1.1.1. New versions of this document

New versions of this document will be announced regularly on the Usenet groups news:fr.comp.os.linux.annonces and news:comp.os.linux.annonces. They will also be updated on the various anonymous ftp sites which archive such information, mainly ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO/.

Hypertext versions of this and other Linux HOWTO are available on many web sites, including http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO and http://www.freenix.org/unix/linux/HOWTO. Most Linux distributions on CD-ROM include the HOWTO, often under the /usr/share/doc, directory, and you can also buy printed copies from several vendors. Sometimes the HOWTO available from CD-ROM vendors, ftp sites or printed format are out of date. If the date on this HOWTO is more than 6 months in the past, then a newer copy is probably available on the Internet. The site of reference for this HOWTO is http://www.hyper-linux.org/HP-HOWTO/current

Old versions of this document are also available at

If you make a translation of this document into another language, please let me know so that I can include a reference to it here. The following versions are currently available : http://www.HyPer-Linux.org/HP-HOWTO/old

• French by <Bruno@HyPer-Linux.org>

• English by <Bruno@HyPer-Linux.org>

• Japanese by <junichi_shimoda@hp.com>

As english isn't a native language for me, I would really appreciate any correction on the english version.

1.1.2. Suggestions and contributions

I rely on you, the reader, to make this HOWTO useful. If you have any suggestions, corrections, or congratulations :-) don't hesitate to send them to me <Bruno@HyPer-Linux.org>, and I will try to incorporate them in a next revision.

I've created a mailing-list dedicated to this document. Every person interested to contribute can register at mailto:sympa@eurolinux.grenoble.hp.com?subject=subscribe%20hp-howto,

I am also willing to answer general questions on HP hardware and software with Linux, as best I can. Before doing so, please read all of the information in this HOWTO, and then send me detailed information about the problem.

If you publish this document on a CD-ROM or in hardcopy form, a complimentary copy would be appreciated; mail me for my postal address. Also consider making a donation to the Linux Documentation Project to help support free documentation for Linux. Contact the Linux HOWTO coordinator, Guylhem AZNAR <guylhem@rrremovethis.oeil.qc.ca>.

2.1.1. Free Software or Open Source software

A free software (or Open Source software) is a software distributed with its source code, allowing its study, its transmission, its adaptation. The problem, in english, is the use of free, which has both meanings of "at no cost" and "without constraint". Here, it's the second use which has to be considered, hence the use of Open Source. To remember, think of free as speech, not beer.

Depending on the licenses used for its development, the constraints for users of such a software are various. The most open licenses (like the BSD one) allow code appropriation by third parties, including the resell of the resulting software (with or without modification) in commercial products, without any problem, and without owing something else to the originators than the mention of their copyright. Other licenses (like the GNU Public License or GPL) force every modified GPL software to be free GPL software itself ; this doesn't allow the use of such programs in a commercial one. Many other licenses exist, more or less open: the Artistic License (perl), the NPL one (mozilla), the QPL one (Qt) ...

A vast majority of free software is today under the GPL license, even if the BSD world takes always a great place, however less visible, mainly in the press. Linux is placed under the GPL. To have more information on these definitions and the licenses, please refer to the following reference sites :

2.1.2. Examples and counter-examples

First of all, free software and freeware shouldn't be mixed up. A freeware is not necessarily a software provided with its sources, on the contrary of a free software. On the other side, on the contrary of a freeware, you may be charged to obtain a free software (it's not in contradiction with the license used). The ambiguity, as stated before, comes from the word "free" . A freeware is then free of charge, but not necessarily "free of sources". (As well, the shareware has nothing to do with free software).

So examples of important and well-known free software are the Linux and FreeBSD operating systems, the Apache Web server, the SaMBa SMB server, GNU C and C++ compilers ... A contrario, examples of well-known freeware are the Internet Explorer browser, the Eudora Light mail reader, ...

2.1.3. Linux

Linux is a free operating system, superset of the POSIX norm. "Linux" points out the kernel alone. By extension, the name is also given to distributions based on that kernel plus a set of tools from the GNU project.

Linux is by consequence a Unix system, except that it doesn't use any proprietary code and is furnished under the GPL license, implying the availability of the sources. As every Unix system, Linux is multi-tasking and multi-user. It's also extremely portable, and it is available officialy today on processors such as Intel (i386 to Pentium IV), Alpha, Motorola (680x0 and PowerPC), Sparc, StrongArm, Mips. Without mention of the ports, operational or in process on PalmPilot, Itanium (ex-Merced), PA-Risc, Crusoe ...

