HP Mini 311

Stythys · 2009-11-17 20:56:09

Lookin' for a new laptop to buy...was just wonderin' if anyone had experience with arch on the HP Mini.

Stythys · 2009-11-20 10:33:36

no one? =/

lswest · 2009-11-20 11:08:43

I've been pulling up some info on the device, and I can't seem to find the listing of the wireless card (the one piece of hardware I'd be most wary of, simply due to experience). Also, I'm not sure how nvidia ION drivers are for linux (since I don't own one with ION graphics). Besides that, the hardware (to the best of my knowledge) shouldn't give you much, if any trouble. I don't claim to be an expert, and my memory might not be 100%, but I'm fairly certain I've read good things about 90% of the hardware in the netbook (the other 10% mainly because either a) it's not clear what it is, or b) it's something I've never used/read about). I do recommend trying to find out what make & model the wireless card is (they only have the network ethernet card listed with make/model).

Not really an answer, but an opinion,
Lswest

Stythys · 2009-11-20 11:34:01

yeah, unfortunately the wireless and ion graphics were the two things I was wondering about xD

I *think* the wireless should work with the broadcom-wl driver, and I've seen other posts with netbooks that use the ion graphics card with no problems reported (http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=78033) so I think I should be ok...but just wanted to make sure

Last edited by Stythys (2009-11-20 11:35:56)

trann · 2009-11-21 00:58:26

I too was looking at the 311, but honestly, if it has a broadcom wifi card, I would say wait and get a Lenovo netbook with the Ion/Atom chipset.

apaige · 2009-11-21 02:29:26

I own the Samsung N510. The main (minor) setback is the Wi-Fi chip (Realtek RTL8192e) which works with ndiswrapper, until the native driver in the kernel's staging tree is ready. The ION chip works great with NVIDIA's binary drivers.

Note that Asus will launch an ION netbook of its own, but with a dual core (more power-hungry and no frequency scaling) Intel Atom.
http://blog.laptopmag.com/asus-eee-pc-1201n

Last edited by apaige (2009-11-21 02:30:15)

rhys_rhaven · 2009-11-21 03:44:09

Just got my mini 311 today, promptly installed the 500GB hdd from newegg and installed arch from a net i686 usb stick.

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/HP_Mini_5101 That guide is essentially the same thing save you install the the nvidia driver and run "nvidia-xconfig" and your up and away. I use kdemod, so after a short bit grabbing packages, im up with with a complete configuration. I'm typing this from the 311 right now. I'll see how it works on some other things. The wireless card is a broadcom 4353 which the broadcom-wl works. Though my wireless is being spotty on some large files in pacman, though that may be due to my USR router being a salvage after a user reported it struck by lightning and it failed to configuration settings.

I'll see tomorrow at the hackerspace. The other thing is the touchpad is being very sensitive, not sure if my huge hands are hitting it and moving the mouse around. Regardless, I bought it for a nice 630$ total to be my main laptop. (Buy the ram and hdd from newegg, saves a bit)I even got HP to give me a 30$ refund on XP as I won't touch it. They did that with no argument what so ever, but I had to call back when I got the machine to "remind " them to put it through. It showed up in PayPal within 5 minutes, so I wonder if they are trying to getcha that way.

I've been using it for a whole 20 minutes or so when I found this thread, thought I would say my piece. If there are any specs or benchmarks someone wants, just reply and I'll try to get them tomorrow. Or if your in the Chicago area stop by Pumping Station One and you can try it out yourself.

Stythys · 2009-11-21 08:36:01

thankies rhaven =]

but...that asus does look quite nice..hehe. I think I wants

Last edited by Stythys (2009-11-21 08:42:59)

toofishes · 2009-11-22 02:19:59

This is good news; I ordered a 311 last week and it should come right around Thanksgiving. I also went for Windows 7 on it (OMG u traitor!!!) so we will see how that treats me.

Stythys · 2009-11-22 21:43:02

I actually called them and got like $30 off after asking them to take off windows

rhys_rhaven · 2009-11-23 02:57:15

Just as a warning, the linux wl driver from broadcom, like most of their stuff, is shit. "Propietary" is just a fancy word for "its shit." I've noticed quite a few times I can't connect to access points (all WPA2, what else would you use?). Running networkmanager with --no-daemon shows it as "eth1: Linked timed out" somewhere shortly after associating. NM sees this as a bad password.

Reloading the wl driver with "modprobe -r wl && modprobe wl" fixes it.

Webcam doesn't work with camE, but Cheese displays it properly with full light and everything. Cheese can take pictures, but crashes when you try to record video. I'm going to try out gizmo now, see how that works.

Also, grab mplayer from abs, add in "--enable-vdpau" to its config flags and recompile. Changing to the vdpau driver in smplayer or from the command line lets me play 1080p h264 MKV videos off tpb flawlessly. The OSS driver complains a bit when I modprobe it, and I did have to relink /dev/dsp to the pcm2 device instead of pcm1, but it works fine as well. Apple .mov HD trailers won't work correctly though. Probably more to do with the container.

Also, you might want to turn off "fan always on" in the bios, and script it out with acpid. I will once I get around to it.

Stythys · 2009-11-23 05:46:40

thanks for the tips!

Last edited by Stythys (2009-11-23 05:49:17)

Stythys · 2009-12-04 22:40:05

anyone else tryin' to use the mic-in port? can't seem to get it to work....speakers work when plugged in but not the mic

Ranguvar · 2009-12-13 00:04:45

I also may buy an HP Mini 311
Two questions, if someone could please answer.

One, about how well does the wireless work with the Broadcom driver? Details please And how about with ndiswrapper?

