Installing Ubuntu 6.06 LTS (64 bits PC) on a HP Pavilion DV5137EU

Hardware [1]

Starting up

The laptop is configured to start on a bootable CD/DVD if present. So, set the power on, open the disc and set the power off immediatly. Set the Ubuntu for 64 bits PC in the case, close it and set the power on again. You won’t even see a vindoz logo :-) . Put your network cable in the ethernet port and connect it to your router, assuming you have one.

Ubuntu live

The live Ubuntu is booting and it is working good: keyboard, screen, graphic card, sound, pointer, usb mouse, usb stick and wired ethernet connection were OK. Wifi connection was lightened but did not work. In fact, the wifi controller is integrated in the kernel but you have to give him a firmware before more... Convinced ? You want to install ? Click on the Install desktop icon...

Partitionning the hard drive

1. If you wan to have a full Linux laptop
Nothing special to say: I call it the "Next, next, next" installation process ((Perhaps "OK", i don’t remember :-) ). You also will have to set a few informations of course (user name, and so on). It takes about 20 minues and no trace of another OS will remain. Go to next main title.

2. If you want to keep a wildows OS on the computer

You’ll have to take the partionning of the machine in your hands. HP pre-installed one small "restore" primary partition (dev/hda2) at the end of the disk and one 35 Gbytes primary system partition at the beginning of the disk (dev/hda1).

In the remaining space, I decided to make
– a partition of 1 Gbytes for the swap,
– a partition of 10 Gbytes for the Ubuntu system,
– a partition of 20 Gbytes for the /home mount point,
– a partition of 10 Gbytes for testing other distributions, just in case ;-)

As you only can have 4 primary partitions, just decide to set it all in an extended one or to put the Ubuntu system in a primary and the rest in the extended or... If you don’t want to have the /home in a specific partition, you just can create two primary partitions for the swap and the system with the /home included...
I decided:
– 10 Gb primary partition for Ubuntu ( "/" mount point)
– 30 Gb extended partition, in wich

• 1 GB for the /swap
• 20 Gb for the /home mount point
• 10 Gb left free in case... for testing another distribution, you never know ;-)

Then, I began the next, next, next install...

Having the integrated wifi card to work

Problem solved for me thanks to davidB21 on the french Ubuntu forum

Mainly, you’ll have to :
– install the bcm43xx-fwcutter firmware extractor : use synaptic
– download the wl_apsta.o firmware to /home/your_name
– In a terminal, run the command
sudo bcm43xx-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware wl_apsta.o
– restart the computer (logoff, login is perhaps enough or even network restart - I don’t know: I use to restart the computer, don’t you know why ? Tips are welcome...)

Then, you’ll have an integrated Wifi card but the default network icon seems not been working with it. You’ll have to correct the file "/etc/network/interface", as the presence of 2 networks devices seems to disturb the things... Thus:

– deactivate the network using the control panel icon.
– open a terminal an execute gksudo edit /etc/network/interfaces. Replace the datas by

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp

auto eth1
iface eth1 inet dhcp

Save and close.)
– Open the "Applications/Internet" menu and select "Networkmanager" + password.
– Wait a little (30 seconds ?)
– Click the NetworkManager icon, activate the wifi interface, select your Wifi network and set the WEP key if and as needed.
– Wait a little (30 seconds again ?) and try to surf... It should be OK.

This should give you a 11Mbits wifi connection (max supported by the open source driver). Changing the network context could create the need to repeat these operations... Let know your experience !

/tmp/ Conclusion

This notice is certainly not complete nor professionnal. I confess I’m a quite new linux user. However, I’m happy to give this little contribution to the Linux community and I will probably come here back for further details about the wifi and the rest of this laptop (related to the firewire port and DV camcorder, for instance)...

Don’t hesitate to leave your comments and sorry for my (bad ?) english ;-)

First published on 2006/10/27 to be

and upgraded on 13/11/2006, after upgrading to (K)Ubuntu 6.10.