HP EliteBook 2730p [Linux Laptop Wiki]

Device	Compatibility
Processor	Works
Screen	Internal works, external works
HDD	Works
Optical Drive	None Internal / Works with Base
Graphics	Vesa works, Intel driver requires ACPI (otherwise crashes)
Touchpad	Works
Touch Stick	Works
Sound	Works (options required, see below)
Ethernet	Works
Wireless	Works (sometimes spotty (See Wireless below))
WWAN (3g modem)	Works (need some love (See WWAN below))
Bluetooth	Works
56K Modem	Not Tested
USB	Works
Firewire	Works
Card Reader	Works (requires ricoh_mmc module)
ExpressCard Slot	Not Tested
Fingerprint Reader	No driver available for Linux yet
Camera	Works with UVC. Some programs complain about not being able to find a V4L v.2 device
Pen	Requires acpi for /dev/input/wacom device (pressure sensitivity works)
Base Station with DVD-RW	Works and can be hot plugged. Tested with LAN, USB, external monitor and mic input. The sound output works but it doesn't disable laptops internal speaker. The DVD-RW drive is recognized as a USB device and works without any issues.

Evgeny, 2012/02/03 17:58

Screen is blinking about every 2 seconds in grapic mode. I don't know how to fix it. Tried 2 distros: centos 6 and fedora 16. Ubuntu 11.10 doesn't boot from SD.

Windows works well.

anatheism, 2012/03/14 00:39

I fixed the flashing screen on CentOS 6 by adding acpi=off to the grub kernel argument.

Modiying the line in /boot/grub/grub.conf will make the change permanent so you don't have to add it at every reboot.

Saxony, 2012/03/15 17:26

Yes, flickering stops indeed, but you loose resolution (only 1024×768 instead of 1290×800) and some hardware needs acpi to ge detected … I'd been running Sidux → aptosid for about 3 years without that problem. It had been introduced with the 3.1-series kernels (3.2 same problem); running 3.0-7 had no issues. Unfortuneadly it isn't in the repos anymore (I decided to make a new installation some weeks ago without saving the kernel-deb before wiping the partition …).

Saxony, 2012/05/25 16:35

good news : install kernel 3.4.0 to get rid of the problem !

Moty, 2011/10/30 12:15

Is anyone using this as his class notebook?
I used to in the past two years and now that I got Ubuntu on it I can find anything to replace OneNote which I've been using.

Does anyone know of a software which allows you to write with your Stylus pen and keep notebooks?

Moty

Madmann, 2011/11/03 22:39

Xournal is in the Debian and Ubuntu repositories, the downside is it does not save the annotations in PDF as such, but exports is possible. An alternative might be Jarnal, but needs java.

guyrodge, 2011/07/25 14:38

Hello evryOne

Did someone try to use compiz with this Elite 2370p? : compiz frequently crashs the laptop, freezing the screen and forcing a hard reset.

Michael Hosack, 2011/08/31 05:07

Hi guyrodge,

I don't normally use compiz, but when I boot Knoppix 6.7.0 off a thumb drive it uses compiz by default. I didn't test it very much but it seemed to be working. I disabled a bunch of the compiz effects because I don't care for eye candy sucking up cpu cycles and power.

To boot off a thumb drive, I had to press <esc> while booting, then <f9> and then chose the option to boot off a usb drive.

If you try Knoppix 6.7.0, type “knoppix” at the Knoppix boot prompt, otherwise you will get the set-up for the visually impaired (talking menus, etc).

Knoppix often uses more up-to-date versions of software than is normally bundled with distros. If Knoppix works without the hiccups you encountered, then you may wish to use the same version of compiz. The knopper.net website contains a list of the bundled software under the “Knoppix 6.7 Release notes”. It says compiz is version 0.8.4-4 .

Regards,
Michael

Michael Hosack, 2011/02/07 04:02

“Squeeze” was just updated as the latest stable release of Debian (6.0.0). I installed the amd64 version on this device with an LXDE desktop and got most of the hardware working with help from this page. I found it necessary to use “xinput list” (as described by Teppo) in order to get the device names for the pen. I couldn't get the rotate button to work with the default 2.6.32 kernel and don't care to try a newer “experimental” kernel or recompile hp-wmi since it is easy enough to put a rotate script on the Desktop to click on. WiFi was not recognized until I installed the firmware-iwlwifi package from the “non-free” repository. After installing “alsamixergui”, audio worked without any configuration (haven't tested mic input). I haven't found a need for an xorg.conf with this installation so far.

