Installation and configuration of SuSE Linux 9.1 x86_64 on a HP Pavilion zv5000z laptop

This document is intended as a set of pointers on the process of configuring a HP Pavilion zv5000z laptop. At the end of 2004, when I started to write this document, the hardware in this laptop was still fairly new and, when not outright un-supported, the documentation about its configuration was scarce. One year later it is still very much the case.

It is assumed that the reader is familiar with the installation process of the reader's distribution. Only the unusual (particularly difficult, if you will) steps are documented.

It cannot be emphasised more: this page is targeted at those who already have their system mostly working, but want to have everything working at its full capabilities. A good rule of thumb would be that one would have use of the information in these pages if one would be reading them on the zv5000 laptop running Linux.

System properties

The Athlon 64 supports both 64- and 32-bit code. These pages contain information only about the 64-bit Linux, which is far less documented and supported than its 32-bit counterpart.

The distribution on which these instructions have been tested is SuSE, at the time of writing in its 9.1 x86_64 version. With few exceptions, I expect that the indications I give in this document apply to other distributions too.

In the following the software has been upgraded using apt for SuSE. The apt software and the documentation were found at http://linux01.gwdg.de/apt4rpm. After having installed this package, all other packages were updated from the repository found at ftp://ftp.gwdg.de.

Configured hardware

Specs	the hardware specifications, as identified by hwinfo
Graphics	configuring the Nvidia NV34 graphics card with XFree86
Network	configuring the network cards (wired and wireless)
Sound	configuring the sound card for kernel 2.6.11+