HowTo13 Sep 2006 07:16 pm

ubuntu Dapper Dual Boot on Compaq Presario v3000 series

System Config: Compaq Presario v3033au, AMD Turion X2 TL-50, 2GB RAM, 100GB SATA HDD

  1. PC came with WXPH pre-installed, used PartitionMagic to create a 100mb and a 12GB partition for the /boot and / partitions.
  2. Downloaded and burned the Alternate (amd64) CD from one of the ubuntu mirrors.
  3. Booted from the CD, choose ‘OEM Install’, figured it would be better than text install.
  4. Followed the screens with default options, in the partition tool, chose my new partitions, chose to mount the compaq recover partition as /dos, could not mount the ntfs partition - I assume ntfs drivers are not installed on the boot cd.
  5. It installs packages on it’s own, does not ask to choose packages like Fedora does, I guess there would’nt be much to choose from - since everything is in one cd.
  6. When it came to installing grub, I made it install on my boot partition (/dev/sda3) in my case - so as to not overwrite the MBR.
  7. When ubuntu said it was done and wanted to reboot, I chose cancel and went to terminal prompt (from the choice of things it offered)
  8. In the terminal window, I wrote:dd if=/dev/sda3 of=/dos/ubuntu count=1 bs=512. This command writes the boot sector of my /boot (grub) to a file in D:\ubuntu - so it’s accessible to windows.
  9. I let ubuntu reboot.
  10. System boots back up into windows, I edit c:\boot.ini, I add: D:\ubuntu=”ubuntu Dapper”. This adds ubuntu to my windows boot menu.
  11. Copy the bcmwl5*.* files from C:\SwSetup\wlan to d:\ (will come to this later)
  12. I reboot, and see the new boot menu option.
  13. Graphics, sound, wired networking, usb, dvd-burner, etc all work well from the base install.
  14. However, it’s using the generic VESA driver to give me a 1024×768 resolution, I install nvidia drivers using: sudo apt-get install nvidia-glx nvidia-kernel-common
  15. That installs the nvidia driver and kernel module, then went ahead to update the Driver section of /etc/X11/xorg.conf to change the driver to “nvidia” and added Option “NoLogo” in a line below - so nVidia does not show it’s logo at every boot. Also added the resolution “1200×800″ in the Screen section.
  16. Press Ctrl+Alt+Backspace for gdm to reload - and voila - nvidia’s native resolution works!
  17. Next to setup is the Broadcom 4310 chip based wireless. The built-in bcm43xx does not work, it freezes the system, ndiswrapper that comes with ubuntu is flawed as well, so download ndiswrapper from http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/
  18. Make sure we have the compiler, kernel headers, etc : sudo apt-get install build-essentials
  19. tar zxvf ndiswrapper-1.23.tar.gz
  20. cd ndiswrapper-1.23
  21. sudo make
  22. sudo make install
  23. cat ‘blacklist bcm43xx’ > /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist  (to make sure bcm43xx module does not get loaded)
  24. sudo rmmod bcm43xx
  25. Now we use the windows drivers and make ndiswrapper cut them: sudo ndiswrapper -i /dos/bcmwl5.inf
  26. sudo modprobe ndiswrapper
  27. Next type the command “dmesg” to see if ndiswrapper loaded the driver correctly, it did. If it does not for you - go find another driver.
  28. Have not been able to make ndiswrapper work with their graphical network manager tool, but to connect to wifi, I typed 2 commands:
    1. iwconfig eth0 essid “mynetworksessid” key “mykey” open
    2. dhclient eth0
  29. And that worked fine. There are ways to automate this using wpa_supplicant. I’ll try that later and post if successfull. My previous attempts were in vain.
  30. Now we are ready to get rid of the ‘oem’ account: sudo oem-config-prepare
  31. That does it’s bit - so on the next reboot - we will have a fresh, fully working ubuntu linux using all resources of the pc.

22 Responses to “ubuntu Dapper Dual Boot on Compaq Presario v3000 series”

  1. on 28 Sep 2006 at 4:32 pm   Abhijit

    I am planning to buy this laptop. I just want a quick confirmation from you that this thing doesn’t heat up too quickly or too much.
    Thanks in advance for the help.

  2. on 28 Sep 2006 at 4:38 pm   akshay

    It does not heat up too quickly or too much, only one heatsink on the left side (beneath the cpu). gets warm, never HOT…my earlier notebook was HP’s zd8000 series - which can fry your thighs :)

  3. on 29 Sep 2006 at 10:07 am   Anshuman Garg

    g’day
    i seem to be having trouble getting the broadcom wireless card up and running mate. i followed ur steps and installed the bcmwl5.inf file and “ndiswrapper -l” gives me “bcmwl5 driver present, hardware present” but when i do iwconfig it doesnt show any wireless connections with any of the network adapters. hence connecting eth0 to an essid produces no result. any suggestions ?
    thanks for your time.

