dv4z team mailing list archive

[michael <dnaspliceoflife@xxxxxxxxx>]

Guy
Thanks for that thoughtful response. I was going to develop a similar
response but time was not on my side and you got to it first. Coming to
a new OS can be intimidating but I've felt that being open and honest
while encouraging engagement made things a little easier for me.
Sometimes it is difficult to wrap your head around a non MS way of doing
things but once you do things become much more straight forward. So, I
just wanted to give you a shout and say thanks for the  effort to the
newbie. Without the efforts of people such as yourself I would not have
made the jump. 

Mike

On Mon, 2010-01-25 at 12:30 -0600, Guy Stalnaker wrote:

> Amy,
> 
> I have similar issues with my HP dv4.
> 
> For you the issues are going to be the amount of work you want to do, 
> and what you'll need to learn to do it, versus your willingness to live 
> with the Ubuntu on your laptop as it is (is it critical that you get 
> that internal mic working, or the camera, or can you live with a 
> microphone plugged into the front input jack? that kind of thing).
> 
> So you'll know. Linux is a community-support operating system and that 
> means that there are 'people out in the world' who contribute software 
> (generally called 'drivers' among other things) to Linux to make it work 
> with all the various monitors, harddrives, usb devices, mouses, 
> keyboards, ethernet cards, modems, audio cards, cameras, etc. that make 
> up a modern computer (generally called 'hardware').  As new kernels (the 
> heart of Linux) are written, or new hardware is developed and installed 
> in computers and laptops, these 'people out in the world' give of their 
> time to update existing drivers to work with the new kernel or write new 
> drivers to work with new hardware.  So, there are specific people who 
> write the drivers for the audio system of your dv3 and my dv4. You can 
> actually communicate directly with these people! That is the wonder of 
> Linux!!
> 
> When I first bought my laptop, I had working jacks but no internal 
> speakers. Everything I found searching with Google failed to get it 
> working. I eventually went directly to the source, the ALSA developers. 
> Don't worry what ALSA means, what is good is that these people are the 
> ones who wrote what mostly works now and are the people who can add to 
> it to make work what's not working.
> 
> But ...
> 
> To use their help you have to be comfortable with downloading what's 
> called 'source code' (the stuff that developers write which become 
> drivers and software) and compiling it into drivers your Ubuntu can use. 
> And you have to edit some configuration files so your Ubuntu knows 
> enough about your audio system and the new drivers to use them. I've 
> been using Linux for well over a decade (and I took programming classes 
> 10 years before that), so doing this is trivial for me. Only you know 
> about yourself :-)
> 
> One more very important thing -- you absolutely must be comfortable 
> using a 'shell' or, to say it another way, the command line via a 
> 'terminal' application. Every Linux system comes with at least one 
> terminal application, xterm. Almost all have their own (Gnome uses 
> gnome-terminal, KDE uses console, etc.).  An email is not a good place 
> to introduce you to using a terminal, but you cannot, really, do what 
> I'm talking about here without using a terminal. So, first thing you'd 
> need to do, if you can't already, is use a terminal (sometimes called a 
> shell):
> 
> http://www.linuxcommand.org/
> 
> Next is compiling source code (e.g., audio drivers). Here are several 
> online introductions to compiling source code. I've tried to find for 
> you sites that don't use a lot of jargon--hopefully I've succeeded:
> 
> http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Teaching/Unix/unix7.html
> http://liquidweather.net/howto/index.php?id=82
> http://www.maximumpc.com/article/howtos/howto_compile_programs_from_source_linux
> 
> And then finally, those ALSA developer guys ...
> 
> http://alsa.opensrc.org/index.php/TroubleShooting
> 
> That may seem like a starting point, but when you look at step 2., 
> you'll see they are already talking about compiling.  The 
> alsa-developers mailing list was where I found the help I needed.  I was 
> able to get instructions on what they required to help diagnose the 
> problem (and where to look to find that information). They were 
> excellent and very helpful.
> 
> I know this is a lot to throw at you, but this is one of the 
> advantages/disadvantages of the Linux world.  But you need to be 
> unafraid and bold -- you can learn this and do it.  Thousands of people 
> have.
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Guy
> 
> Albert Vilella wrote:
> > ccing to the list.
> > 
> > On Sat, Jan 23, 2010 at 10:45 PM, amywallis82 <amywallis82@xxxxxxxx 
> > <mailto:amywallis82@xxxxxxxx>> wrote:
> > 
> >     hello! i joined this group because i have am hp dv3-1075 and i have
> >     just, with the help of a friend installed ubuntu on it. everything works
> >     great, except for the internal mic (mic jack does work and speakers).
> >     nothing we tried worked. in an attempt to make it work we installed the
> >     latest version of ubuntu that is yet untested(or something like that).
> >     it still didn't work. Help me pleeeeeease. i am very very new to linux.
> >     i was very excited to find this group! thanks for creating it.
> > 
> >     amy
> >     --
> >     This message was sent from Launchpad by the user
> >     amywallis82 (https://launchpad.net/~amywallis82
> >     <https://launchpad.net/%7Eamywallis82>)
> >     using the "Contact this team" link on the HP Pavilion dvXz laptop
> >     and Linux
> >     team page to each member directly.
> >     For more information see
> >     https://help.launchpad.net/YourAccount/ContactingPeople
> > 
> > 
> > 
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