Hewlett-Packard nx9600
Created by: Bill Giannikos,Last modification on Thu 16 of Aug, 2007 [07:42 UTC]by Bill Giannikos
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.
If you are looking to purchase this laptop you can visit HP's notebook page.
Introduction
This is a guide to running Linux with the Hewlett-Packard nx9600 laptop.Editing This Page
View our Editing GuidelinesSpecifications
| Processor | Intel Pentium4 560 3.6GHz | |
| Screen | 17" WXGA+ | |
| RAM | 1GB | |
| HDD | 100GB | |
| Optical Drive | DVD+-RW | |
| Graphics | ATI Mobility Radeon x600 | |
| Network | 10/100/1000 Ethernet, Broadcom BCM4318 802.11g Wireless | |
| Other | 4 x USB2.0, 1 x Firewire | |
Linux Compatibility
| Device | Compatibility | Comments |
| Processor | Yes | |
| Screen | Yes | |
| Optical Drive | Yes | |
| Graphics | Yes | |
| Sound | Yes | Use the snd-intel8x0 driver |
| Ethernet | Yes | |
| Wireless | Yes | |
| 56K Modem | Not Tested | |
| USB | Yes | |
| Firewire | Not Tested | |
| SD Card Reader | Not Tested | |
| ExpressCard Slot | Not Tested | |
Notes
For the graphics chip you can use either the open source radeon driver or ATI's proprietary fglrx driver. For installation instructions, you can view our Configuring an ATI graphics chip guide. For 3D support, you will need the proprietary driver. Some older versions of X may not have support for the ATI Mobility Radeon x600, in this case you will need to use the proprietary driver.This wireless controller in this laptop does not have any native drivers for Linux so you will need to use the ndiswrapper driver. For installation instructions, you can view our Configuring the ndiswrapper driver guide. The windows driver to use with ndiswrapper can be found here. There are some experimental drivers available for this card which are available here. At this time these drivers are still under development and may not be totally stable.
Related Resources
Preparing your laptop for LinuxConfiguring an ATI graphics chip
Configuring the ndiswrapper driver for wireless controllers without native Linux drivers
Increasing battery life
Summary
The main issue with this laptop was the configuration of the wireless controller. Other than that there were no problems in getting this laptop working when used with an up to date Linux distribution. It is recommended to use a Linux distribution with kernel version 2.6.17 or greater, such as Fedora Core 6 or Ubuntu 6.10.Have you installed Linux on this laptop? If so how about leaving a comment about your success in the comments section below.
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