Product

The HP Compaq dc7600 is a low profile desktop system. It doesn't have any DVI output, and the PCI slots are low-profile and because of this they appear to be unsuitable for use with the pcHDTV card.

Drivers

Here, I'll just list the main components of the system, and the linux drivers used to drive them.

Disk Drive

There's space for a single SATA drive, weirdly located just under the main power supply. There are two SATA connectors on the motherboard.

Video

The marketing name is "Integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950". This is an Intel Corporation 945G Integrated Graphics Controller. It works fine with xorg i810 driver, including 3D acceleration. Tested in both Open SuSE 10.0 GA and in Debian Testing ("Etch"). For Debian, the Testing installer didn't detect the graphics card automatically, so I needed to edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf to comment out the vesa and use i810, as follows:

Section "Device"
        Identifier      "Generic Video Card"
#       Driver          "vesa"
        Driver          "i810"
        BusID           "PCI:0:2:0"
EndSection

The graphics works fine with Xgl also, tested using the Kororaa Xgl Live CD 0.2 as well as opensuse 10.1 where it was a little more awkward to get it running and I used the following scripts:

  Xgl -accel glx:pbuffer -accel xv:fbo:1 & sleep 2
  DISPLAY=:0 xterm

This should bring up the usual grey X11 screen, with a single terminal over in the top left. Now type in the following, to start up the compositing window manager (which actually initiates all of the OpenGL effects, remember Xgl is only the server):

compiz --replace gconf decoration wobbly fade minimize cube rotate zoom scale move resize place menu &

Now, we start up KDE but since the compiz is already running it won't let the KDE window manager start. So let's kludge it and use the gnome window decorator instead:

  startkde &
  sleep 10 & gnome-window-decorator

Now you should notice that the menus "bounce" a little, your windows have a nice wiggly feel to them, and you have all the usual Xgl effects running. For example, bring the mouse up to the top-right corner of the screen should "zoom" out all of the windows, and arrange them neatly for you to choose which one you want. After clicking on it, all the windows will "spring" back to their initial cluttered positions. Another effect is using Ctrl Alt and left/right arrow keys to "spin" your desktop like a cube. The transparency level of each window can be changed using the Alt key and the mouse scroll wheel.

In Ubuntu Feisty Fawn, things have gotten even easier. Enable it under

System --> Preferences -->  Desktop Effects

and click on the button Enable Desktop Effects. To enable "focus-follows-mouse" (instead of "click-to-focus"), invoke /usr/bin/gconf-editor and navigate as follows:

apps --> compiz --> general --> allscreens --> options

Then remove the checkmark in the click_to_focus box. You may also prefer to uncheck the autoraise box.

You may prefer to try the Beryl project with Feisty Fawn, as Beryl makes it far easier to configure all the useful effects like:

• magnification -- zoom in on a part of the screen. This is very useful, especially for presentations.
• "negative" -- where you can set a individual windows or the entire screen to appear as though they were a photographic negatives - very refreshing for tired eyes.
• "opacify" -- this is where "hovering" over a partially-obscured window will cause all of the other (cluttering) windows to just "fade out" for a while, so that you can then see the contents of your window without having to actually bring it to the front.

Of course, Beryl has all the cool features from Compiz that you already know and love, as well as many more, such as animations. It feels a bit evil to "burn" your windows so that they disappear in a puff of fiery smoke when you close them, but you can redeem yourself by having them magically "wave" into existence when they're opened. There are so many animation settings that it can get a bit overwhelming, but they are all very well executed and using them is actually pretty fun. Initially finding the ones you prefer, though, can be a hazard to your productivity.

To get Beryl started in the first place, don't use the "Enable Desktop Effects" button, but instead use the command beryl-manager.

To disable "Click to Focus" in Beryl, you can find the setting in the Applications -> System Tools -> Beryl Settings Manager, under General Options under the Focus & Raise collection (over on the right). Uncheck the box Click To Focus [ ] and also uncheck the box Auto-Raise [ ].

Ethernet

Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5752 Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express (rev 01). This is auto-detected by Debian's Testing Netinst (kernel 2.6.15-1-486), as well as by the Open SuSE 10.0 GA installer.

USB

Two USB ports on the front and six on the back. It seems that some of the USB ports are USB2 (ehci_hcd) and some are USB (uhci_hcd).

Audio

The audio controller is Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 01). The linux sound driver is auto-detected, and uses the snd_hda_intel ALSA driver.

Physical Dimensions

4 inches high, a little more than 13 inches across, and 15 inches deep.

Drive Bays

• 1x5.25" External Bay
• 1x3.5" Internal Bay

Serial port

There's one serial port. Not tested yet.

Parallel port

Haven't tested the parallel port.

Installation

It's convenient to install either Debian Testing Netinst, or Open SuSE 10.0 GA on this machine.

Other useful info

Front I/O

• 2 x USB (not sure if these are USB 2.0)
• 1 x MIC-In
• 1 x Head Phone Socket

Rear I/O

• PS/2 KB/Mouse, MIC-In/Line-In/Line-Out
• 6 x USB ports (not sure which are USB 2.0)
• 1 x RJ45(LAN)
• 1 x VGA
• 1 x Parallel
• 1 x Serial

Chipset

• Intel 945G Express Chipset

CPU

CPU is an Intel P4 650 (3.2 GHz).

cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor       : 0
vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 15
model           : 4
model name      : Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.20GHz
stepping        : 3
cpu MHz         : 3190.859
cache size      : 2048 KB
fdiv_bug        : no
hlt_bug         : no
f00f_bug        : no
coma_bug        : no
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level     : 5
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe lm pni monitor ds_cpl est cid cx16 xtpr
bogomips        : 6384.56

L2 Cache

L2 Cache is 2 megabytes.