For some reason /dev/sdb1 was pointing to a CDROM (non-existent for me since I don't have the docking station) in /etc/fstab . This made usb thumbdrives refuse to mount. Deleting this line fixed the problem but I don't know if that will cause problems with an external CD/DVD drive. I installed off of a usb — Debian has *greatly* simplified this process with Squeeze by providing “hybrid” CD images (http://www.debian.org/releases/squeeze/amd64/ch04s03.html.en). I initially tried to install the earlier stable release, Lenny, but that was a big headache.

Matthias, 2011/01/15 18:18

I'd like to give a little update on how I managed to install 10.10:

First of all, download the alternate cd and create a usb startup medium. This will also allow to encrypt your ubuntu partition before installation.

Your screen may not show anything until you did a full update after you installed the whole thing; All the acpi=off and so on thingies didn't work for me, screen stayed black. The trick is to connect a secondary monitor to your laptop, then the notebook screen will work (but, ironically, you won't see anything on the secondary screen).

Boot time is amazing compared to vista business!

Thanks to all who worked on this site :-)

eko, 2010/05/03 11:43

To get Rotate-Button, HP Info button and Lid Rotation Switch working you have to load the kernel module hp-wmi. Furthermore you have to map the keys with setkeycodes. Press one key once, than refer to dmesg to get the keycode.

cms, 2010/07/12 17:32

I loaded the module but dmesg doesn't give me any usable output. What scancodes did you use?

Watch Firefly, 2010/04/21 21:35

I was trying to boot my virus infected HP 2730p using Ubuntu 8.10 Live CD. It does not go beyond Ubuntu loading bar. I had similar problem with Dell Vostro 400, but after updating the Vostro's BIOS, it works like a charm. In fact, I cleaned Vostro by using Live CD.

I did not see any specific comments on BIOS requirements here. Will updating BIOS of HP 2730p to latest version will solve the problem?

Please advise.

Thanks.

Watch Firefly, 2010/04/24 18:24

Hi Everyone,

I just wanted to post an update. After installing new BIOS software F.0D-12/08/2009, I tried booting Ubuntu 9.10 Netbook Remix from the CD. It worked flawlessly.

Hope this helps.

Matej, 2010/02/28 13:19

This script rotates the screen either with the given parameter (0, 90, 180 or 270 degress), or, if no parameter is given, it iteratively rotates the screen for 90° in the clockwise direction.

It's a bit long, but not so complicated:

#!/bin/bash

# Parameter (degrees rotation): [ 0 | 90 | 180 | 270 ]
# If no rotation is provided, the screen is rotated for 90° in the clockwise
# direction.

# Also, don't forget to create keyboard shortcuts (I used Alt+Right, Alt+Up,
# Alt+Left and Alt+Down).

SCREEN=LVDS1
DIGITISER_PEN="Wacom Serial Tablet PC Pen Tablet/Digitizer"
DIGITISER_ERASER="Wacom Serial Tablet PC Pen Tablet/Digitizer eraser"

function getNextRotation() {
    CURRENT_ROTATION=`xsetwacom --get "$DIGITISER_PEN" Rotate`
    case "$CURRENT_ROTATION" in
        "NONE" )
            RANDR_ROTATION=left
            WACOM_ROTATION=CCW
            ;;
        "CCW" )
            RANDR_ROTATION=inverted
            WACOM_ROTATION=HALF
            ;;
        "HALF" )
            RANDR_ROTATION=right
            WACOM_ROTATION=CW
            ;;
        "CW" )
            RANDR_ROTATION=normal
            WACOM_ROTATION=NONE
            ;;
    esac
}

case "$1" in
    "0" )
        RANDR_ROTATION=normal
        WACOM_ROTATION=NONE
        ;;
    "90" )
        RANDR_ROTATION=left
        WACOM_ROTATION=CCW
        ;;
    "180" )
        RANDR_ROTATION=inverted
        WACOM_ROTATION=HALF
        ;;
    "270" )
        RANDR_ROTATION=right
        WACOM_ROTATION=CW
        ;;
esac

if [ -z "$RANDR_ROTATION" ]; then
    getNextRotation
fi

xrandr --output "$SCREEN" --rotate "$RANDR_ROTATION"
xsetwacom --set "$DIGITISER_PEN" Rotate "$WACOM_ROTATION"
xsetwacom --set "$DIGITISER_ERASER" Rotate "$WACOM_ROTATION"

