An installation of GNU/Linux OpenSUSE LEAP 42.2 went fine
on an German HP Notebook - 15-ba511ng 39.6 cm (15.6").
The biggest problem was that the Wireless network (WLAN) adapter
needed a special setting to manually select one of its two internal
antennas. For this I’ve ended up adding the following line to the file
/etc/modprobe.d/99-local.conf:
# fixing problems with the
# 02:00.0 Network controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8723BE PCIe Wi
reless Network Adapter
# Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Device 81c1
# helpful in finding the solutions where:
# * https://askubuntu.com/questions/590414/wifi-problems-with-rtl8723be-in-ubu
ntu-14-04
# * https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Wireless_network_configuration#rtl8723ae.2Frtl8723be
options rtl8723be ant_sel=1
Without this setting the signal quality of wlan was very poor. It was
working to some extend, but only if you were very close to the access point.
== Details
(If you know a better place to report an experience like this, let me know.)
=== Installation
For the installation I’ve used the network install image, wrote it to
and usb-stick, plugged an ethernet cable to the laptop, booted
from the usb-stick and followed default instructions, selecting
a Plasma desktop system.
=== Software Settings
The idea of the system is to offer a machine to browse the internet,
do email and some office work. Thus I’ve installed firefox with Ublock Origin
and raised the icon and font sizes. Used the additional packman repos to get
additionall (non or semi-free) codecs.
In yast I’ve installed the optional yast2-online-update-configuration
package and tried to set it to daily and yes to questions.
I’m unsure if this setting works for laptops that are only powered
one a few hours a day and maybe offline for a while.
A brief a day later for a few hours and reboots did not show the
updates to be installed automatically.
=== Laptop Hardware
The HP 15-ba511ng is an inexpensive laptop (~320 €) coming with FreeDOS,
so I’ve avoided the 50-60 € Microsoft “tax”.
For this sale I’ve used Computer-Universe but it was a bad experience
as they did not state the delivery time from stock correctly, it took them
more them 10 days instead of the indicated 1-2 days. So next time I’ll go
to a vendor which specialises from https://linuxpreloaded.com/ or
a major one that accepts paydirekt. (I’m a buyer that values diversity
so I’ve chosen AMD and a less known retailer as long as I still
have a reasonable selection.)
Hardware Specs (DE) from HP: https://support.hp.com/de-de/document/c05387297?jumpid=reg_r1002_dede_c-001_title_r0002
- AMD Quad-Core A6-7310 APU with AMD Radeon R4
- 4 GB
- Display (1.920 x 1.080)
=== Working components
Observed as working:
- sound speaker and headphone
- video camera and microphone
- X11 windows system
- touchpad and two finger scrolling
- networking: ethernet and wireless (with the necessary setting above)
- usb ports (for mouse, sticks)
Untested, thus unknown:
- suspend/hibernate
- hdmi output
- bluetooth (but maybe working at least there was symbol)
=== Wishes
A few points where the experience could be improved:
-
Obviously the wireless lan driver setting seen above. This will lose
many people as the solution is hard to find.
However this is best for HP or Realtek to improve, Realtek could make
sure that the auto antenna selection is working and HP could do a
GNU/Linux test of the component for all hardware they sell, especially
if it only comes with FreeDOS. -
A better solution for automatic online updates for laptop that works
reliably. I’ve found the docs or LEAP at
https://doc.opensuse.org/documentation/leap/startup/html/book.opensuse.startup/cha.onlineupdate.you.html#sec.onlineupdate.you.automatically
It does not say how to deal with the software updates icon in the tray
which I had hoped would be come superfluous. -
The default theme and sizes are not really suitable for FullHD on 39.6 cm.
And I did not find a quick option to change them all, this is probably
a Plasma Workspace Setting issue. However I’ve chosen OpenSUSE LEAP 42.2
especially because of the strong Plasma (and other KDE application support).
One example that bugged me was the very light wireless lan icon which I
did not see (because there were no networks before the wireless chip settings
and the display changes the colors slightly on different angles. -
A way to pay a reasonable amount (e.g. 20€) for the makers of the OpenSuse
GNU/Linux distribution for their nice work!