The system is today perfectly stable and mature. Versions "x.y.z" of the Linux kernel, where "y" is an even number, are stable and only bug corrections are generaly applied when "z" increases. Versions "x.y.z" of the Linux kernel, where "y" is an odd number, are development versions which may be instable and are reserved to developers or intrepids.

From time to time, when the kernel development stabilizes a "freeze" is announced to furnish a new "stable" version (even), and the development goes on on a new version (odd).

The current stable version is the version 2.4.16 (this last number may evolve following the rythm of corrections). Development has on the other side begun again with a 2.5 version.

Numerous presentations of Linux are currently available. Among them, you should consult the one made by Michael Johnson at http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/INFO-SHEET.html

2.2.1. Free software philosophy

In fact, the philosophy promoted by the free software movement is not that different from the one proposed by the scientific movement till a long time already: to put in common ideas and collective knowledge to allow the progression of the research and the growth of this knowledge. The knowledge of the human genome is one of the examples of such a collaborative work.

The computer engineering environment, and especially the software one, seems to have turn away till the last 20 years from these base concepts of the scientific world. It prefers on the contrary to keep the customer captive instead of giving him the information needed to exploit his computing environment the best he can. That's indeed following such a problem at the begining of the 80's that Richard Stallman, who was doing researches in artificial intelligence at the MIT, decided to create the GNU project. This project is the foundation of the current free software movement.

The main ideas promoted by this movement and stated by Richard Stallman himself are :

• Liberty: every user should be free to copy, diffuse, modify a program, either to share it with others, or to adapt it to his own needs. As well, he should be able to analyse it to understand, imitate, improve, verify its operations, as well as every scientific result is published and seen by the peers for verification, study, understanding and realisation of derived works. Could you imagine a vaccine against the liver cancer that another laboratory couldn't derive to make a vaccine against the pancres cancer. Of course, the negative impact of patents at that level is obvious.

• Equality: every person should have the same rights on the software. Thus the provider isn't priviledged and can't keep customers to whom he furnished his work captive. Could you think that only the producer of our vaccine could use it ? With software patents, if you don't pay, you cannot use them (think to discussions around RANT and W3C standards).

• Fraternity: this mode of working encourages the whole computer engineering community to cooperate and thus to produce software more and more reliable and useful to all. Could you imagine that a discovery like the vaccine above couldn't help everyone and favour other discoveries. Again with software patents, nothing like that is possible.

More over the utopy of these ideas, we can find other reasons which allowed free software to spread so widely today. They are detailed in Section 2.2.2.

The free software movement materializes itself also through a community of people. That community, informal meeting of personnalities, is heterogeneous in its contents, actions, ideas, even if all share the same belief in the freedom of the software. That community created for itself the tools needed to its communication : Internet and Usenet. And these communication tools are based of course on a lot of free software to work. Among the outstanding persons of this movement, we can present :

• Linus Torvalds, conceptor of Linux.

• Richard Stallman, GNU project conceptor.

• Eric S. Raymond, writer of several and excellent articles, which inspired so many vocations.

• Larry Wall, author of Perl and of the patch tool, and philosopher.

• Alan Cox, mister "do everything".

• Tim O'Reilly <ask_tim@oreilly.com>, free software advocate and editor of several books dedicated to them.

All these personalities are, above all, excellent computer engineers, which allows them to be recognized as major actors of the free software movement. Their human and communication qualities are also strong characteristics of their nature. In any case they aren't considered for their power, but for their knowledge.

Of course, the free software community is built of thousands of programmers, whose complete list would be too tedious. All share the will of producing useful work, free, and to be recognized for their technical qualities above all.

2.2.2. The choice of free software

To use free software to bring solutions in a computing environment is a choice. First, it is in favour of a plurality of solutions, mainly in the personal computer world which tends to be monopolistic. Then, the choice is made, and that's what is finally important, on the own qualities of free software, which are detailed just below.

Independantly of its qualities, it's possible to give other reasons of various nature, in favor of free software, depending on the type of the person met.

2.2.3. Wrong ideas on free software

Advocating free software consists also to mention some generally accepted ideas concerning them and to fight them.

2.2.4. Real problems around free software

It would not be honest to negate certain remaining problems linked to free software. Some have begun to disappear, other are inherent to the system, other at last will take time to diappear.

