Installing Linux on the Compaq V6305NR (V6000 series) Laptop

[swashbuckler]

I recently purchased a Compaq V6305 laptop after my 4-yr old Dell 4150 Inspiron stopped charging. I bought this computer at Best Buy for $655.49, after tax, and I couldn't wait to get Linux running on it instead of Vista. However, as fate would have it, installing Linux was not as simple as popping in the disc and going to lunch. There were several problems I encountered during the install and I would like to share them here for others who bought this laptop and want to install Linux. (Like five of my friends...)

Machine specs:

AMD Turion 64 X2 1.6 GHz
1024MB DDR2 RAM
100GB SATA Drive (~92GB in reality)
DVD+/-R,RW,DL
nVidia 6150 GO! 256MB Integrated Graphics
nVidia MCP51 Chipset
Broadcom 802.11b/g (Dell 1390) Wireless Card

Things to download before the install:

Linux ISO - My choice was FC6, but many distributions will work fine on this machine. An FC6 DVD ISO is a great test of the machine's burner, by the way.

nVidia Linux Drivers - You'll need the nVidia Linux Drivers from this site, http://www.nvidia.com/object/unix.html, for the AMD64 architecture. For some reason, the nv driver included in the kernel does not work for the 6150 and MCP51 chipset combination, at least not for me. Download and save these to a USB flash stick or something and keep them for later.

Steps to Install:

1.) When I loaded the ISO for a graphical FC6 install, it hung while formatting the drive and hung again on a second attempt. To get around this, when the ISO image boots, at the FC6 boot prompt type:

linux text

This will start a text-based install on the system which worked just fine. This solved my hanging install problem. Make sure that you have your ethernet cable hooked up, for a part later on, but specifically if you plan to use the extra's repository during install.

2.) After FC6 finishes and you create/log in as your own user, save yourself some grief and DO NOT type "startx" in the shell. I figured this out the hard way: until you install the nVidia graphics drivers, this will crash the system. You may also experience a problem on the initial boot where the system hangs; just reboot. My system would not always load properly until I finished installing the drivers and updating the system.

3.) Install the nVidia drivers. Plug your USB flash stick into the computer. If the machine auto-mounts the drive and causes you to loose your shell prompt, type

CTRL+ALT+F2

and log into a second shell. Copy the files off of the USB stick to your home directory,

cp /media/disk/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-1.0-9755-pkg2.run ~/

Log in as root and go to your home directory:

su -
cd /home/<your_username>

Finally, run the nVidia installer:

sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-1.0-9755-pkg2.run

Follow all of the on-screen instructions and answer "No" when asked to download a kernel interface. On the following screen, answer "Yes" to compiling your own kernel interface and continue the install. Make sure to install the 32-bit OpenGL libraries when prompted, too.

4.)After the install is finished, type

kdm (if you are a kde user)

-or-

gdm (if your a gnome user)

and load the graphical environment. ("startx" did not work for me here.) When the graphics are finished loading and you are logged in, open a terminal window, get root, and type

yum -y update

You may want to go to a movie, dinner, both, or do some homework. Updating takes about 2 hours.

5.) When yum is finished, type

init 6

to restart the system. If you were experiencing hang-ups or other problems during the first start up, you may notice that they are gone.

Log in and do step 3 again. You'll have to do this every time the kernel is updated.

6.) After you finish recompiling the nVidia drivers, start kdm or gdm, as above, and open a terminal. Get root access and then edit /etc/inittab with your favorite graphical editor. (I actually did it with vi before I loaded kdm, but that's just because it was faster.)

gedit /etc/inittab

Change

id:3:initdefault:

to

id:5:initdefault:

7.) Run, as root,

system-config-services

and disable yum-updatesd in the services window. (Check the box next to it and save the configuration.) This will prevent your system from updating on you and breaking your configuration without your knowledge. Specifically, this will prevent the system from loading a new kernel and loading to a black screen after start up. You will need to update your system manually using

yum update

-or-

yum -y update

in the future and make sure that you reboot into runlevel 3 so that you can recompile the nVidia drivers.

That's it! The system should start and run as a fully-operational FC6 machine. What I have not covered here, obviously, is the wireless card. In brief, the wireless card in this system requires some patience to get it working, but there are several sites out there that detail the process.

Best of luck! Hope it helps!

-----Added 2007/05/05-----

For anyone who may need it, here is the lspci output of this machine. (Some dual-booters have asked that I include this for WinXp.)

00:00.0 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Host Bridge (rev a2)
00:00.1 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 0 (rev a2)
00:00.2 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 1 (rev a2)
00:00.3 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 5 (rev a2)
00:00.4 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 4 (rev a2)
00:00.5 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Host Bridge (rev a2)
00:00.6 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 3 (rev a2)
00:00.7 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 2 (rev a2)
00:02.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation C51 PCI Express Bridge (rev a1)
00:03.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation C51 PCI Express Bridge (rev a1)
00:05.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation C51 PCI Express Bridge (rev a2)
00:09.0 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP51 Host Bridge (rev a2)
00:0a.0 ISA bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP51 LPC Bridge (rev a3)
00:0a.1 SMBus: nVidia Corporation MCP51 SMBus (rev a3)
00:0a.3 Co-processor: nVidia Corporation MCP51 PMU (rev a3)
00:0b.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP51 USB Controller (rev a3)
00:0b.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP51 USB Controller (rev a3)
00:0d.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP51 IDE (rev f1)
00:0e.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP51 Serial ATA Controller (rev f1)
00:10.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP51 PCI Bridge (rev a2)
00:10.1 Audio device: nVidia Corporation MCP51 High Definition Audio (rev a2)
00:14.0 Bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP51 Ethernet Controller (rev a3)
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control
03:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation Dell Wireless 1390 WLAN Mini-PCI Card (rev 01)
07:05.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Ricoh Co Ltd Unknown device 0832
07:05.1 Class 0805: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Host Adapter (rev 19)
07:05.2 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd Unknown device 0843 (rev 01)
07:05.3 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C592 Memory Stick Bus Host Adapter (rev 0a)
07:05.4 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd xD-Picture Card Controller (rev 05)

[swashbuckler]

3.) Install the nVidia drivers. Plug your USB flash stick into the computer. If the machine auto-mounts the drive and causes you to loose your shell prompt, type

CTRL+ALT+F2

and log into a second shell. Copy the files off of the USB stick to your home directory,

cp /media/disk/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-1.0-9755-pkg2.run ~/

I should mention here that it is not an auto-mounting issue, but an auto-detection issue. You still have to mount the drive by

mkdir /media/disk
mount /dev/sdb1 /media/disk

and then everything will work as written.