Matej, 2010/03/03 14:13

Also, sometimes after waking up from suspend the X and Y scaling is just erroneous. Appending these two lines at the end of the above script helps setting it back to default:

xsetwacom –set “$DIGITISER_PEN” xyDefault 1 xsetwacom –set “$DIGITISER_ERASER” xyDefault 1

Btw, I am using Fedora 12…

Michael Knisely, 2010/01/19 21:00

I have Ubuntu 9.10 running on this device. Most things work very well. Rotation is great with teppo's script above.

The only issue I have is that occasionally when I rotate the LED above the F5 key goes on. When that happens, the keyboard, track pad, and eraser head pointer are all disabled. Any ideas? It always seems to be when the screen is rotated to portrait and I've turned the monitor around.

I've not had an opportunity where I can do any real troubleshooting. I just use the stylus to reboot the machine then all works well. I have had times where if I leave the machine for a while then return to it things will have reset to normal again.

This is one of those odd quirks that only shows up once in a while, so it is difficult to troubleshoot.

Ghabit, 2010/01/19 21:23

Maybe you can tell about battery life time? I see your post is recent.

Chris, 2010/12/03 00:15

I have Ubuntu 10.10 running on another Elitebook (8440p). I get less than two hours of runtime, even with the battery settings configured to slow things down when unplugged. I get almost 4 hours when used with Windows 7.

Madmann, 2010/03/09 09:25

I have Ubuntu 9.10 running and have experienced the same thing: dead Keybord, trackpad and so on, on my machine i get these things to work again by switching the Wlan on and off or off and on again, maybee this will help you too.

I dont know where that results from, nor why switching the Wlan helps, but i dont mind aslong as it works this way

Ghabit, 2010/01/15 10:31

Can someone tell how long it works with battery? Tnank you.

teppo, 2010/03/01 21:37

Hey

screen 70%

with WLAN: 11-13W 1 battery: 3.5-4h 2 batteries: 7.5h-8h
without WLAN: 9-10W 1 battery: 4.5-5h 2 batteries 9-9.5h

My experience is about 7 hours when doing some heavy surfing and office use with the secondary slate battery attached.

teppo, 2010/03/01 21:41

ups !

with WLAN: 11-13W 1 battery: 3.5-4h 2 batteries: 7.5h-8h
without WLAN: 9-10W 1 battery: 4-4.5h 2 batteries 9h

teppo, 2009/11/16 21:36

The new X-server configures tablet with hal or something like that so xsetwacom doesn't recognize stylus etc. It can be fixed by changing the rotation script.

You can find out the new names by installing xinput and running “xinput list”.
Probably something like “Wacom … ”

My rotation script:

#!/bin/bash xrandr –verbose | grep “LVDS” | grep ”) normal (” test=$? echo $test if "$test" != 0; then xrandr -o normal xsetwacom set “Wacom Serial Tablet PC Pen Tablet/Digitizer” Rotate none xsetwacom set “Wacom Serial Tablet PC Pen Tablet/Digitizer eraser” Rotate none else xrandr -o right xsetwacom set “Wacom Serial Tablet PC Pen Tablet/Digitizer” Rotate cw xsetwacom set “Wacom Serial Tablet PC Pen Tablet/Digitizer eraser” Rotate cw fi

hopefully this helps someone.

eko, 2009/07/14 13:25

Does anybody got the Touchstick working as Touchstick with e.g. press2select?

teppo, 2009/05/05 03:12

Hey. Does anyone have one idea how to disable 2730ps internal speakers when docks sound output is connected?

shurik, 2009/03/20 21:46

Hello all,

I've just managed to connect to the Internet using un2400 on my HP EliteBook
2730p. Here are the steps.

