hp elitebook 8460p linux compatibility

Does anyone know how well the new elitebooks will work with linux? here are the specs in case you haven't seen it:

HP EliteBook 8460p Notebook PC overview - HP Small & Medium Business products

any help would be appreciated

Reply 1 : hp elitebook 8460p linux compatibility

Well, its advertised to be sold with SLED 11 which should mean that it's fully compatible. At least it has no NVIDIA Optimus graphics card which is a plus.

However, my Dell M6500 was advertised to be sold with RHEL 5.3, but neither was it available this way nor was it fully compatible. No idea if HP is more honest than Dell.



If I were you I'd try to order this Elitebook with SLED, test if everything works with the installed system and return it if that isn't the case.

Reply 2 : hp elitebook 8460p linux compatibility

Quote:

Originally Posted by derocs Does anyone know how well the new elitebooks will work with linux? here are the specs in case you haven't seen it: HP EliteBook 8460p Notebook PC overview - HP Small & Medium Business products any help would be appreciated

I have a 8440 15inch, and it's unusable under linux. There's an unkillable kernell process that takes 100% of a CPU. I've seen this reported as a bug on the kernel bugtracker, but no solution available yet. Stay away from HP if you want a working linux box.

Reply 3 : hp elitebook 8460p linux compatibility

Could you please provide a link to this kernel bug? It might make it easier to judge if the 8460p will be affected too.

Reply 4 : hp elitebook 8460p linux compatibility

thanks for the reply. I am hoping it will be compatible. It seems like such a nice laptop other than that. I am just getting into linux so i def want my college laptop to be compatible, aslo is SLED a distro? I have heard of Red Hat but not SLED

Reply 5 : hp elitebook 8460p linux compatibility

Quote:

Originally Posted by derocs I am just getting into linux so i def want my college laptop to be compatible, aslo is SLED a distro? I have heard of Red Hat but not SLED

SLED is the abbreviation for Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop, which is the desktop edition (as opposed to SLES which is for servers) of Novells professional Linux (Novell is Red Hats biggest competitor on the professional Linux market). You might know openSuse, which is the community version of Suse and a test bed for the enterprise versions. Therefore openSuse is always ahead in technology but due to its testing status tends to be unstable from time to time. Since the laptop you intend to buy is cutting edge technology SLED might not be fully compatible with it. This is why I would test it first.



The relation between SLES/D and openSuse is much like the one between RHEL and Fedora.

Reply 6 : hp elitebook 8460p linux compatibility

A sales rep confirmed that the 8460p is compatible to Linux

Reply 7 : hp elitebook 8460p linux compatibility

Quote:

Originally Posted by debguy Well, its advertised to be sold with SLED 11 which should mean that it's fully compatible. At least it has no NVIDIA Optimus graphics card which is a plus. However, my Dell M6500 was advertised to be sold with RHEL 5.3, but neither was it available this way nor was it fully compatible. No idea if HP is more honest than Dell. If I were you I'd try to order this Elitebook with SLED, test if everything works with the installed system and return it if that isn't the case.

That's a real good idea.



@debguy: I use SL6 (RHEL6) on my m6500 and it ALL works save the fingerprint reader....what were you referring to? Curious. Thanks.

Reply 8 : hp elitebook 8460p linux compatibility

Yes the M6500 works fine if you have kernel 2.6.30 or newer. But if you try earlier kernels (e.g. 2.6.18 like in RHEL/CentOS/Scientific 5.x) you'll notice that there is no sound via the built-in speakers (audio jack works). I checked that with CentOS 5.3 and 5.4 back then.



The reason is an error in the Ibex Peak soundchip [1] which was well known when the M6500 was released, but still Dell didn't state this problem when advertising the M6500 with RHEL.

This leads me to the conclusion that Dell either 1. didn't actually test the M6500 with Linux (one simply can't miss such a problem) which in turn leads me to the question how well Dell tests their products at all, or 2. they were intentionally trying to hide this problem hoping that nobody would actually check it, which I think is even worse than poor testing.



[1] https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=509526

Reply 9 : hp elitebook 8460p linux compatibility

Quote:

Originally Posted by debguy Yes the M6500 works fine if you have kernel 2.6.30 or newer. But if you try earlier kernels (e.g. 2.6.18 like in RHEL/CentOS/Scientific 5.x) you'll notice that there is no sound via the built-in speakers (audio jack works). I checked that with CentOS 5.3 and 5.4 back then. The reason is an error in the Ibex Peak soundchip [1] which was well known when the M6500 was released, but still Dell didn't state this problem when advertising the M6500 with RHEL. This leads me to the conclusion that Dell either 1. didn't actually test the M6500 with Linux (one simply can't miss such a problem) which in turn leads me to the question how well Dell tests their products at all, or 2. they were intentionally trying to hide this problem hoping that nobody would actually check it, which I think is even worse than poor testing. [1] https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=509526

Absolutely....I waited a long time for SL6 because of that.