My old laptop’s battery is dying, and used that as an excuse to buy myself a new on 
I had a HP Pavilion zt3240EA, and have been very happy with it. Nice machine. Still, age weights on every one.
I’m gonna be installing Ubuntu 8.04.1 LTS Desktop Edition, 64 bits version, on my new HP Pavilion dv5-1020ep.
Download and Burn a CD
md5sum ubuntu-8.04.1-desktop-amd64.iso
- Burn a cd (you can use Brasero, for example, if you already use Ubuntu).
Running the live cd
- Boot from the cd.
- After booting it’s important to check the integrity of the cd. Burning cds also fails.
Hardware to check (during the live cd session)
- Graphics (only 1024×768, but check)
- Sound (check)
- Media buttons (check)
- Cable network (check)
- Wireless network (the proprietary Atheros wireless card was found, not tested)
- HP media command (not working)
- Integrated Webcam (check)
Hard Drive Partition Layout
/dev/sda
/dev/sda1 ntfs Vista 36002 MB
/dev/sda2 ntfs Vista Recover 8450 MB
/dev/sda3 ext3 / 10240 MB
/dev/sda5 ext3 /home 10240 MB
/dev/sda6 ext3 /storage 94072 MB
/dev/sda7 swap 1028 MB
Post-install: Graphics Card
I installed EnvyNG using the Synaptic Package Manager (look for envyng-gtk) and just had to run it (Applications > System Tools > EnvyNG), after closing Synaptic (important), and choose to “Install the ATI driver (Automatic Hardware Detection)” option.
I now have a normal 1280×800 screen resolution and some desktop effects are already active.
There is an ATI Catalyst Control Center under Applications > Other, where you can tweak things up.
Problems to Solve: if I have Compiz on, there’s a terrible flickering when playing back movies.
Post-install: CPU Frequency Scaling
After installing Ubuntu I noticed that the frequency of both cores was always at 2 GHz (the cpu max frequency in my case).
Because this is a laptop I want the cpu to scale that frequencies as needed.
Useful tools:
sudo apt-get install cpufrequtils
You can check this behavior by:
- Adding the “CPU Frequency Scaling Monitor” to your Gnome Panel (add two, one for each core). Frequency should change while you work.
- Check the output of the following (here you can check the driver used – powernow-k8 – and the current scaling policy)
cpufreq-info
Reference: How to use CPU frequency scaling (cpufreq)
After some time of research here’s a very simple method (read the Reference for much more details):
- Add the following to your /etc/rc.local file ( sudo vi /etc/rc.local )
modprobe powernow-k8
sudo cpufreq-selector -g userspace
/etc/init.d/powernowd restart
exit 0
- Add the -n option to your /etc/default/powernowd file ( sudo vi /etc/default/powernowd )
OPTIONS="-q -n"
Useful tips:
- Check available frequencies for your cpu (if you have more than one core also check cpu1, cpu2, etc.)
cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_available_frequencies
cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor
- Check available governors
cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_available_governors
Problems to solve: restarting powernowd always change the governor to ondemand.
Post-install: Wireless Network card
A warning in the Notification Area showed that a Proprietary Driver is enabled (Atheros wireless card).
lspci | grep Atheros to check the driver name.
Followed this instructions from Ubuntu Forums, now I can use the wireless card, I found several networks, the signal is good, I connect with my password, but I can’t get an IP… This means no Internet.
Problems to solve: connect to the Internet with sucess.
Post-install: Laptop Optimizations
Here’s some useful tips if you’re running on a laptop:
- Change the ENABLE_LAPTOP_MODE option to true ( sudo vi /etc/default/acpi-support )
ENABLE_LAPTOP_MODE=true
- Install and run powertop. Follow the instructions on-screen (more info here).
sudo apt-get install powertop
sudo powertop
Post-install: Sound Card
Sound works fine, but the Master mute button doen’t mute the Front. This means that the columns still output sound.
To fix this go to System > Preferences > Sound and select the Front device in the list below.
Post-install: File System
Besides the / and /home partitions, only root have permissions to write in every other partitions. In my case /storage.
So, we have to add permissions to our user:
sudo chown -R youruser:youruser /storage
sudo chmod -R 755 /storage
Click here for more info.
Post-install: Updates
Update Manager warned me about 120 available updates. Just letting it go…
Post-install: Multimedia
References: Complete Streaming, Multimedia & Video How-to and Medibuntu
sudo wget http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/hardy.list \
-O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list
wget -q http://packages.medibuntu.org/medibuntu-key.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add \
- && sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get purge flashplugin-nonfree && \
sudo mkdir /usr/lib/flashplugin-nonfree && \
sudo cp -f ~/Desktop/libflashplayer.so \
/usr/lib/flashplugin-nonfree/ && \
sudo nspluginwrapper -i \
/usr/lib/flashplugin-nonfree/libflashplayer.so && \
sudo ln -sf \
/usr/lib/nspluginwrapper/plugins/npwrapper.libflashplayer.so \
/etc/alternatives/firefox-flashplugin && \
sudo ln -sf /etc/alternatives/firefox-flashplugin \
/usr/lib/firefox-addons/plugins/flashplayer-alternative.so && \
sudo rm -f /usr/lib/firefox/plugins/npwrapper.libflashplayer.so
- Codecs and plugins (it will take quite some time)
sudo apt-get remove gnash gnash-common libflash-mozplugin \
libflashsupport mozilla-plugin-gnash swfdec-mozilla && \
sudo apt-get install alsa-oss faac faad flashplugin-nonfree \
gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad \
gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad-multiverse gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly \
gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly-multiverse ia32-libs icedtea-gcjwebplugin \
liblame0 non-free-codecs openjdk-6-jre unrar
- Audio and Video Streaming
sudo apt-get remove kaffeine-mozilla mozilla-helix-player \
mozilla-mplayer mozilla-plugin-vlc totem-mozilla xine-plugin && \
sudo apt-get install gnome-mplayer gecko-mediaplayer
sudo apt-get install libdvdcss2 libdvdread3 libdvdnav4 build-essential debhelper fakeroot \
regionset
sudo regionset
Check the reference link, because it as many other things you’ll want.
Post-install: Preferences and Look and Feel
Here’s some things I changed right away:
- 4 workspaces
- Automatic login (System > Administration > Login Window, Security tab)
- Add Network Manager and Battery Charge Monitor to the Panel
- Background
- NTP Time Server
- Weather on Clock Preferences
Post-install: NFS file sharing
To configure two Ubuntu machines to share files using NFS, check here.
Post-install: SAMBA Server
Go to Applications > Add/Remove and install Samba.
Go to System > Administration > Samba to add shares and define samba users.
Also check this post.
Post-install: LAMP Server
To install Apache, MySQL and PHP, check here.
Post-install: extra software
List of extra installation software installed:
- Firefox Foxmarks add-on (can’t live without it)
- GnomeDo
- VLC
- Conky
- Synergy
- GVim
- lm-sensors
- Network Selector
- VirtualBox
- Gaupol Subtitle Editor
- More Firefox add-ons (BugMeNot, Forecastfox, Twitkit, Portuguese Dictionary)
- Firefox IMDB search-engine
- Gnucash
- Google Earth (it will download a .bin installation file, run it in the Terminal)
- aspell-pt-pt
- Mail Notification
Further reading
last updated: 18-09-2008
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