1) Boot into Windows, start HP Connection Manager and load the firmware that corresponds to your wireless provider (I have AT&T). You might want to read http://forums11.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/bizsupport/questionanswer.do?admit=109447626+1237582859639+28353475&threadId=1303083 if you have troubles with this step.

2) Boot back into Linux. Now the card should be visible for lsusb with _different_ product ID:
Bus 002 Device 003: ID 03f0:1f1d Hewlett-Packard
I suspect that this product ID can vary for different wireless providers.

Please note that you must NOT load the hp-wmi module as suggested somewhere. It apparently resets everything back (including the product ID that becomes 0x201d) and one has to repeat step 1 again. In fact, the Connection Manager even lists the card as “disabled” for a while.

3) Download this patch: http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/gregkh/gregkh-2.6/gregkh-04-usb/usb-serial-add-qualcomm-wireless-modem-driver.patch

Apply the patch to your kernel source (it works fine with 2.6.28) and add one more line to drivers/usb/serial/qcserial.c after, say, line 26:
{USB_DEVICE(0x03f0, 0x1f1d)}, /* HP un2400 Gobi Modem Device */
Change the product ID approprietly if you have a different one. 0x201d will definitely _not_ work.

4) Recompile the kernel with qcserial as a module and reboot.

5) Load qcserial with “modprobe qcserial”. You should see some encouraging messages in /var/log/messages such as:

      Mar 20 15:58:54: USB Serial support registered for Qualcomm USB modem
      Mar 20 15:58:54: qcserial 2-2:1.2: Qualcomm USB modem converter detected
      Mar 20 15:58:54: usb 2-2: Qualcomm USB modem converter now attached to ttyUSB0

You can later have this done automatically by editing /usr/share/hal/fdi/information/10freedesktop/10-modem.fdi

6) Do “cat < /dev/ttyUSB0 & echo ATI > /dev/ttyUSB0”
You should be able to see some useful information about your modem.

7) Enjoy!!

By the way, the driver for Gobi apparently originates from Qualcomm itself
(read the comments at the beginning of qcserial.c). Hooray!!

shurik, 2009/03/20 23:45

Update: the card settings (firmware?) apparently don't survive suspend and shutdown of the laptop: the product ID is reverted to 0x201d and the card is
not recognized as a modem anymore. So one has to boot to Windows again in
order to reset it back to 0x1f1d. Anyone knows how to fix this?

teppo, 2009/03/03 00:35

I edited the rotation script to turn the screen to the right (and xsetwacom to CounterWise) because I think the laptop is designed that way.

If somebody disagrees feel free to leave a comment or just edit the wiki.

TheAshMan, 2009/01/30 16:28

Fedora 10 install worked with i686 DVD version, but on first reboot to finish setup and create first user it hangs on splash screen and never recovers. I edited the kernel boot command (thanks to Matej above) adding “acpi=off noacpi” –both for good measure– and it booted right up!

teppo, 2009/02/03 00:15

Problem you had is mentioned in ACPI section and is fixed in kernel 2.6.29-rc1 and above

Matej, 2009/01/03 00:11

Ok, I haven't read carefully enough. The 'fan always on on AC Power' option did the trick.

Sorry for the confusion. :) Bye!

Matej, 2009/01/03 00:02

Flashing BIOS in Vista (using the HPQFlash (68POU) tool from HP) did not help… I still have to specify the 'acpi=off' kernel boot argument in GRUB.

Oh, I forgot to metion that Fedora 10 pauses for several seconds on two occasions:

First when loading GDM and second when logging into the Gnome desktop (just before the Gnome Panel appears, both pauses show no disk activity for ~10 seconds (the same was not noticed on an HP nc8430 notebook and a G33 desktop -- both using the same version of Fedora 10).

Hope this info helped anyone… Bye

Matej, 2009/01/02 23:38

I've managed to install Fedora 10 i386 on my 2730p – but only with acpi disabled (which is very bad - no powertop for me :( ).

I had to use a bootable USB stick for installation. Sadly, there were tons of problems…

First, the specs of my tablet: [CPU=Intel Core 2 Duo SL9400@1.86GHz],[RAM=2GB],[Graphics=GMA 4500MHD].

