How to install Debian GNU/Linux on a Compaq Presario R3370US notebook with AMD64 processor

I have a Compaq Presario R3370us notebook with a 64-bit AMD processor, and it works great.

Here is how I installed Debian 64-bit. I formatted my 30GB hard disk and created three primary partitions. Later during the basic install, I created a 512MB SWAP logical partition.

If you do not want to reformat your hard disk and only want to resize your Windows partitions, burn a Knoppix or Overclockix CD and run the qtparted program.

Here is a list of my partitions:

Windows	Linux	File system	Size	Description
C drive	/dev/hda1	NTFS	15 GB	Primary Windows partition
D drive	/dev/hda2	FAT32	15 GB	Shared partition between Linux and Windows
(unrecognised by Windows)	/dev/hda4	ext3	7 GB	Linux native partition with ext3 Journaling file system
(unrecognised by Windows)	/dev/hda5	Swap	512 MB	Linux swap partition

Screenshot of my partitions :

lonewolf:/# fdisk -l /dev/hda

Disk /dev/hda: 40.0 GB, 40007761920 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4864 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1   *           1        1958    15727603+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda2            1959        3916    15727635    c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/hda3            4802        4864      506047+   f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda4            3917        4801     7108762+  83  Linux
/dev/hda5            4803        4864      498015   82  Linux swap / Solaris

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Download the ISO

The install images for Debian GNU/Linux for the AMD64 are at http://debian-amd64.alioth.debian.org/install-images.
Or else just download the latest Sid AMD64 ISO. Write it to a disk using Nero or any other software that writes ISO files to CD.

Boot off the Debian AMD64 CD and finish the basic install with the Debian installer.

If you have a problem with the apt sources, here is the entry corresponding to pure 64 bit.

# Linux AMD64
deb http://debian-amd64.alioth.debian.org/debian-pure64 sid main contrib non-free
deb-src http://debian-amd64.alioth.debian.org/debian-pure64 sid main contrib non-free

Installing essential applications first

You will need a text editor for editing files. nano is the default text editor, but I love emacs, so I installed it first.

apt-get install emacs21

Lets install the latest kernel. I prefer 2.6.9-10-amd64-k8 to 2.6.11.

apt-get install kernel-image-2.6.9-10-amd64-k8
apt-get install kernel-headers-2.6.9-10-amd64-k8

Edit the /boot/grub/menu.lst file and make it match the right kernel version.

If you want small fonts during booting, include vga=791
bike.xpm.gz is a beautiful 16-bit colour bootsplash image I got from here

My menu.lst file

default		0
timeout		7
color cyan/blue white/blue
splashimage=(hd0,3)/boot/grub/splashimage/bike.xpm.gz

title		Debian GNU/Linux
root		(hd0,3)
kernel		/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda4 ro noapic vga=791
initrd		/boot/initrd.img
savedefault
boot

title		Debian GNU/Linux (recovery mode)
root		(hd0,3)
kernel		/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda4 ro single noapic vga=791
initrd		/boot/initrd.img
savedefault
boot

title		Microsoft Windows XP Professional
root		(hd0,0)
savedefault
makeactive
chainloader	+1

Reboot and update the system

apt-get update
apt-get upgrade

You need to have gcc-3.4 to install the nVidia drivers.

apt-get install gcc make ncurses-dev linux-kernel-headers
apt-get install gcc-3.4

Install XFree86 and nVidia drivers

Install X first.

apt-get install x-window-system xlibs-dev

Remove X from startup (temporarily) or else your screen may look like modern art before you install the nVidia drivers.

update-rc.d -f xdm remove

Install the nVidia driver from http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux_display_amd64_1.0-6629.html

Before running the nVidia installer, set the CC variable

export CC='/usr/bin/gcc-3.4'

or else enter it in /etc/profiles and source it with:

source /etc/profile

Now extract the installer and run make.

sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-1.0-6629-pkg2.run -x
cd NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-1.0-6629-pkg2
make
make install

You may need to install g++ if it is not already installed

apt-get install g++

You should see the following files created:

/dev/nvidia0 and /dev/nvidiactl

If /usr/X11R6/lib64 is not a softlink to /usr/X11R6/lib directory

cd /usr/X11R6
rm -rf lib64
ln -s lib lib64

Then edit /etc/modules and add the following line:

nvidia Nvreg_Mobile=0

Add the following to /etc/modutils/aliases :

alias char-major-195 nvidia

ACPI

You will need ACPI for battery management.

apt-get install acpid

Edit /etc/modules and add this:

# ACPI modules
thermal
processor
fan
battery
ac
button

PowerNow

Powernowd is needed for AMD CPUs....

apt-get install powernowd

Edit /etc/modules and add this:

# CPU frequency
freq_table
cpufreq_userspace

# powernow
powernow-k8

Install GDM

I like GDM as the default display manager, so I installed it. You can also install KDM (or XDM) if you wish.

apt-get install gdm

Touchpad

Edit /etc/modules and add the following lines :

# Touchpad
tsdev
evdev
psmouse

Now, install the synaptics driver

apt-get install xlibs-dev libext-dev libx11-dev
unzip synaptics-0.13.6.tar.bz2
make
make install

Start x with

startx

You should see the nVidia logo and GDM starts up!

