Compaq/HP 8710W Laptop running Ubuntu Linux

This short post is to answer a question potential Compaq/HP 8710W owners may be asking. Just in case it’s useful to anyone who may be wondering if they can run Ubuntu on a Compaq/HP 8710W laptop, I can tell them that you can.

I’m running the Intrepid 8.10 release on one of these and I have all the hardware I use running ‘out of the box’. The only thing I can think of which doesn’t work is the Finger Print reader which isn’t a great loss, although I’ve no use for the firewire and modem so I haven’t tried to get them running.

The display uses the Nvidia driver and runs at 1680 x 1050 and if you like that sort of thing all the 3D effects will run if enabled.

The wireless network runs on a G class network, but I haven’t got it to connect to an N class network

I’m running the standard Ubuntu version rather than the Kubuntu KDE version because the KDE release on 8.10 changed to kde4 and I find I just can’t get on with it so I’ve changed to Gnome (actually there are kde 3.5.9 binaries available here I just haven’t bothered to set them up).

All in all it was simple to set up and I found it quite trouble free and painless to run.

Specs.

This is a 17inch dual core laptop, with DVD Writer, NVidia Quatro FX 1600M graphics, Intel 4965 Wireless Network and a full size keyboard with separate numerical keypad. The full lspci output is :

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile PM965/GM965/GL960 Memory Controller Hub (rev 0c)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile PM965/GM965/GL960 PCI Express Root Port (rev 0c)
00:03.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation Mobile PM965/GM965 MEI Controller (rev 0c)
00:03.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation Mobile PM965/GM965 PT IDER Controller (rev 0c)
00:03.3 Serial controller: Intel Corporation Mobile PM965/GM965 KT Controller (rev 0c)
00:19.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82566MM Gigabit Network Connection (rev 03)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 03)
00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 03)
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 03)
00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 5 (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev f3)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801HBM (ICH8M-E) LPC Interface Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) IDE Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) SATA AHCI Controller (rev 03)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation Quadro FX 1600M (rev a1)
02:06.0 CardBus bridge: Ricoh Co Ltd RL5c476 II (rev b9)
02:06.1 CardBus bridge: Ricoh Co Ltd RL5c476 II (rev b9)
02:06.2 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Ricoh Co Ltd R5C832 IEEE 1394 Controller (rev 03)
02:06.3 SD Host controller: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Host Adapter (rev 20)
02:06.4 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C843 MMC Host Controller (rev ff)
02:06.5 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C592 Memory Stick Bus Host Adapter (rev 10)
02:06.6 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd xD-Picture Card Controller (rev 10)
10:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 4965 AG or AGN [Kedron] Network Connection (rev 61)