Here is what I have done:
1.) I wanted to create an MBR backup (for the preinstalled Vista - just in case). However, I found no working Live CD Distro that would boot successfully… That is until I discovered (using the Ubuntu 8.10 live CD and the unetbootin bootable USB creation tool) that I had to specify 'acpi=off' in the kernel boot arguments. Ubuntu booted and I could use 'dd if=/dev/sda of=/mnt/Backup/VistaMBR.backup bs=512 count=1'. :)

2.) In order to install Fedora 10 I had to use the full i386 installation DVD and the 'liveusb-creator 3.2' tool FOR WINDOWS - only this version would let me put the DVD image onto my USB stick.

2.1.) The installation USB booted but would not install directly from the USB -- I had to use the 'URL' installation (obviously using wired internet connection). With this, the installation was concluded.

2.2.)  Vista was available in the Grub menu and booted without problems. The installed Fedora 10 would boot only if 'acpi=off' kernel boot argument is specified in Grub <-- this happened even after an update to the most recent kernel version (using the standard repository, of course).

Now I'm trying to update BIOS… God knows, perhaps it will help…

teppo, 2008/12/09 22:58

Just installed Debian testing on this computer. External monitor worked but setting the resolution to correct is kinda messy. Sound output and input aren't working.. No idea what to do with them.

Knetworkmanager can't find network interfaces although they work well pretty well with newest kernel from kernel.org (maybe just some software missing.. don't know).

Everything else works just the way that is already stated before.

teppo, 2008/12/09 22:59

I meant to say that sound output/input in base aren't working.

teppo, 2008/12/09 23:57

Me again.. I found out that you need 0.7 version of network-manager to it to detect wlan interface.

antonio, 2008/12/04 01:40

Thanks to this page it took me only half a day to have my tablet working
with UBUNTU intrepid amd64: system,networking,X, sound,camera,stylus and digitizer.
I still have problems with WWAN,screen rotation,that sometimes closes my session,
sound in some applications,dhclient after wpa_supplicant, hibernation. Scroll button works but not the other tablet buttons.

SteveL, 2008/11/22 12:50

Ubuntu 8.10 on the elitebook with ATI

I've got most of Ubuntu 8.10 up and running on this toy. I had the version with the ati graphics card -with the proprietary driver it works well, except the picture on external monitors is pretty bad. More research is needed there -it could just be screwing up scaling.

Sound is down, even with the patches you've recommended; again more research.

Brightness from the gnome app works, and from software; its only the keys that are dead. That leaves wifi as the troublespot -I am exploring wcid to see if that is any better; I like its multiple WLAN profiles anyway.

Battery life is OK. Better than vista, though I'm still surprised by how hot it is and how much power it burns compared to my older laptop. The new, multiple cores may be efficient, but you pair for the pair of them in electrons. For deleting email and powerpoint, that's overkill, unless you run Vista, in which case your battery is toast. With Linux I have a real little workstation, though I miss the 1400×1050 resolution of its predecessor: the screen is wide, but short.

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Excellent
	66% (27)
Good
	17% (7)
Fair
	10% (4)
Poor
	2% (1)
Unusable
	5% (2)

HP EliteBook 2730p

Introduction

Editing This Page

Specifications

Linux Compatibility

Notes

Kernel Issues

Ubtuntu 9.10 / 64bit

Ubtuntu 8.10 / 64bit

Debian Squeeze / 64bit

Wacom Tablet

Extra keys

Gobi WWAN

Individual Errors

ACPI

Intel Video Driver

on lucid lynx 10.04 LTS

Screen Brightness

Legacy3D

Rotate-Button, HP Info button, Lid Rotation Switch

Sound

Touchpad

Fingerprint reader

Wireless

Gobi WWAN Configuration

In Debian Squeeze

gobi_loader

Install your firmware in /lib/firmware/gobi/

on lucid lynx 10.04 LTS

on Maverick Meercat 10.10

xorg.conf

xorg.conf and Tablet Mode

Summary

Discussion

Name	HP EliteBook 2730P
Processor	Intel Core 2 Duo LV
Screen	12.1” WXGA Widescreen
RAM	1GB to 8GB
HDD	80GB to 120GB HDD, SDD option
Optical Drive	None
Graphics	Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD
Network	Ethernet, Intel 802.11abgn or Broadcom 802.11abgn or Broadcom 802.11bg, Bluetooth