Dual booting Redhat 7.3 and Win2k on a HP Pavilion n3250

Hardware:

• 475 mhz AMD K6-2
• 256 megs PC100 SODIMM (8 megs for vram)
• Toshiba MK2016GAP 20 gig Hard drive
• DVD Drive (6x i think)
• Trident Cyberblade i7 Video, Dual video support
• 1 USB Port, 1 Serial, 1 parrallel port, 1 PS/2 mouse port, Audio I/O ports.
• Mystery 56k Modem
• Linksys 10/100 PCMCIA ethernet card

Redhat Linux 7.3 Compatibility

• Parrallel port: Haven't checked
• USB port: Works with USB mouse. Haven't tried other devices. Won't use track pad and mouse simultaneously.
• PCMCIA Works
• APMD Seems to work OK, conflicts with BIOS power management though. Disabling BIOS power management seems to cure problems. Otherwise, it will turn off the screen and forget to turn it back on when you want to use it. I leave it all off.
• Trackpad: Works
• Mirrored Video: Haven't checked
• Modem: Haven't checked
• DVD: Works with Ogle Player
• Sound out: Works, stereo
• Sound in: Haven't checked
• Battery: ???? (This machine is damaged, and won't charge batteries regardless of the OS)

Overview

First and for most: I am writing this completely from memory as a service to people who might want to do this or are considering buying laptop to use with linux. Things may not go the way I write them here. No guarantee warrantee or promises. If you find a mistake, please contact me.

I have found my 3250 to be very stable in both Windows and Linux. It hibernates and restores in both OSes with out a hitch, and it doesn't crash.

The installation of Redhat 7.3 on this model is much easier than with previous version. Others who have installed older version of Redhat (6.3 and lower) on similiar models (n3200, n3270) have reported display problems that required manual configuration of XFree86.conf in order for X Windows to work. In Redhat 7.3, no adjustment was necessary, and it is completely possible to go through the entire installation processes without issuing text based commands.

Do to Microsoft's legendary openness and cooperation with other OSes, Windows 2000 should be installed first before you attempt to install Redhat 7.3. I did my installation with CDRWs I previously burnt from ISOs on a mac. I didn't even bother to try an installation via FTP. It should work. YMMV.

Occasionally, I boot, and X is dimmed: the desktop appears at about 50% brightness. I find that rebooting usually fixes things, if not, then FSCKing the root filesystem does.

Another thing: You need to get the newest BIOS from HP if you want to be able to support drives larger than 8 gigs or so from www.hp.com

For more wonderful information about Linux and laptops, try www.linux-on-laptops.com

Step by Step (mostly)

Prep the Computer and Install Windows :

1. Backup your data, if you care about it, that is.
2. (what I had to do because I added memory) Resize the sleep partition: Boot off the recovery CD and choose to create a recovery partition, without installing an operating system. This will reformat your drive.
3. Boot from the Win2k cd. There will be 1 large partition, 1 partition close to the amount of memory you have, and a smaller one (2 megs or so) for the diagonistic tools. (Only 2 may show up... i'm foggy here)
4. Sub partition the largest partition into the scheme you want for the windows and linux systems. (allocate how much you want for each, you don't have to set up the swap here, disk druid can do it later). On an OEM Setup (6 gigs of disk, 64 megs of ram) I would suggest that you dedicate roughly 3-4 gigs to windows and the rest to Linux (You can always mount the windows partition in Linux to save your files, but Windows won't mount EXT2.), with a 128 meg swap partition in linux ( Your linux install will be a bit cramped... but not badly so.) With my setup, I gave Windows roughly 14 gigs, and made a Linux partition on the rest (~5 gigs), with 256 megs of swap.
5. Install windows on the partition you created for it. Format the Partition FAT32 (NOT NTFS). Go through all the necessary reboots to get to a desktop with a start menu.
6. Install the HP Drivers for the Pavilion n3250. Available from www.hp.com. (It works a lot better with them installed.)
7. I suppose you could patch everything up to SP3 and place all the security patches if you feel like it.

Install Linux!

1. Boot off the first RedHat 7.3 Disc. Setup you mouse and whatnot. You will want to manually set up your partitions with disk Druid. Disk Druid will say that something is non-standard with you filesystem, but it's still usable.
2. Install GRUB in the MBR. Set whichever OS you want to be the default.
3. Setup one part of the remaining (non-windows) space as EXT2 for Linux, the other part as swap. (sizes discussed previously)
4. Select the EXT2 partition.
5. Configure the package configuration to fit you needs.
6. Wait forever as it installs.
7. Reboot and Run UP2DATE to make sure you have the latest and greatest. This will also ask you to install a new kernel, which I have done, and it seems to be kopesthetic.

I updated the computer to Redhat 8.0 a couple of months ago, and it seems to work just fine, with the same power issues that Redhat 7.3 had. Redhat 8.0 allow you to have a PS/2 and a USB mouse connected simultaneously, which is a nice improvement from Redhat 7.3. In spite of the generally wonderful linux operation on this computer, i will no longer be updating this page as this laptop's issues with windows are forcing me to sell it. My next linux box will probably be a desktop [and dual procs if my pocket book can manage it:) ].

Monitors section from my XF86Config file:

This file is found in the /etc/X11/ directory on my system. In case anybody has any X problems, this might help.