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HP Probook 6450b
Author(s)
Douglas Bagnall (douglas@paradise.net.nz)
Introduction
The 6450b is a relatively heavy 14 inch laptop with 2010 hardware and (in most configurations) an anti-glare screen. The tested sub-model is an XD154PA; as usual there are a zillion slightly different variations sharing the name.
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Specifications
| Name | HP Probook 6450b (XD154PA) |
| Processor | i5 450M |
| Screen | 14” 1366×768 |
| RAM | 2GB standard (tested with with additional 2GB) |
| HDD | 250GB 7200rpm sata |
| Optical Drive | DVD+/-RW |
| Graphics | Intel HD (Radeon with dedicated ram also available) |
| Network | Gbit ethernet, Intel 802.11 a/b/g/n, Bluetooth) |
Linux Compatibility
| Device | Compatibility | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Processor | Yes | |
| Screen | Yes | Matte screen. Lights turn off when blank |
| HDD | Yes | |
| Optical Drive | Yes | |
| Graphics | Yes | External VGA works. DisplayPort not tested. |
| Sound | Yes | tested speakers, headphones, and internal & external mics – all work well. Headphones mute speakers. |
| Ethernet | Yes | |
| Wireless | Yes | only tested 802.11g |
| Bluetooth | Not Tested | seems to be recognised by software |
| 56K Modem | Not Tested | Probably doesn't work: they never do. I turned it off in BIOS anyway. |
| USB | Yes | all USB2 |
| Firewire | Yes | |
| Card Reader | Yes | tested with SD only |
| ExpressCard Slot | Not Tested | |
| Camera | Yes | |
| Fingerprint Reader | Not Tested | Turned off in BIOS |
Notes
I first tried Debian testing AMD64, and a few things, including wifi, weren't working out of the box. Then I installed Ubuntu 10.04 x86_64, and everything appears to work with no fiddling.
Suspend and Hibernate both work. Power management seems to work well in general – the machine is quiet running on the battery, the screen dims, etc.
The battery gives me over 4 hours of text editing, or 3 hours of intensive use.
The option for two finger scrolling on the trackpad is greyed out. It seems that this is a hardware limitation.
The machine is “certified” for SUSE, but not sold with it (in contrast with the slightly smaller 4320s, which is sold with SUSE in some places).
Summary
It seems good.
Discussion
Hi
I have Debian Squeeze on my HP 6450B and after installing I had to say “sudo update-grub” to get into Win7. That's not HP:s problem I know.
I installed Squeeze (i386) with 180Mt net-install disc. Ethernet worked fine, wlan didn't. For wlan I had to install firmware-brcm80211 and it started to work ok.
Everything else works fine except waking up after sleeping. At first Squeeze didnt wake after all. There was cursor on the screen but the machine freezes. (→ reboot)
No machine wakes up ok, but I dont get to the wlan. Weird. If I press the wlan down with the button and close the lid, Squeeze freezes down. Uhum.
When I pressed the button to shutdown wlan, Squeeze freezed down and didn't wake up after rebooting. I booted Win7 and even it didn´t wake up. When booting up to windows I was able to press again the wlan-button on, and after that machine booted ok. I won't touch that button soon again. Something odd with that.
Hello
I also tried Debian Squeeze (28th Oct.) 64bit. No problem for networking and most of the machine, but I could not get Grub to load the remaining Windows partition (it sees a Vista partition instead of Win7 and then hangs). (The laptop comes with 4 primary partitions so you need to do a little partitioning work before you can actually start installing, if you want to keep your Win7 copy)
Hence, I installed Kubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meercat and it worked merely out of the box. UMTS modem needed gobi-loader-tp (this is not the standard ubuntu-version) an, off course, the firmware (which can be found on the windows partition).
The things that don't work:
Could not get the internal analog modem to work.
Intel graphics does not start kdm with correct resolution when the laptop is connected to my external 19” screen, but it is o.k. after login. Could not figure out how to set it permanently.
The internal screen is turned on after a few seconds when the lid stays open even when krandr sets it to off.
Screen brightness can be adjusted in the powermanagement applet, but not using keys
Card reader - no Sony memory sticks supported.
Grub splash screen causes Kubuntu to hang occasionally - I turned it off.
These are all minor things to me and maybe I will figure out how to solve some of these problems. So in total, it seems like a great choice to me.
Hi!
I'am trying to set up Debian on this model but there is a lack of drivers. Either the LAN driver, either the WLAN driver aren't supported by this distribution.
Should I install the e1000e system? Where can I find it?
Thanks for hel
Which version of Debian are you trying to install? You're probably going to have a lot of headaches trying to get Debian 5 working properly. I would suggest just installing Debian Squeeze.
Hello,
I'm having headaches with getting a debian release:
1. Is this computer a amd64 or a i386 ?
2. How to know the name of the version ?
3. Do I need to dl the full ISO of about 4.7Go? I tryed an about 600Mo ISO and the installer didn't find any internet interface (either Wlan nor Ethernet :S ); would the bigger iso solve the problem?
Thank you for answering
As Bill said, you should use squeeze. A search for “debian installer” will get you there.
My model (XD154PA, as described above) uses e1000e for ethernet and iwlagn for wifi. The ethernet worked with squeeze, but wifi did not. There are straightforward instructions at http://wiki.debian.org/iwlagn though for various reasons I just installed ubuntu instead.