# HP L2000: ATI X200 & Framebuffer Console

## captainfranz

Hi all,

I just bought a wonderful HP L2000 notebook and I'm trying to install Gentoo to take advantage of its awsome AMD 64 Turion ML-37  :Smile: 

I'm not new to Gentoo, I have it working on other two machines, one of which is and AMD 64 3000+ desktop.

Well, to go at the point, I have some problems with the graphics and semi-graphics on this notebook, because of this hardware:

1) AMD 64 architecture; this causes modules agpgart and amd-agp to be built-in in the kernel, as you can read here

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-381112.html

2) That would be wonderful, but my video board is an ATI X200M which doesn't run on AGP but on PCI-Express

3) My monitor is a 14" widescreen with a resolution of 1280x800

Points 2 and 3 cause me problem both with framebuffer console and X; for the moment, I'd like at least to have framebuffer working.

I already did it without problem on my other machines, but here it seems to be really tough; I read a LOT of docs and howtos in the last few days but I still can't manage it. I don't exactly know how framebuffer, splash and all that stuff works, but from what I read, I infere that splash things are quite confused, splashutils, bootsplash, fbsplash, packages overlapping and so on. However I'm NOT interested in splash for now, I only need a pretty framebuffer console and I can't set it up.

To have that, I obviously set the following in the kernel configuration:

```

Device Drivers > Graphics support:

 [*] Support for frame buffer devices

 <*>   VESA VGA graphics support

         VESA driver type (vesafb)  --->

Device Drivers > Graphics support > Console display driver support:

 [*] Video mode selection support

 <*> Framebuffer Console support

```

I don't have vesafb-tng (I guess that to install that I have to patch the kernel, right?), but I think it wouldn't resolve anything.

Next, I guess that the only thing I need to do to have the framebuffer working is to appropriately configure grub (again only with framebuffer, not with splash); therefore I tried something like this:

```

title  Gentoo

root (hd0,2)

kernel (hd0,2)/kernel-2.6.12-gentoo-r10 root=/dev/hda3 video=vesafb:ywrap,mtrr,1024x768-24@60 vga=791 CONSOLE=/dev/tty1

```

I tried with a HUGE number of combination of different parameters, such as:

```

video=vesafb:ywrap,mtrr,1024x768-24@60 vga=791

```

```

video=vesafb:ywrap,mtrr,1024x768-24@60

```

```

video=radeon:1024x768-24@60 vga=791

```

I tried changing resolution, bit depth, refresh frequency, I also tried changing vga=0x318 or something like that.

I made all this tries mainly with the resolution of 1024x768 which should work without too many problems.

I also read that someone tried with 1280x1024, resulting in a cropped image but couldn't see what he was typing  :Smile: 

I obviously tried with 1280x800 but it seems to be hopeless.

None of this worked -.-

I'm really frustrated, because I'd like to tweak every single component of this wonderful notebook, I already started to do that and have something work, but until I don't have X and/or framebuffer working, all the remaining is quite useless...

Can anyone help?

----------

## salfter

 *captainfranz wrote:*   

> 
> 
> 1) AMD 64 architecture; this causes modules agpgart and amd-agp to be built-in in the kernel, as you can read here
> 
> https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-381112.html
> ...

 

Just make sure you have PCI Express support enabled (under bus options).

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> 3) My monitor is a 14" widescreen with a resolution of 1280x800
> 
> 

 

It's 1280x768, actually.  (I have the same notebook.)

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> Points 2 and 3 cause me problem both with framebuffer console and X; for the moment, I'd like at least to have framebuffer working.
> 
> 

 

Later in the post, you listed some kernel options that look correct for the framebuffer.  To activate the framebuffer, just include something like "vga=790" in the kernel options in grub.conf.

I don't think the VESA driver knows anything about widescreen display modes, but I have mine boot up at 1024x768.  When X11 takes over, it changes to 1280x768.  I'm using ati-drivers-8.19.10.ebuild (the ATI binary driver) and only had to add "1280x768" to the modes in xorg.conf.  (ati-drivers includes its own xorg.conf generator.)  Without much work at all, glxgears reports a speed of about 750 fps.

I got most of the notebook's features running without much trouble.  I don't care about the built-in modem.  The CardBus slot appears to not work unless "pci=noacpi noapic" is passed to the kernel, but that breaks most of the other devices.  wpa-supplicant is also having trouble with the built-in WiFi (using ndiswrapper, and I can get WiFi working by manually setting the SSID and WEP key).  I don't think I've tested Bluetooth yet, but I can port most of the configuration for that over from my other notebook.  Everything else runs like a champ.

Update: (19 Jun 06) It's a few months later now, and now everything works except the modem and the card reader.  To get the CardBus slot working properly, the kernel option to include is pci=assign-busses.  reboot=c is also a good idea.

At long last, built-in WiFi works!  You need gentoo-sources-2.6.17 or later, along with bcm43xx-fwcutter and wireless-tools.  See Native Airport Extreme Drivers for more info.  The only snag is that you need to have WiFi switched on in Windows with the HP Wireless Assistant.  There's not yet a tool (AFAIK) to switch WiFi on and off in Linux, other than the button that turns both WiFi and Bluetooth on/off at the same time.

Bluetooth was fairly straightforward to get running.  I use it with a mouse and a Treo 650; the latter provides wireless Internet access at somewhere between dialup and ISDN speed.

----------

## bandreabis

Any news with widescreen framebuffer?

I've just set 1440x900 X.org resolution.

Andrea

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## salfter

 *bandreabis wrote:*   

> Any news with widescreen framebuffer?
> 
> I've just set 1440x900 X.org resolution.

 

I've run it at 1024x768 the whole time.  Since it's only used (for the most part) for watching boot messages, I've not been too concerned with getting it to run at 1280x768.

----------