Front Side Bus (FSB)

• 800 MHz

Memory

The memory is of type PC2-4200 (DDR2-533).

For Debian, if you have more than 1GB and you don't see all the memory you have installed, make sure you've installed the i686 kernel and are not still running the default i486 kernel. Use the command uname -r to check what version and check that it shows 2.6.15-1-686 and not 2.6.15-1-486. If it does, install the i686 kernel using:

apt-get install linux-image-2.6.15-1-686 

The output MemTotal: line from /proc/meminfo should show all of the memory you have installed.

Here, the memory is 2GB with two 1024MB sticks, as follows:

cat /proc/meminfo
MemTotal:      2068960 kB
MemFree:       1081988 kB
Buffers:        115504 kB
Cached:         696656 kB
SwapCached:          0 kB
Active:         278232 kB
Inactive:       622860 kB
HighTotal:     1171260 kB
HighFree:       382196 kB
LowTotal:       897700 kB
LowFree:        699792 kB
SwapTotal:      522104 kB
SwapFree:       522104 kB
Dirty:            1532 kB
Writeback:           0 kB
Mapped:         140304 kB
Slab:            20032 kB
CommitLimit:   1556584 kB
Committed_AS:   677452 kB
PageTables:       2028 kB
VmallocTotal:   114680 kB
VmallocUsed:      9704 kB
VmallocChunk:   104564 kB

Output of lspci -v

0000:00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 945G/P Memory Controller Hub (rev 02)
        Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company: Unknown device 3011
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
        Capabilities: [e0] #09 [5109]

0000:00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 945G Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 02) (prog-if 00 [VGA])
        Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company: Unknown device 3011
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 58
        Memory at e0400000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=512K]
        I/O ports at 10c0 [size=8]
        Memory at d0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
        Memory at e0480000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256K]
        Capabilities: [90] Message Signalled Interrupts: 64bit- Queue=0/0 Enable-
        Capabilities: [d0] Power Management version 2

0000:00:1b.0 0403: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 01)
        Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company: Unknown device 3011
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 217
        Memory at e04c0000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
        Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2
        Capabilities: [60] Message Signalled Interrupts: 64bit+ Queue=0/0 Enable-
        Capabilities: [70] #10 [0091]

0000:00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 01) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
        Bus: primary=00, secondary=20, subordinate=20, sec-latency=0
        Capabilities: [40] #10 [0141]
        Capabilities: [80] Message Signalled Interrupts: 64bit- Queue=0/0 Enable+
        Capabilities: [90] #0d [0000]
        Capabilities: [a0] Power Management version 2

0000:00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 01) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
        Bus: primary=00, secondary=3f, subordinate=3f, sec-latency=0
        Memory behind bridge: e0500000-e07fffff
        Capabilities: [40] #10 [0141]
        Capabilities: [80] Message Signalled Interrupts: 64bit- Queue=0/0 Enable+
        Capabilities: [90] #0d [0000]
        Capabilities: [a0] Power Management version 2

0000:00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #1 (rev 01) (prog-if 00 [UHCI])
        Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company: Unknown device 3011
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 201
        I/O ports at 1000 [size=32]

0000:00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #2 (rev 01) (prog-if 00 [UHCI])
        Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company: Unknown device 3011
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 209
        I/O ports at 1020 [size=32]

0000:00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #3 (rev 01) (prog-if 00 [UHCI])
        Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company: Unknown device 3011
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 217
        I/O ports at 1040 [size=32]

0000:00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #4 (rev 01) (prog-if 00 [UHCI])
        Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company: Unknown device 3011
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 225
        I/O ports at 1060 [size=32]

0000:00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 01) (prog-if 20 [EHCI])
        Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company: Unknown device 3011
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 201
        Memory at e04c4000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=1K]
        Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2
        Capabilities: [58] #0a [20a0]

0000:00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev e1) (prog-if 01 [Subtractive decode])
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
        Bus: primary=00, secondary=05, subordinate=05, sec-latency=32
        Capabilities: [50] #0d [0000]

0000:00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GB/GR (ICH7 Family) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 01)
        Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company: Unknown device 3011
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0
        Capabilities: [e0] #09 [100c]

0000:00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) IDE Controller (rev 01) (prog-if 8a [Master SecP PriP])
        Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company: Unknown device 3011
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 169
        I/O ports at <ignored>
        I/O ports at <ignored>
        I/O ports at <ignored>
        I/O ports at <ignored>
        I/O ports at 10a0 [size=16]

0000:00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801GB/GR/GH (ICH7 Family) Serial ATA Storage Controllers cc=IDE (rev 01) (prog-if 8f [Master SecP SecO PriP PriO])
        Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company: Unknown device 3011
        Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 233
        I/O ports at 10d8 [size=8]
        I/O ports at 10f0 [size=4]
        I/O ports at 10e0 [size=8]
        I/O ports at 10f4 [size=4]
        I/O ports at 10b0 [size=16]
        Capabilities: [70] Power Management version 2

0000:3f:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5752 Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express (rev 01)
        Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company: Unknown device 3011
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 50
        Memory at e0500000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
        Capabilities: [48] Power Management version 2
        Capabilities: [50] Vital Product Data
        Capabilities: [58] Message Signalled Interrupts: 64bit+ Queue=0/3 Enable+
        Capabilities: [d0] #10 [0001]

-- PeterKnaggs - 24 Mar 2007

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