Sound

Install alsa for the sound.

mkdir /etc/alsa/modutils
apt-get install alsa-base alsa-headers alsa-utils

Create a file called 0.9 at /etc/alsa/modutils/ Download Ted's 0.9 Create a softlink to 0.9 and name it alsa.

ln -s /etc/alsa/modutils/0.9 /etc/modutils/alsa
update-modules

Running 32 bit applications

I preferred the 32-bit chroot system to apt-get install ia32libs since its cleaner.
Here is the official documentation from alioth.debian.org.

Multimedia Players

Xmms is a Winamp clone, and a good app for playing MP3 files or streaming audio.

apt-get install xmms xmms-skins

Xmms also requires libmikmod

apt-get install libmikmod2

My favourite streaming stations are:

You can also download my streaming audio playlist and open it with xmms.

Xine

Xine player is good for viewing video files.

apt-get install xine xine-ui

To watch DVDs, install Ogle. You also need the libdvdcss2 libraries.

apt-get install libdvdcss2
apt-get install ogle ogle-gui

Wireless using ndiswrapper

I could not use wireless on my notebook till 29^th January 2005, when Broadcomm released their 64 bit Windows driver, and then installed ndiswrapper. Everything worked great with the first attempt.

wget http://aleron.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/ndiswrapper/ndiswrapper-1.1.tar.gz
tar -xzvf ndiswrapper-1.1.tar.gz
cd ndiswrapper-1.1
make
make install

Download the Broadcomm 64 bit Windows drivers from http://www.linuxant.com/driverloader/drivers.php

Install unzip and unzip the file with

apt-get install unzip
unzip 64bitBroadcom.zip

Install the driver

ndiswrapper -i netbc564.inf

To check if its really installed

ndiswrapper -l

You should get an output like this

Installed ndis drivers:
netbc564        driver present, hardware present

Bluetooth

Installing Bluetooth on Debian was easier than on other distros. You would need the bluez-utils

apt-get install bluez-utils

Lets scan for any Bluetooth devices that may be around. I enable Bluetooth on my Sony Ericsson T610.

Infrared

Not done yet

iPod

Plug the iPod into a free USB port. Now, find where it is connected with

cat /proc/scsi/scsi

You should get something like

Now lets create a mount point

su
mkdir /mnt/ipod

Insert the file system module

modprobe hfsplus

To make it permanent, edit /etc/modules and add this

hfsplus

Edit /etc/fstab and add the following lines:

/dev/sda3       /mnt/ipod   auto defaults,user,noauto 0 0

Now, lets mount it with

mount /mnt/ipod

gtkpod is a good GUI utility to transfer MP3 files between your hard disk and iPod. Install gtkpod.

apt-get install gtkpod

After using it, eject the iPod

eject /mnt/ipod

To make the iPod eject whenever you are finished using gtkpod, add this to /etc/sudoers

ALL ALL= NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/eject /mnt/ipod

Flash Drive

I lost the documentation here.. will put it up again..

Webcam

Let us first install xawtv to check if the cam is working.

apt-get install xawtv

If you are prompted to create video files, select Yes to it. You may select NTSC as the standard.
Now, run xawtv:

xawtv

The /dev/video0 device file should have been created; this represents the cam. If it gives problems with permissions

chmod 666 /dev/dev/video0

Now let us install the webcam application

apt-get install webcam

You'll need to edit the ~/.webcamrc file to include something like this

[grab]
device = /dev/video0
width = 320
height = 240
delay = 0
input = camera
norm = ntsc
quality = 100

[ftp]
host = www
user = webcam
pass = xxxxxx
dir  = public_html/webcam
file = webcam.jpeg
tmp  = uploading.jpeg
passive = 1
debug = 0
auto = 0
local = 1
ssh = 0

Now, run it

webcam

To broadcast the images, point the browser to your IP address. Thats it :)

Remote Connections

I sometimes connect remotely to my Windows XP machine at work. I use rdesktop to remote connect.

apt-get install rdesktop

If you use GNOME, you can also install grdestop with

apt-get install grdesktop

I installed an SSH server running off my notebook.

apt-get install ssh

Applications for software developers

Apache 1.3 with PHP4 (with GD) mySQL and phpMyAdmin

apt-get install apache 
apt-get install mysql-server mysql-client mysql-admin
apt-get install php4 php4-mysql php4-gd phpmyadmin

Printing to Windows Printers

To print using the shared Windows printer, you need to install cupsys

apt-get install cupsys cupsys-client a2ps gs-esp

I have not configured this yet, but I'll put it up as soon as its done.

Chat software

Yahoo! Messenger (only the i386 version.. this will have to be done in your 32-bit chroot)

wget http://download.yahoo.com/dl/unix/ymessenger_1.0.4_1_i386.deb
dpkg -i ymessenger_1.0.4_1_i386.deb

AMSN Messenger (MSN clone)

apt-get install amsn

Gaim

apt-get install gaim

Credits and Useful Sites

Compiled and maintained by arul john

emacs

How to install Debian GNU/Linux on a Compaq Presario with an AMD64 processor