# HP Compaq 6710b



## Andy_Kosela (Jun 13, 2009)

Anyone has any experience with running FreeBSD on it? I'm especially curious whether Fn brightness keys and/or acpi_video module are working... It has intel X3100 graphics card.


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## vermaden (Jun 13, 2009)

Intel X3100 / GM965 laptops work great with FreeBSD (including my own), if you face any issues, then upgrade your BIOS to latest version and try again.


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## Andy_Kosela (Jun 13, 2009)

Are you sure Fn brightness keys work out of the box both in the console and X?  My company is willing to buy me any laptop I want and I'm looking for a model which will work flawlessly with FreeBSD, especially Fn brightness keys which usually don't work.  On my current 6715b (Turion64 X2, radeon) they are working very nicely, although I would prefer Intel Core2 Duo based CPU.


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## vermaden (Jun 13, 2009)

Andy_Kosela said:
			
		

> Are you sure Fn brightness keys work out of the box both in the console and X?  My company is willing to buy me any laptop I want and I'm looking for a model which will work flawlessly with FreeBSD, especially Fn brightness keys which usually don't work.  On my current 6715b (Turion64 X2, radeon) they are working very nicely, although I would prefer Intel Core2 Duo based CPU.



If you have choice, then get Dell Latitude D630/D830, everything works including brightness keys (no matter if console/x11) or if you prefer Lenovo, then you can get 14"/15" T61, be sure to get ones with X3100 Intel graphics.


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## Andy_Kosela (Jun 13, 2009)

If going Dell way, I would go with Dell Precision M4400 model (someone let me know it works very nicely with FreeBSD). T61 is definetly also very nice but I don't know if you can still buy it. I would prefer HP laptops as I like my current 6715b, but it seems there are some problems with the new line of them. e.g. 6730b (even acpi_video module doesn't work).


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## Andy_Kosela (Jun 13, 2009)

Also what about modern Dell Latitude E6500? It has NVIDIAÂ®  QuadroÂ®  NVS 160M5 256MB DDR35 or
IntelÂ®  Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD


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## vermaden (Jun 13, 2009)

Andy_Kosela said:
			
		

> Also what about modern Dell Latitude E6500? It has NVIDIAÂ®  QuadroÂ®  NVS 160M5 256MB DDR35 or
> IntelÂ®  Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD



I havent tried FreeBSD on that one recently, but 7.1-STABLE got a lot problems, first, stay away from blobVidia, I have heard that FreeBSD usage on e6400/e6500 is stabilizing (less problems) but from what I recall, WiFi still does not work, X4500 should be supported now, D630/T61 is you safest (and cheaper then e6400/e6500) choice right now I'm afraid.

Aslo You can buy additional 6-cell battery for D630/D830 and plug it into DVDRW bay, e6400/e6500 does not offer such thing.

With extended 9-cell battery and 6-cell modular bay battery I got about 8 hours of usage on my Dell D630.


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## Andy_Kosela (Jun 13, 2009)

hmm it seems I would have to use NVIDIA drivers for Dell Precision M4400 which I don't like too much (I would prefer using default Xorg drivers).

T61 is definetly very nice. I like the design and overall feel of it. It seems you can still buy it
http://www.fadfusion.com/selection.php?product_item_number=10040806366

Although I need 1280x800 (WXGA) and not WUXGA.
Can you confirm whether Fn brightness keys work in T61?


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## vermaden (Jun 13, 2009)

Andy_Kosela said:
			
		

> hmm it seems I would have to use NVIDIA drivers for Dell Precision M4400 which I don't like too much (I would prefer using default Xorg drivers).




So do not buy M4400.

T61 is definetly very nice. I like the design and overall feel of it. It seems you can still buy it
http://www.fadfusion.com/selection.php?product_item_number=10040806366



			
				Andy_Kosela said:
			
		

> Although I need 1280x800 (WXGA) and not WUXGA.


Why get tired working on such low resolution?

