HP Pavilion dv6018

Things you should know

Touchpad is buggy - after a while driver loses contact with it and all fancy options become disabled

Foreword

To install Arch Linux you need to use noapic or acpi=noirq kernel parameters. You need to load modules in proper order or kernel will freeze. Ron Kuris reported the module order in kernel bugzilla:

1. i2c_core
2. nvidia
3. snd_hda_codec
4. cpufreq_conservative
5. ohci_hcd
6. snd_hda_intel
7. ndiswrapper

Modify module preloading parameters in /etc/mkinitcpio.conf:

MODULES="i2c_core bcm43xx nvidia cpufreq_conservative cpufreq_powersave cpufreq_ondemand ohci_hcd fuse usbhid powernow-k8 snd_hda_intel pata_amd ata_generic sata_nv"

Now regenerate the initramfs.

Video

This laptops has a GeForce Go 7200 and a glossy widescreen LCD. You’ll need nvidia proprietary driver. To make use of the LCD native resolution you need to edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf:

   Section "Screen"
   Identifier "Screen 1"
   Device "nVidia"
   Monitor "LCD"
   DefaultDepth 24

   Subsection "Display"
   Depth 24
   Modes "1280x800"
   ViewPort 0 0
   EndSubsection
   EndSection

Input devices

To use sensor keys and remote control you need to set keyboard model in /etc/X11/xorg.conf

   Option "XkbModel" "hpzt11xx"

Add this command to some startup script.

   setkeycodes e008 221 e00e 226 e00c 213

And finally add these commands to startup of your window manager or desktop environment. I put them to ~/.xinitrc

   xmodmap -e "keycode 197 = XF86Pictures"
   xmodmap -e "keycode 237 = XF86Video"
   xmodmap -e "keycode 118 = XF86Music"

Remote control mimics keyboard, no additional software needed. Range is about 4 meters.

Touchpad is generic Synaptic. On/off switch on it is hardware, kernel seems not to like the way it works - after a while driver loses contact with device and touchpad loses all fancy features like 3rd button emulation and scrollbar.

Networking

bcm43xx is unstable. NDISWrapper is buggy. bcm43xx developers swear bcm4311 (used in this laptop) is stable in 2.6.22, yet to test... Ethernet: works flawlessly with forcedeth module. Modem: Don’t know anything about it, i don’t think i will ever use it.

On A similar dv6000, ndiswrapper works flawlessly with the bcm4311 chipset.