General Hardware Specifications of Compaq v2000z

Hardware Components	Status under Linux	Notes
AMD Turion 64 MT-37	Works	Upgraded proc to a MT-37 on newegg – laptop is like new
14.1  Display	Works	Not a fan of glossy though
ATI 128MB Internal memeory*	Works	Screw ATI, Currently using the open source ATI driver with good results
2GB, SDRAM, 1DIMMs	Works	Ram is cheap
40GB Hard Drive	Works	No special procedure required during installation
Modular Floppy Drive	Disabled in bios	No special procedure required during installation
Integrated Network Card	Works	No special procedure required during installation
Internal 56k Modem	Listed with Ubuntu’s Hardware Drivers app, didn’t install	Didn’t install
DVD-ROM Drive	Works	No special procedure required during installation
Internal Broadcom Wireless	Needs some work, see below	Check below
6 Cell Battery	Works	No special procedure required during installation
IXP SB400 AC ’97 Audio Controller	Works

This laptop is operating under Kernel version 2.6.28.11-gerneric x86_64

 

Basic Installation of [Linux Distribution]:

• I’m using Ubuntu 9.04
• Downloaded off the Internets
• Manually created partitions with 5GB for ROOT and 1GB for SWAP and the rest for HOME
• The install was smooth and silky

Other Software

http://ubuntu-tweak.com/  I installed Ubuntu tweak and was able to quickly some repositories that are not included like, Skype, Latest Wine and some other.

Installed Bluemen  http://blueman-project.org/

 

 

Setting up additional features for [Linux Distribution]

Wireless

In order to get the Broadcom wireless driver to work properly I had to use an older firmware. The firmware provided by Ubuntu’s “Hardware Drivers” would connect and then disconnect, it was ugly. 

My tar file of the firmware is attached below

Video Card

I’m sick of ATI, they recently stopped supporting my video card, plus the driver they provided was riddled with ugly bugs, the default ATI driver that comes with Ubuntu 9.04 work pretty well, but by following this thread I was able to double my glxgears from 400 to 800. Enjoy http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1120175

My .deb file is attached below

 

Configuration Files

• Added these lines to /etc/rc.local

echo 5 > /proc/sys/vm/laptop_mode

echo 1500 > /proc/sys/vm/dirty_writeback_centisecs

 

• Added these lines to /etc/sysctl.conf

kernel.sem = 250 32000 100 128

kernel.shmall = 2097152

kernel.shmmax = 2147483648

kernel.shmmni = 4096

fs.file-max = 65536

vm.swappiness = 10

 

vm.vfs_cache_pressure = 50

net.core.rmem_default = 524288

net.core.rmem_max = 524288

net.core.wmem_default = 524288

net.core.wmem_max = 524288

net.ipv4.tcp_wmem = 4096 87380 524288

net.ipv4.tcp_rmem = 4096 87380 524288

net.ipv4.tcp_mem = 524288 524288 524288

net.ipv4.tcp_rfc1337 = 1

net.ipv4.ip_no_pmtu_disc = 0

net.ipv4.tcp_sack = 1

net.ipv4.tcp_fack = 1

net.ipv4.tcp_window_scaling = 1

net.ipv4.tcp_timestamps = 1

net.ipv4.tcp_ecn = 0

net.ipv4.route.flush = 1

 

• Added these lines to /etc/modprobe.d/options

options usbcore autosuspend=1

options yenta_socket isa_probe=no