The first problem, inherent to the model of free software, is the multiplicity of tools and distributions available. So, if you want to setup a mail server, you have to choose between Sendmail, Exim, PostFix, Qmail, Smail. As well if you want to install Linux, you may choose between the distributions RedHat , SuSE, Slackware, Mandrake, Turbo Linux, Debian. This represents often a problem for the newcomer, but the esperienced user will always prefer to have a large choice he will confront to his particularities and to his experience. As long as an actor respects the rules by freeing his code (it's the case of the rpm and deb formats for example), there is little risk from the comunity point of view. The key point is that the choice is made only taking in account technical criterias.

The second problem, inherent also to the free software birth, is the necessity to have strong Unix and Internet competences, to manage such solutions. The power available through these systems is proportional to the competence of their administrators. And that will stay true even with the growth of more and more grahical solutions to manage them. On the other side, you capitalize the investment in time to learn their functions and that doesn't disappear, because you don't have to re-learn eveything from one version to the other (I use the same editor, vi, for the last 15 years). Don't forget that systems you use daily seem to be simple, uniquely because you passed enough time to learn them. For Internet competences, it's a statement of the obvious to say that this investment isn't lost. At last, even with the work of translators to provide information in french and other languages, a good knowledge in technical english is definitively a plus.

The last problem met in the implementation of free software solutions is to suceed in convincing some managers to go against the prevailing opinion. The aim of this chapter is precisely to give all sorts of argumentations to achieve that goal, but you need each time to show conviction to get his way in the end. As soon as these solutions will be adopted by big firms principaly, resistances will disappear.

2.3.1. Linux and other proprietary Unix (HP-UX, Tru64, AIX, Solaris, Irix)

The situation taken by all the hardware manufacturers places Linux today in the entry level (when it's taken in account) and their own Unix system in the middle and high level. Reality is sometimes more cruel than the situation wanted by the marketing department :-). Technically, a Linux distribution has no cause to be envious of the manufacturers Unix solutions, except for the moment the set of commercial applications and some high-end hardware configuration support. And we can often see that users dope their Unix workstations with free software to complete their usage.

To be precise in the talk, we should consider manufacturers Unix solutions as split in stations and servers.

On the station side, there's no doubt in my mind: for a customer, the only reason today to buy one is linked to the availability of a software or a hardware which wouldn't exist in the free environment, or due to intrinsic performances of the machine. In the first case, we can see that this argument should have a short life time, because logically every software editor (except maybe hardware manufacturers) and every hardware manufacturer has interest in porting their applications or allowing the use of their hardware on all the major environments in the market. As shown by Oracle, Informix, Sybase, ... Linux becomes today one of the major environments. In the second case, the difference in term of performances between the Linux dominant platform (IA-32) and the other competitors decreases and will disappear with the generalisation of the IA-64 architecture, which seems to be adopted largely by a majority of actors. More over, Linux is often available natively on the processors of these actors (Sparc, Mips, PowerPC, 68xxx, Alpha, Crusoe, PA-Risc). I think Linux may represent the famous unique and standard Unix that everybody dreamed of from a long time, without succeeding to impose it (the open and free characteristics brought by Linux are not without influence on that). I think that at the end hardware manufacturer Unix workstations will be restricted to some niches such as high end computation, virtual reality, ... and that as long as solutions are not available on a free environment. Linux offers all the functional qualities of the other Unix systems, and thus of the workstation, on a more various hardware platform and potentially at a better price, if on PCs. So it is the natural choice of every computer engineer with a strong Unix culture (old customer of the workstation) who will prefer that solution to the migration to a Microsoft system typically. With IA-64, we can see that Linux was the first operating system available (including graphical support).

On the server side, in addtion to the points mentionned previously for the stations, problems are more complex. Ram, disks, processors capacities, extensions of every kind make them difficultly repleacable by machines with a IA-32 architecture for example. More over, certain solutions such as high availability clusters for example have just been put in production in a Linux environment, compared to years of operation under Unix. The other brake is often linked to investments already done around software solutions deployed on these servers. Whatever their natural life time is much higher than those of the stations. Changes will thus be made more slowly in that domain. Here we can consider rightly Linux solutions as an entry/middle level solutions, when hardware manufacturer Unix servers are the middle/high level. The introduction of Linux in place of these machines will begin only with a massive availability of applications, mainly in the management sector. Again IA-64, with increased SMP capabilities (16 processors today), higher bandwidth, ... will make things change.

