This guide is intended to provide you details on how well this laptop works with Linux and which drivers you need to configure. For details on how to actually install and configure the required drivers have a look at our guides section for distribution specific instructions.

Page Contents Author Introduction Editing This Page Specifications Linux Compatibility Notes Related Resouces Summary

If you are looking to purchase this laptop you can visit HP's notebook page.

Author

Bill Giannikos (bill2 at giannikos.com.au)

Introduction

This is a guide to running Linux with the HP-Compaq 6515B laptop.

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Specifications

Name	HP-Compaq 6515B
Processor	AMD Turion 64 MK-38 2.2GHz
Screen	14.1" WXGA
RAM	1GB
HDD	80GB
Optical Drive	DVD+-RW
Graphics	ATI Mobility Radeon x1250
Network	Ethernet, Broadcom 802.11g Wireless, Bluetooth
Other	USB2.0, Firewire, Fingerprint Reader

Linux Compatibility

Device	Compatibility	Comments
Processor	Yes
Screen	Yes
HDD	Yes
Optical Drive	Yes
Graphics	Yes	See notes below
Sound	Yes	Use the snd-hda-intel driver
Ethernet	Yes
Wireless	Partial	See notes below
56K Modem	Not Tested
USB	Yes
Firewire	Not Tested
Card Reader	Not Tested
PCMCIA	Not Tested
Fingerprint Reader	Not Tested

Notes

The ATI Mobility Radeon x1250 in the 6515b is not supported yet by many Linux distributions. In this case you will either need to upgrade your version of Xorg or install the proprietary fglrx drivers. See our guide below on details on how to install the proprietary drivers for various distributions.

To get the wireless controller in the 6515b working you will need to use the ndiswrapper driver. See our guide below on details on how to install this driver on various distributions. You can find the required windows drivers here. There are some open source drivers called bcm43xx but these don't appear to work, at least I couldn't get them working.

Related Resouces

Preparing your laptop for Linux
Configuring an ATI graphics chip
Configuring the ndiswrapper driver for wireless controllers without native Linux drivers
Increasing battery life

Summary

Like many AMD based laptops (especially from HP), the HP-Compaq 6515B is not the best running laptop under Linux. In this case the need to use the ndiswrapper driver causes a significant problem. Hopefully the bcm43xx will shortly being functioning with this wireless controller and therefore make this laptop much more suitable for Linux.


Have you installed Linux on this laptop? If so how about leaving a comment about your success in the comments section below.