Will Linux run on an HP m7680n?

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Tue, Apr 17, 2007 at 12:44:18PM -0400, Kevin Cozens wrote:
> Greetings, all.
> 
> It turns out my current computer (a PII 266MHz) that I put together myself 
> is not 7 years old as I thought but 9 years old (I just recently found the 
> receipt for the MB). I would like to upgrade it and soon while some machine 
> are still available that don't have Vista on them.

Hmm, well from my brief experience playing with vista on my wife's new
tablet, I know that if I was to buy a machine with windows pre
installed, it would NOT be XP anymore.  It is much much nicer, and works
a lot better.  The advertised new stuff is whatever, but the small
improvements in behaviour all over are so worth it.  Not sure it
justifies the upgrade price (well actually I don't think windows
justifies its price ever), but if you are getting it anyhow, it is much
better than XP.

> I could put a machine together but these days but these days I just don't 
> really feel like going through the hassle to research all the bits and 
> pieces I need and I'm still not sure how much (if any) money I would save 
> over buying off the shelf. Also, if I get the right machine off the shelf I 
> can still get a copy of Windows XP rather than Vista. I still have a few 
> applications I run from time to time that want Windows (a few games such as 
> Myst and Uru, and a CAD application).

Well I prefer building them myself (I think it is fun).  Then I know
what hardware is in the machine and can pick sensible combinations that
make sense.  See my comments on the HP specs below.

> One of the few machines available at a local store near me has a Hewlett 
> Packard m7680n available for about $1,000. It has a nice amount of RAM and 
> HD built-in along with a TV tuner card (not sure whose card).

Yeah who knows if it will work or not with linux.

> I know some people don't seem to like the HP machines. My concerns are 
> whether I can change the display board (if I need to) and am I likely to 
> run in to any other problems with running Linux on it?

Well the nvidia card is likely to work fine with linux, although it
won't be fast, and would probably be a lousy game card.  Just fine for
TV watching of course.  It will be a normal PCI express card so it can
be changed later.

Of course I have also personally had enough of HP's shitty consumer
products by now.  My wife's laptop (compaq presario) had the power
connector break, which from my research into it seems to be a known
design flaw on those series.  The HP inkjet all in one that came free
with the laptop will usually print a page or two then show "E" and
'check paper' and 'check ink cartridges' and then be sufficiently dead
to not let you at the ink cartridges until you yank the power cord
(power off is not enough).  Then if you reboot windows you might get it
to print another page before it hangs while claiming paper jam.  So I am
not buying anymore stuff from HP's consumer division (no idea if their
enterprise level stuff is any better).

> Has anyone tried using this machine with Linux or know of web sites with 
> information from people who have (tried?) using Linux on it? I haven't 
> found a lot of information regarding this machine and Linux in my searches 
> to date.

Well the specs of the machine are very silly.  A 2.13GHz Core 2 Duo is
rather nice, and 2GB ram (2x1GB for dual channel) is nice too, but they
used PC4200 ram, when most cheap companies don't even go lower than
PC5300, and I think anyone sensible uses PC6400 (after all why buy a
fast cpu and put slow ram in to slow it down?)  Of course the video card
has very little ram on it (by todays standards) with I think 64MB, and
will borrow ram from the system if it needs more.

The P965 chipset I would expect to work with linux.  Intel chipsets
generally do.  The video card should be fine, and the cpu/ram of course
always work.

The TV tuner is a who knows, as is the IR remote.  The wireless is also
who knows.  Modem probably doesn't work with linux, but the ethernet
should be fine (although I am amazed anyone still has a board with
10/100 only ethernet).  Some searching seems to indicate that the tv
tuner is a happauge 26xxx series (PVR-150), so if that is true, then it
should be supported, and assuming they use the IR remote part of that
card, then I suspect that would work with linux too.

Sound and DVD drive should work fine.  So should the memory card reader
I suspect (almost certainly just USB mass storage).

I guess a question is how much would it cost to get a similar spec
machine, except with a bit better quality components?

--
Len Sorensen
--
The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://gtalug.org/
TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://gtalug.org/wiki/Mailing_lists