree until Oo matures.

BTW, i also tried installing and running an eval copy of Applixware 6, but the app complained about not finding a license file (even though it works perfectly on my FC3 box). Perhaps the free home version, due out in the next few months will work?

4/18/06:
Installed, built xlog and gmfsk for PSK31 ops on the notebook. Had to go through some hoops with library dependencies, but in the end i was able to build an older version of xlog, and the latest version of gmfsk. Now if only 20M would open up at some point in this downside of the solar cycle.

:-(

3/29/06:
Manually ran updatedb.

Noticed that there are manual pages for many commands not installed. But
there's no makewhatis script on the system? Simply copied the command
and its man page from the Cygwin install:

cp /media/hda1/cygwin/usr/sbin/makewhatis /usr/sbin
cp /media/hda1/cygwin/usr/share/man/man8/makewhatis.8 /usr/share/man/man8

Downloaded, installed, symlinked web2 to words under /usr/share/dict.
This allows one to use the look command for a simple spelling.

Built and installed GNU ncurses.

Built and installed the nano editor. Can't live without this program!