Ubuntu 11.04 compatability with HP dv6t laptop.

[egandt]

I have this same notebook, and lets just say its not looking for for Ubuntu on it. First off it will only use a SVGA driver, it does not find the Intel or the ATI card as present on the system, so the X experience is useless. I can not find any way to force it to use one or the other card, as they are both present, but neither works

/sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch does not exist on this system at all, so no hope playing with that, I've black listed and uninstall the ATI drivers, that did nothing to help either.

Simple put the X display on this notebook is completely useless at this time, I'm still playing around to see if it can be fixed, but I'm not counting upon it.

ERIC

[sgtguthrie]

I have this same notebook, and lets just say its not looking for for Ubuntu on it. First off it will only use a SVGA driver, it does not find the Intel or the ATI card as present on the system, so the X experience is useless. I can not find any way to force it to use one or the other card, as they are both present, but neither works

/sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch does not exist on this system at all, so no hope playing with that, I've black listed and uninstall the ATI drivers, that did nothing to help either.

Simple put the X display on this notebook is completely useless at this time, I'm still playing around to see if it can be fixed, but I'm not counting upon it.

ERIC

I also have this laptop, and have no problems after following the instructions in post 5 of this thread, have no problems. It's worked for every distro i've tried except pclinuxos.

The problem is that when hp put the laptops together, they modified the Radeon driver. For this reason, the fgrlx driver from ati doesn't work, as linux thinks it's a different model than it is. Ati says that because hp modified the driver, hp would have to release a linux driver for it, which I believe they have no intentions of doing.

Either way, the sandy bridge graphics work just fine, so once you disable blacklist the Radeon card, and disable switcheroo, you should be good to go.

Like I said, post 5...

[egandt]

Good to hear it is possible to get it to work, my current key issue stems from the fact that the SVGA driver is being used.
I'm trying to get it to use the Intel driver right now, but that is causing problems as well. Its all really annoying and poorly implemented as I want to be able to switch from Intel to ATI in windows and get just one working in Linux, best case would be to have both, but that seems like an unlikely option.
My current plan is to manual create an xorg (and boy do I hate doing that), as using -configure setups up both, and then neither work.

ERIC

[sgtguthrie]

I would just do a fresh install of ubuntu, and then DON'T install any proprietary drivers once you boot (you may have to try booting a couple times due to a race condition). Then follow the instructions in post 5, reboot, and vouala! You're good to go using the Intel sandy bridge graphics.

[mysticmatrix]

I would just do a fresh install of ubuntu, and then DON'T install any proprietary drivers once you boot (you may have to try booting a couple times due to a race condition). Then follow the instructions in post 5, reboot, and vouala! You're good to go using the Intel sandy bridge graphics.

I was trying to install Ubuntu Natty through Wubi today. The installation used to hang on the Radeon driver, but went sucessfully when I started in safe graphics mode. Now, I have a installed Ubuntu on my laptop, but it again is not starting due to the stupid Radeon thing.

Even booting in safe mode hangs up due to Radeon driver. Is there any way that I can disable loading of Radeon driver at startup and then blacklist it later? Kernel still seems to respond, since I can use SysReq+B to reboot my laptop.

[sgtguthrie]

I was trying to install Ubuntu Natty through Wubi today. The installation used to hang on the Radeon driver, but went sucessfully when I started in safe graphics mode. Now, I have a installed Ubuntu on my laptop, but it again is not starting due to the stupid Radeon thing.

Even booting in safe mode hangs up due to Radeon driver. Is there any way that I can disable loading of Radeon driver at startup and then blacklist it later? Kernel still seems to respond, since I can use SysReq+B to reboot my laptop.

I think I hear more problems with wubi than anything else. I don't see the point myself. If you're doing that, and don't want to just dual boot; it works fine in virtualbox...

[SeijiSensei]

BIOS upgrade to enable Radeon card

How to dual-boot Ubuntu on dv6tse

I don't have any info on how to get the fingerprint reader working though.

I plan to compile this stuff into a single posting in the near future.

[mysticmatrix]

BIOS upgrade to enable Radeon card

How to dual-boot Ubuntu on dv6tse

I don't have any info on how to get the fingerprint reader working though.

I plan to compile this stuff into a single posting in the near future.

Seiji,
Can I get the specs of your laptop. Mine has Intel HD + AMD 6770M, along with a Ralink Wifi. I couldn't care less about using my ATI card in linux, the driver support of ATI on linux has always been insufficient. I am already on latest BIOS (F1.A for the Intel Model), and using fixed mode.

I was able to install via Wubi, but I guess I will try a dedicated install some time later, tough I don't see how that will make any difference. Things that were not working were Wifi and Intel GPU. The system was not booting with trace-calls referring to Radeon module. But, I was still able to boot to graphics after that. Kernel does not seems to die after boot, as SysReq still functions.

Please update this thread if you make a detailed install post anywhere. It would be much appreciated.

[SeijiSensei]

The computer is off at college with my daughter, but here's what our order from HP says:

HP Pavilion dv6t Select Edition customizable Notebook PC

* • steel gray
* • Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
* • 2nd generation Intel(R) Dual Core(TM) i5-2410M (2.3 GHz, 3MB L3 Cache) with Turbo Boost up to 2.9GHz
* • 1GB GDDR5 Radeon(TM) HD 6770M Graphics [HDMI, VGA]
* • FREE Upgrade to 6GB DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm)
* • 640GB 7200RPM Hard Drive with HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection
* • No Additional Office Software
* • No additional security software
* • 30% OFF! High Capacity 6-Cell Lithium-Ion Battery (standard) - Up to 5.75 hours of battery life +++
* • 15.6" diagonal High Definition HP BrightView LED Display (1366x768)
* • SuperMulti 8X DVD+/-R/RW with Double Layer Support
* • HP TrueVision HD Webcam with Integrated Digital Microphone and HP SimplePass Fingerprint Reader
* • Intel 802.11b/g/n WLAN with Wireless Display Support
* • Standard Keyboard with numeric keypad

I never use WUBI; I always install Ubuntu in a dual-boot arrangement, which as my other posting suggests is a pain in the butt with an HP machine. The Intel wifi card is supported out-of-the-box on Ubuntu. The only real issue I had, other than installation, was getting the ATI card to work with the proprietary driver. Once I upgraded the BIOS and switched to fixed mode, I could install the driver using the Additional Drivers applet.

[mysticmatrix]

Hmnn, I have the same specs except

Core i7 2630QM
ATI 6700M 2 GB
750 GB 7200 RPM HDD
RaLink Wifi module
Blu-ray drive

I tried loading Ubuntu 11.10, and everything seemed to work pretty fine. I was able to turn off the ATI cards and rely exclusively on Intel on-board, which is completely good for me. I already use fixed graphics, so I would try to install fglrx on it later. However, the laptop seemed to run pretty hot. I was helpful to turn off ATI, but still processor did not seem to go in lowest frequency a lot. Perhaps that can be tweaked later.

As of now, I am waiting for the final release of 11.10. I also found some handy advice on another forum regarding switching graphics, etc. I will make a post once I figure out more stuff.