Compaq Presario C769US Part 1: Fedora Core 10


I’ve only got this Compaq Presario C769US for a couple days (fixing Vista, if you can believe that…) so I’ll not be doing much of a Linux install. I’ll just be using a couple of Linux livecd and seeing how things go. Many thanks to Pam at From Our House to Yours for lending her Compaq Presario C769US laptop to the cause…

Fedora Live CD

First up was Fedora 10. I haven’t used Fedora since FC5 (and that was when I stopped using Fedora altogether) but do still use CentOS on servers, so I’m not a total RH noob.

What’s In There?

Here’s an lspci to get things rolling:
[liveuser@localhost ~]$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile PM965/GM965/GL960 Memory Controller Hub (rev 03)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev f3)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801HEM (ICH8M) LPC Interface Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) IDE Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) SATA AHCI Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 03)
01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR242× 802.11abg Wireless PCI Express Adapter (rev 01)
02:01.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)

Results

I’m loving Fedora on this laptop after about five minutes. Everything I’d want working seems to be. Fedora 10 on the Compaq Presario C769US seems a match made in heaven.

Multimedia

Right out of the box, the desktop effects seem to work. I would guess that a whole compiz or beryl install would go well, but for now it’s nice just to have some wobbly windows and desktops on a cube.

Cheese (the webcam app that ships with Fedora 10) also works with the built in web cam. Fwah!

I heard music at the login screen, so I know that works without any more testing.

Networking

Here is the kicker… Fedora 10 sees and uses the wireless card on this Compaq Presario C769US. This is the line we’d be concerned with in lspci:

Atheros Communications Inc. AR242× 802.11abg Wireless PCI Express Adapter (rev 01)

and where we’d start looking if things didn’t work.

Conclusion

It turns out that whether or not I’m a Linux noob, this laptop will run fine for me.
It networks, it makes noise, and it looks pretty; were I shopping for a new laptop, I wouldn’t hesitate to grab a Compaq Presario C769US and run Fedora 10 on it.

Stay tuned for Part 2, where you’ll find out (along with me—I haven’t tried it yet) what I think of Ubuntu on this rig.