I personally have 1440x900 I cannot even imagine working on 1280x800.

WUXGA/1920x1200 will give a lot of space on your workspace for applications.

Also, T61/D630 are very popular laptops, you should check other sources then only limit yourself to *fadfusion.com*.

Models with 1280x800 are the most popular ones (and cheaper).



			
				Andy_Kosela said:
			
		

> Can you confirm whether Fn brightness keys work in T61?


I do not own T61, so cannot canfirm that, maybe someone with such model will take part in this thread.


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## Andy_Kosela (Jun 13, 2009)

vermaden said:
			
		

> So do not buy M4400.
> I personally have 1440x900 I cannot even imagine working on 1280x800.



Which fonts you use in xterm? They are already very small on 1280x800, bigger resolution gonna make them even smaller and too hard to read. I'm using at the moment:

Rxvt*font:-xos4-terminus-medium-r-normal--12-120-72-72-c-60-iso8859-2
Rxvt*boldFont:-xos4-terminus-medium-r-normal--12-120-72-72-c-60-iso8859-2

Can you make a screenshot of your terminal in 1440x900?


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## devel (Jun 13, 2009)

Andy_Kosela said:
			
		

> Anyone has any experience with running FreeBSD on it? I'm especially curious whether Fn brightness keys and/or acpi_video module are working... It has intel X3100 graphics card.



Got HP6710b here.
Without acpi_video Fn brightness keys just work;

With kldloaded acpi_video Fn brightness keys don't work, however brightness is adjusted by means of sysctl:

```
hw.acpi.video.lcd0.brightness: 100
hw.acpi.video.lcd0.fullpower: 100
hw.acpi.video.lcd0.levels: 100 51 30 37 44 51 58 65 72 79 86 93 100
```

All mentioned above is true for FreeBSD7/FreeBSD8. BIOS info:

```
kenv | egrep 'smbios\.bios'
smbios.bios.reldate="01/15/2009"
smbios.bios.vendor="Hewlett-Packard"
smbios.bios.version="68DDU Ver. F.15"
```

PS:
my nb has LCD of resolution 1680x1050 - it is _very_ convinient in terms of everyday work.
fonts, dpi and all that fancy stuff is a matter of proper settings of DM - so I'd like to mention it's not worth to pay that much attention how font will look like, because it will exactly look like you will configure it ;o).


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## Andy_Kosela (Jun 13, 2009)

devel, thanks for confirmation. I assume you are using intel(4) driver.


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## devel (Jun 13, 2009)

Andy_Kosela said:
			
		

> devel, thanks for confirmation. I assume you are using intel(4) driver.


Sure, it is *very difficult* to get 1680x1050 using vesa ;o).
Well, you are right. Laptop has X3100 on board which is drived by intel driver.


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## vermaden (Jun 14, 2009)

Andy_Kosela said:
			
		

> Can you make a screenshot of your terminal in 1440x900?



I generally use *fixed* bitmap font:
http://fc07.deviantart.com/fs17/f/2007/169/6/4/FISH_vs_ZSH_by_vermaden.png

My *~/.Xdefaults* (use with 75 DPI):

```
xterm*font:             -*-fixed-*-*-*-*-*-100-*-*-*-*-iso8859-*
urxvt.font:             -*-fixed-*-*-*-*-*-100-*-*-*-*-iso8859-*
```


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## Andy_Kosela (Jun 15, 2009)

Thanks, vermaden.


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## Carpetsmoker (Jun 19, 2009)

> Originally Posted by Andy_Kosela
> Can you confirm whether Fn brightness keys work in T61?
> 
> I do not own T61, so cannot canfirm that, maybe someone with such model will take part in this thread.



They work for me.
thinkwiki.org is a very valuable resource, mostly for Linux, but with some thought it can easily be adapted for FreeBSD.

As for T61 availability: Lenovo stopped making them, they are making T400/T500 only now, some suppliers still have some stock, but they are becoming increasingly rarer to find.


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