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HP ProBook 6475b
Introduction
This is a compatibility guide to running Linux with the HP ProBook 6475b laptop. If you have the HP ProBook 6475b and are running Linux on it please consider editing this page or adding a comment below with your compatibility details. By contributing you will help other people running this laptop or trying to make a decision on whether to buy it or not.
This page is just for discussing using Linux on the HP ProBook 6475b. For a general discussion about this laptop you can visit the HP ProBook 6475b page on LapWik.
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Specifications
For full specifications see the HP ProBook 6475b specifications page.
| Name | HP ProBook 6475b |
| Processor | AMD Quad-Core A10-4600M APU with Radeon HD 7660G Graphics (3.2/2.3 GHz, 4 MB L2 cache) AMD Quad-Core A8-4500M APU with Radeon HD 7640G Graphics (2.8/1.9 GHz, 4 MB L2 cache, 4 cores) AMD Dual-Core A6-4400M APU with Radeon HD 7520G Graphics (3.2/2.7 GHz, 1 MB L2 cache, 2 cores) |
| Screen | 14” 1366×768 Widescreen 14” 1600×900 Widescreen |
| RAM | Up to 16GB |
| HDD | Up to 750GB |
| Optical Drive | DVD+-RW Blu-ray |
| Graphics | AMD Radeon HD 7660G AMD Radeon HD 7640G AMD Radeon HD 7520G AMD Radeon HD 7420G |
| Network | 10/100/1000 Ethernet Broadcom 802.11a/b/g/n Atheros 802.11b/g/n |
Linux Compatibility
| Device | Compatibility | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Processor | Works | |
| Screen | Works | |
| HDD | Works | |
| Optical Drive | Works | |
| Graphics Chip | Works | Using AMD fglrx driver 12.6. Driver complains it cannot detect supported video card. Must specify PCI location in xorg.conf to get working. |
| VGA Out | Works | |
| DisplayPort | Works | Tested Single display connectivity only |
| Sound | Works | |
| Bulti-in Microphone | Works | |
| Headphone Jack | Works | |
| Microphone Jack | Works | |
| Ethernet | Works | |
| Wireless | Works | Only had success with proprietary Broadcom “wl” driver. Works fine after resuming from a sleep/suspend |
| Bluetooth | Works | |
| WWAN | Not Tested | |
| Modem | Not Tested | |
| USB | Works | |
| ESATA | Not Tested | |
| Firewire | Not Tested | |
| Card Reader | Partial Test | SDcard works |
| ExpressCard Slot | Works | |
| Fingerprint Reader | Not Tested | |
| Webcam | Works | Camera is UVC compatible. Need only to compile in support in kernel. |
| Smart Card Reader | Not Tested | |
| Docking Station | Not Tested | |
| Touch Pad | Works | Scrolling “multi touch” seems to be implemented in hardware as I did not have to specifically configure it |
| Track Point | Not Tested | |
| Suspend/Resume | Works | As stated earlier, WiFi still works fine after resume |
Notes
You can enter any specific notes with running Linux on the HP ProBook 6475b here.
Summary
You can enter a summary of how well the HP ProBook 6475b works with Linux here.
Discussion
Model used: A6-4400m
The 6475b laptop does not have any wlan card bios locking, so you are free to swap wifi cards as required.
I'm using the Intel Centrino 6200 card as it works straight out of the box (OpenSUSE12.3). I gave up with the broadcom 5ghz card that it came with; worked ok on oSUSE 12.1, but not with 12.3 (in place upgrade via repo changes).
Installing the official AMD catalyst drivers (13.4 at the time of write) and once the compiling prerequisites were met, just made the graphics acceleration & keyboard brightness control work - no xorg tweaks.
Just got mine last week. Had to spend all weekend getting it configured, however, I have most everything working in Linux (Gentoo) apart from the web cam and fingerprint reader. I haven't actually tried getting either of these devices working yet so I cannot say whether or not they will work in Linux.
I am running Gentoo with a vanilla 3.4.4 kernel. I had to use the proprietary Broadcom “wl” driver to get the a/b/g/n card working, however, it does seem to work quite fine through ACPI sleep/suspend cycles. Also, I recommend building the Intel iwlagn stack as a module so that this forces the kernel configuration to expose the TKIP and other various encryption features that are required for WPA encrypted access points.
I am using AMD/ATI's proprietary firegl driver, version 12.6, with XOrg server 1.12.2 and everything seems to be working fine. I even have OpenGL acceleration, etc. working just fine. I would caution that the AMD driver stack will not auto detect the GPU so you will have to manually add the driver section into your xorg.conf to specify where the card is located on the PCI bus.
Getting screen dimming to work was a bit of a pain in the ass since HP have decided to make such a thing controlled via software… Pressing FN + F9/F10 doesn't do anything directly to hardware and, consequently, these key presses must be captured. To be honest, I'm not sure how I got this working other than to say that made sure to compile the kernel with LED backlight/video. However I made it work, it _does_ work–but so far only in X.
Sound works fine although you have to remember that you get two sound devices. One is the proper audio which conforms to the Intel HD standard and the other the HDMI audio.
As has been reported, there seems to be no way to influence the processor performance (P and C states), however, the “embedded” behaviour that AMD have engineered into the processor and GPU seems to be pretty good. It clocks up in an instant when needed and clocks down when not in use. My processor spends most of its time in deep sleep so I get excellent battery life (~7 hours in Linux doing basic web browsing, etc w/ the standard 55Wh battery).
Bluetooth seems to “just work” and didn't require any special tweaking other than to make sure that I build it into the kernel… I'm currently using a BT mouse that works just fine.