  4. on 30 Sep 2006 at 4:09 pm   tushar

    hi akshay..

    i am having the same laptop .. trying hard to config wireless on dapperdrake 6.06.. in an attempt the wired thing also got screwed up wht do u suggest ? clean reinstll? ndiswrapper gives can’t find kernel build files..

    cant access internet neither wired nor wireless .. pls help

    Thnks buddy

  5. on 01 Oct 2006 at 2:12 am   Anshman Garg

    g’day,
    i just got the wireless on this laptop working. there are a few steps missing from your blog which i had to figure out on my own. a complete listing of those steps are on my blog at http://starbase-12.blogspot.com/2006/09/compaq-presario-v3000-with-ubuntu-606.html
    Enjoy !

  6. on 27 Oct 2006 at 8:56 am   simon

    how does the headphones work?
    see:
    http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?p=2478355#post2478355

  7. on 31 Oct 2006 at 5:00 am   foo

    There is now a wiki for the v3*** series laptops (and other compaq/hp laptops):

    http://hpwiki.cactii.net/hpwiki/Presario_V3%2A%2A%2A

  8. on 16 Nov 2006 at 3:24 am   yhom

    Hi,

    got a Dell D600 with same wireless card bcmwl5. Ndiswrapper (1.8) + bcmwl5 works ok, and i’m using wifi-radar for graphical + automatic wireless handling.

  9. on 20 Nov 2006 at 11:34 am   ashwin

    Can u please tell me how much battery backup does it give u? i am planning to buy the same laptop and i would like ur help. Also, are all the drivers easily available? THe dealer offered me with FreeDOS preloaded, and i want to install winXP.

  10. on 24 Nov 2006 at 9:43 am   Yuvaraj

    Hi I have a v3029au, which is the same laptop as above except that it comes with FreeDOS preinstalled. I have successfully installed Kubuntu Edgy Eft and loved it.

    the problem being it Freezes randomly, probably to do something with ACPI, anly suggestion to solve the “random freeze” will be much appreciated…

    thank you

  11. on 20 Dec 2006 at 12:10 am   Firezz_Slayer

    Hi can any1 help me?
    i’m using presario v3000 laptop.
    my problem is my sound didn’t work
    and i donno where to fine the sound driver
    many forum and website i go to fine the driver.but i still can’t fine the driver.
    even hp and compaq website i can’t fine the driver.plz whoever have the driver can sent to me at my mail in sword_slayer501@yahoo.com
    thx

  12. on 23 Dec 2006 at 12:42 pm   ankur

    sir,
    i have just bought a laptop,,but i am unable to install mandrake ,,coz it is unable to detect cd rom,,i dont have floppy drive,,so copuldnt find an iso image,,what shoul ido??
    plz help me amy email :
    ankursaxena88@yahoo.co.in

  13. on 02 Jan 2007 at 1:03 pm   Peter

    have exactly same problem as Firezz_Slayer, my sound doesnt work and i cant find the drivers…help…peterutm1988@hotmail.com.
    thank u.

  14. on 25 Jan 2007 at 10:22 pm   SPaul

    I have recently purchased a compaq V3000 laptop.
    Unfortunately I had to format the hard disk and then i reinstalled windows XP. My problem is that everything is working apart from the sound! I even went to the HP site and tried the drivers but its not helping! Kindly advise as where to get the drivers for the soundcard.

  15. on 10 Feb 2007 at 10:46 am   anaLyze

    hi i got trouble with my sound driver ..do you all have any idea what driver should i install on my labtops? who got the driver can send to me at my email Blu3eyes@gmail.com

  16. on 20 Feb 2007 at 6:05 pm   alex

    compaq V3000 notebook is crap….
    My soundcard could not be used for ever !!!!

  17. on 25 Feb 2007 at 1:57 pm   harith

    how do i make my sound card working?
    plz help my presario v3000
    tell me at my email harith.roslizar@gmail.com
    thanks..

  18. on 14 Mar 2007 at 4:10 pm   Eric

    Yuvaraj, I was just wondering, because I have the same problem with my v3015nr. Are you running Egdy 64 or 32 bit? I’m running 64 and am having that problem, so I was wondering if the same problem was present in Edgy 32 bit with this laptop. Dapper didn’t do this to me, but I have other annoying problems with Dapper. Thanks for answering!
    -Eric

  19. on 15 Sep 2007 at 4:34 pm   ravi

    i have an hp compaq presario laptop. i installed another version of widows xp in it . my system couldnt detect an audio device. please help me with a solution to this problem

  20. on 24 Sep 2007 at 10:33 am   zuber

    I have purchased recently Compac Presario V6409 TU laptoo in that i tried to install XP Operation System i was anable to install xp it saying that u not have any harddisk in u r laptop if i tried to install windows 2000 professional it has installing sucessfully in xp only problem how to install xp in my laptop pls help me regarding this xp installing.

  21. on 13 Dec 2007 at 11:01 pm   Dwaraka

    HI,

    I have the same sound problem with the windows Xp SP2 Can you please send me the necessary drivers to gali.dwaraknath@gmail.com for compaq V 3000

  22. on 22 Jan 2008 at 1:36 am   Rachit

    I have the same laptop, i just wanted to be sure whether this laptop supports all RAM types ? (brands, i mean) i remember COMPAQ PC’s supported ONLY COMPAQ RAMs ?

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