And two, about the graphics -- I read recently that there is a hack to make the ION LE video cards support DirectX 10, and run much faster overall.
This works by using the ION (non-LE) driver in Windows, and adding a device line to the INF for the driver to make it force install even with an ION LE.

I was wondering if a similar hack existed for Linux, since we don't have INFs, and NVIDIA just provides one driver for GeForce/ION/ION LE/etc.?
I'm a little optimistic that NVIDIA might have just not bothered and this hack is "built in" to the Linux driver, since they assume (correctly, really) that few people will be playing DirectX 10 Wine games under Linux (although there is a healthy speed boost all around).

Stythys · 2009-12-13 00:41:33

don't know about the directx 10 stuff, but the broadcom-wl package works just fine for the internet =]

Ranguvar · 2009-12-13 00:45:52

Just fine as in just as good as you'd expect from that laptop? Good range, etc.?
If you've tried Windoze on there, did Windoze do better?

Thanks

Stythys · 2009-12-13 01:01:15

I haven't tried windows, no, but there are no speed/connection problems...

Ranguvar · 2009-12-13 01:17:58

Great, thanks for your help!

I'll post back with my experience if/when I do pick one up.

Stythys · 2009-12-13 01:20:17

if you aren't getting it right away, I would recommend waiting for the asus 1201N to come out. It has a bit better specs than the 311, including a dual-core processor

Ranguvar · 2009-12-13 09:15:21

It's a bit out of my price range, and yeah, it's something I'm gonna ask for for Christmas

Thanks, though! I had hoped I'd be able to wait for a dual-core 64-bit CPU.

Mammut · 2010-02-02 23:02:39

Does anyone have the all the fn keys working on the HP mini 311 / Compaq 311c ?

So fare only my "brightness" keys are working

santodelaespada · 2010-03-06 16:56:04

rhys_rhaven wrote:

Just as a warning, the linux wl driver from broadcom, like most of their stuff, is shit. "Propietary" is just a fancy word for "its shit." I've noticed quite a few times I can't connect to access points (all WPA2, what else would you use?). Running networkmanager with --no-daemon shows it as "eth1: Linked timed out" somewhere shortly after associating. NM sees this as a bad password.
Reloading the wl driver with "modprobe -r wl && modprobe wl" fixes it.
Webcam doesn't work with camE, but Cheese displays it properly with full light and everything. Cheese can take pictures, but crashes when you try to record video. I'm going to try out gizmo now, see how that works.
Also, grab mplayer from abs, add in "--enable-vdpau" to its config flags and recompile. Changing to the vdpau driver in smplayer or from the command line lets me play 1080p h264 MKV videos off tpb flawlessly. The OSS driver complains a bit when I modprobe it, and I did have to relink /dev/dsp to the pcm2 device instead of pcm1, but it works fine as well. Apple .mov HD trailers won't work correctly though. Probably more to do with the container.
Also, you might want to turn off "fan always on" in the bios, and script it out with acpid. I will once I get around to it.

2 webcam apps that do not fail with hp netbooks:
wxcam
guvcview
Both on AUR

broadcom 4312 chipset is a bitch indeed. no injection is possible with propietary driver and it does not work with the new kernel b43 driver yet (even if they say it does) so no hacking wireless.

I've found HP netbooks to be the best in the market overall.

santodelaespada · 2010-03-06 16:58:03

Stythys wrote:

anyone else tryin' to use the mic-in port? can't seem to get it to work....speakers work when plugged in but not the mic

use Alsamixer to choose the capture inputs and raise the volumes.
xfce4-mixer does not succeed in that area, nor does gnome-mixer

santodelaespada · 2010-03-06 17:13:18

Mammut wrote:

Does anyone have the all the fn keys working on the HP mini 311 / Compaq 311c ?
So fare only my "brightness" keys are working

mi sound related hotkeys are properly interpreted by X
but the screen and lock keys are read as "win+p" and "l"

suspend works just fine with acpid

Mammut · 2010-03-06 17:34:32

santodelaespada wrote:

mi sound related hotkeys are properly interpreted by X

Yes, I'm using Icewm and just had to edit the "key" menu-file and add the commands for the installed alsa-mixer for it to work.

Arch Linux

#1 2009-11-17 20:56:09

HP Mini 311

#2 2009-11-20 10:33:36

Re: HP Mini 311

#3 2009-11-20 11:08:43

Re: HP Mini 311

#4 2009-11-20 11:34:01

Re: HP Mini 311

#5 2009-11-21 00:58:26

Re: HP Mini 311

#6 2009-11-21 02:29:26

Re: HP Mini 311

#7 2009-11-21 03:44:09

Re: HP Mini 311

#8 2009-11-21 08:36:01

Re: HP Mini 311

#9 2009-11-22 02:19:59

Re: HP Mini 311

#10 2009-11-22 21:43:02

Re: HP Mini 311

#11 2009-11-23 02:57:15

Re: HP Mini 311

#12 2009-11-23 05:46:40

Re: HP Mini 311

#13 2009-12-04 22:40:05

Re: HP Mini 311

#14 2009-12-13 00:04:45

Re: HP Mini 311

#15 2009-12-13 00:41:33

Re: HP Mini 311

#16 2009-12-13 00:45:52

Re: HP Mini 311

#17 2009-12-13 01:01:15

Re: HP Mini 311

#18 2009-12-13 01:17:58

Re: HP Mini 311

#19 2009-12-13 01:20:17

Re: HP Mini 311

#20 2009-12-13 09:15:21

Re: HP Mini 311

#21 2010-02-02 23:02:39

Re: HP Mini 311

#22 2010-03-06 16:56:04

Re: HP Mini 311

#23 2010-03-06 16:58:03

Re: HP Mini 311

#24 2010-03-06 17:13:18

Re: HP Mini 311

#25 2010-03-06 17:34:32

Re: HP Mini 311

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