Compaq Presario C769US Part 2: Ubuntu 9.04, Jaunty Jackelope

In Part 1 I talked about how I’ve only got this Compaq Presario C769US for a couple days as part of a “fix Vista” gig, and that I’ll not be doing any kind of a Linux install. I booted to a Fedora livecd and had nothing but glowing reviews for this C769US. I’m not sure who to thank at Compaq, or who is in charge of setting up the Presario laptops, but I’m pleased that phase 1 of the Linux test went so well. Again, many thanks to Pam at From Our House to Yours for lending her Compaq Presario C769US laptop to the cause…

Ubuntu Live CD

I personally use Ubuntu Hardy. It’s one of the LTS (Long Term Support) versions of Ubuntu, so I shouldn’t have to reinstall my OS due to outdated software repositories any time soon. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have some of the newer things that Intrepid and Jaunty have.

While I started with a Hardy livecd, I ended up using Jaunty, and I’ll tell you why a bit further down.

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

No wireless network.

01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR242× 802.11abg Wireless PCI Express Adapter (rev 01)

This device wont; work out of the box with Hardy. At this point, I can make it work (like I do with a Broadcom card on my own Dell Inspiron 1000) but my aim with this article and the whole site is to tell people about laptops that work right out of the box. So, on to Jaunty.

Lo and behold, the wireless card works fine in Jaunty. Other than a brown theme, this OS looks and acts pretty much like Fedora did. No wifi radar necessary (like on my Dell), just click on the network icon up near the clock and VOILA!, a wireless Compaq Presario C769US running Ubuntu.

Multimedia

Desktop effect are not working in Jaunty. That’s ok, I’ve been living without them forever (since DOS 6.22) and they’re not entirely necessary. I’m sure that with enough farting around, I could get either foll bore compiz or beryl running, and if I had more time with the laptop I might have tried it.

Sound works. The webcam on this worked in Jaunty too, but I had to install an app to play with it first. I chose Cheese, since it worked so well in the Fedora 10 test.
I did not test the webcam in Hardy, and wouldn’t have been able to install software without plugging into the wired network.

Conclusion

Ubuntu wasn’t quite the smashing success that Fedora was on the Compaq Presario C769US, but it worked well enough (with Jaunty) that I wouldn’t hesitate to install Ubuntu on this box. It boils down to whether you want a Red Hat or Debian type of Linux.