HP Pavilion dm3

With the fixes listed below, Suse 11.2 works fine (including the discrete graphics card) on the HP DM3 series (including the discrete graphics card).

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For full specifications see the HP Pavilion dm3z specifications page.

Installing SUSE 11.2 on a HP Pavilion DM3

Specifics: Radeon HD 3200 discrete graphics card, 64 bit Athlon Neo Dual, 3GB Memory, 320 GB ~7000 RPM HDD, etc.

Overview:
The SUSE 11.2 installation on HP Pavilion DM3z went without a hitch, however, post installation, there were two problems:
(A) knetworkmanager suite decided to flake on me, and things worked sometimes and failed othertimes. So, I replaced network manager with WICD, which worked like a charm.
(B) the radeonhd graphics driver that suse installed did not work, and so I replaced that driver with the ATI driver, which seems to be working well (tested with “glxgears”).
(C) Skype did not install (there is a quick fix to that).

SOLUTIONS

(A)————
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WICD (as a replacement for knetworkmanager) was installed in the following manner:
*
To install WICD, I added the following repository to YAST (found the link online):
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/dmitry_serpokryl:/Enlightenment-cvs-core-metapackage/openSUSE_11.2/
*
Start “yast” (press F2, type in “yast” and press “enter”). Click on “Software manager”. Search for WICD. Opt to install it (all dependencies will be automatically added).
*
Start “yast” (F2 “yast”). Click on Network Settings in Network Devices. Under the “Global options” tab, choose “Traditional Method with ifup” in stead of “User Controlled with Network Manager”.
*
Restart.

(B)————
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Download the correct graphics driver from:
http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/Pages/index.aspx (i had to download “ati-driver-installer-9-1-x86.x86_64.run”)
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“su” (needs password)
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“init 3”
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login as yourself
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“su”
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“sh ati-driver-installer-9-1-x86.x86_64.run” (do what they ask of you)
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“aticonfig”
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restart (ALT-CNTRL-DEL)
*
test with “glxgears” (you should see gears doing their thang)
(USEFUL LINKS:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1019712
http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/Pages/index.aspx

(C)————
I used the HOWTO website (http://en.opensuse.org/Talk:Skype_HOWTO#openSUSE_11.2_64bit) to install SKYPE:
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“mkdir ~/skype-install”
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“cd ~/skype-install”
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Download the installable:
“wget http://www.skype.com/go/getskype-linux-suse”
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run the installable:
“sudo zypper install skype-*.rpm xorg-x11-libXv-32bit libqt4-32bit libqt4-x11-32bit”

(D)————
Firefox scrolling sucks. To fix it partially, do the following (obtained from: http://forums.opensuse.org/network-internet/430338-firefox-scrolling-problems.html):
”””
In FF go to Edit>Prefs>Advanced - General Tab
Uncheck smooth and auto scrolling
”””

With the fixes, Suse 11.2 works fine on the HP DM3 series