Redhat Linux 8.0 on HP Omnibook XE4500 laptops

Last updated: 6th Apr 2003.

This is all very old stuff now. My preference now would be for FreeBSD 6.x, or Ubuntu / Kubuntu, or the latest version of SUSE/Novell Linux. So what follows here is just for historical reference. Really, if you use an old XE4500 laptop on a recent Linux or BSD distribution, everything should just work right out of the box anyway :-)

Background

This page outlines the differences between RedHat 7.3 and RedHat 8.0 as far as the XE4500 laptop is concerned.

For more detailed information about installing RedHat 7.3 on the XE4500 (including Kernel rebuilding Modem driver installation, and shrinking the MS-Windows partition for dual-booting), please see my other XE4500 web page: Redhat Linux 7.3 on HP Omnibook XE4500 laptops. Most of that material applies to RedHat 8.0 too.

See also:

• Info on RedHat 9.0 on the XE4500
• Info on SUSE Linux 9.0 on the XE4500

Before you start, you might want to take the latest BIOS from the HP web site. The newest version now is v1.90, dated January 2003.

Booting the RedHat 8.0 CDROM

There is a bug in the RedHat 8.0 CDROM, which may stop the keyboard from working early on during installation. To fix this, boot the RedHat 8.0 CDROM, then type the following command to start the installer:

        linux nousb idebus=50

The key parameter here is "nousb". The "idebus=50" is just a precaution, as I am not sure whether the install kernel is new enough to detect the IDE HDD controller correctly.

If you already have MS Windows installed, the RedHat 8.0 installer makes a "DOS" dual boot GRUB option automatically (so no need to edit /etc/grub.conf by hand). But of course for a dual-boot system, you still need to shrink the Windows partition before installing Linux (see my other XE4500 page) . You might also want to use Partition Magic to convert NTFS to FAT, so that Linux can mount that partition Read/Write instead of Read Only.

Running RedHat 8.0

Once installed on your hard disk, RedHat 8.0 runs pretty well on the XE4500, with all the settings left alone. There are some niggles to be aware of.

• Video. The default driver is the ATI Radeon Mobility M6. This works well most of the time, but sometimes you get weird flickering in X-windows. If you type CTRL/ALT/F1 to go back to text mode, then CTRL/ALT/F7 to go back to X-windows, this should fix the problem. Sometimes you must do this several times.

  NOTE: RedHat 8.0 ships with an out-of-date version of XFree86 (4.2.0). I tried to update to XFree86 4.2.1 using the tarball at XFree86.org, but could not get a picture on the screen, so had to back out the change - fortunately quite easy by virtue of backing up the relevant XF86 directories.

• Modem. You need to download and install the driver. For instructions please see my other XE4500 page
  
  
• Mousepad.
  • Mousepad switch. To make this work, I think you need to upgrade to a later kernel - but possibly it's just a kernel option setting (there are so many, it's hard to tell which setting does what). At the moment, I am using kernel 2.4.20-ac2 with good results. For help on building the kernel (including a known working ".config" file for 2.4.20-ac2), please see my other XE4500 page.
  • Scrollpad. This works fine (just like a mouse wheel).
  • External Mouse. If you plug a mouse into the PS/2 port, the touchpad is switched off.
    
    
• MP3 playback. The music playing apps in RedHat 8.0 are broken for legal reasons, so they will not play MP3's. You can just download the full tarball from xmms.org to fix this.
  
  
• CD Burning. RedHat 8.0 ships with a broken alpha release of XCDRoast. A working version can be downloaded from xcdroast.org.
  • Building it. The xcdroast build makes /usr/local/bin/xcdroast. I linked that to /usr/bin/xcdroast to overwrite the RedHat copy. The Cdrtools "make install" created /opt/schilly/* so I copied /opt/schilly/bin/* into /usr/local/bin and then deleted /opt/schilly.
  • Running it. XCdRoast takes a little getting used to compared to (say) Nero on Windows. But it does the job. Warning: if you add a new session to a CD, you must umount the CD and then mount it again; otherwise, Linux will only show you the old directory contents!
    
    
• Upgrading the kernel For instructions and a ".config" file, please see my other XE4500 page.
  
  
• DVD Movie playback. This works with both MPlayer and Ogle. (I think I also had Xine working but now it can't find DeCSS.) Depending on versions of kernel and/or XFree86 drivers, playback may be slow. I cured this by installing the ATI and DRM drivers from Gatos.sourceForge.net. But this isn't really recommended unless you really care about DVD movies, as you have to copy the Gatos modules into /lib/modules/2.4.xx.xx for each kernel version you use, otherwise X won't start. There must be a better way.

6 Apr 2003