The advantages of the hardware manufacturer solutions, explaining why they are so often chosen when applications are critical, are linked to the homogeneity of the solution (hardware and software mastered by the same entity, which can't invoke a third party in case of problem), and to the support and maintenance guarantees furnished.

Finally, there is not so much antagonism between these systems, because they are full cousins. Their association allows today to computer teams "pro-Unix" to have solutions from start to finish, without having to lose in functions, as it's so often the case with other operating systems available for personal computers.

2.3.2. Linux and SCO/Caldera

The comparaison between Linux and the SCO systems seems to me quite unbalanced. First, all the previous points are vaild here also. More over, SCO isn't a hardware manufacturer, so the homogeneity advantage disappears. The IA-32 Intel platform is supported by both systems, so cost is identical. On the other hand, the software solution has a disproportionate cost (few software provided in the base install, thus a lot of expenses to extend, as well as to increase the number of users). Having to manage one OpenServer, I can say that performances are far beyond those of a Linux system. More over, its conception is older, abounds of symbolic links which makes management complex. The hardware supported by SCO is less numerous than those Linux supports. Only stay as an advantage the installed base and the set of applications available. But for how long ? Caldera now owns both SCO software (Openserver and Unixware) and its own Linux distribution. But instead of trying to free technologies from SCO, they are proprietarizing their linux (1 license per server).

2.3.3. Linux and Windows NT/2000/XP

The comparaison is here more difficult, because Windows NT/2000/XP isn't an open system, as the precedings, which is already redhibitory for certain users. An excellent comparaison was made by John Kirch between Unix and Windows NT Server. I recommend to people searching to have an enlightened opinion on this subject to read it; it's updated regularly and was written by a specialist of both Microsoft and Unix operating systems. Financially, obvious advantage for the free software. And it's more obvious, as for SCO, if you consider the set of complementary software you need to use a server. The author evaluates the difference from 1 to 100 all the same ! Technically, either on the functions provided or on the reliability, the administration, the performances, the hardware supported, and more over the security, Unix systems and particularly free systems outperform what is proposed by Windows NT/2000/XP. The fact to have a GUI non independant from the kernel contributes greatly to the instability of NT/2000/XP, because it's more difficult to avoid errors in a GUI (there is no mastering possible of the user comportment in front of it) rather than in a kernel.

Which are the real advantages of Windows NT ?: the marketing power of Microsoft which persuades the world that computers equal Windows and which leans on the enormous installed base; its office applications (a monopolistic situation on the market) only available in this environment; the confusion maintained between the various flavours of Windows (95/98, NT, 2000), and between the server and client functions; its agreements with the biggest hardware manufacturers which often require them to provide a Microsoft system with their platforms; its technological initiatives to occupy the market in first, based on proprietary code and that often without respect of known or documented standards, or its policy to embrace for killing a movement (described in the "Haloween documents").

The lack of hegemony in the servers sector is the best reason to hope that a plurality of solutions may exist in the future for computers users, also at the desktop. The new XP licensing schema, the passport tool, the registering mechanism during installation are real brakes for users thinking to migrate from a current platform to a new one, as well as the hardware costs linked. In that perspective, an opensource solution should and will be more and more considered.

3.1.1. General information

HP became recently concious of the importance taken by Linux and free software in general, and on its machines particularly. Thus a web site dedicated to Linux in HP environment is now available at http://www.hp.com/go/linux.

In France, there is for a longer time a site on these themes, under the responsability of Jacques Misselis <Jacques_Misselis@hp.com>, hosted by l'�cole Centrale de Lyon at the address http://hpwww.ec-lyon.fr/hpeduc/education.

On the other side, the firm Medasys for which I worked between 1996 and 2000, put at disposition of the community a certain number of information since 1997, available at http://www.medasys.fr/linux. This HOWTO is the result of this work.

HP also realised a synthesis document (PDF format) concerning his position in front of Linux, the White Paper HP Linux Strategy (1999-04).

HP is a member or sponsor of Linux International,Open Source Development Lab, and Linux Standard Base.

3.1.2. Particular announces

HP also communicates through its web site around Linux and free software. You'll find some links here.

• FireHunter announce (10/06/1998)

  http://www.hp.com/communications/solutions/isp/tools/pressroom/releases/pr032999a.html

• Covision program announce (01/27/1999)

  http://www.hp.com/pressrel/jan99/27jan99b.htm

• Linux support on NetServers and IA-64 announce (01/27/1999)

  http://www.hp.com/pressrel/jan99/27jan99.htm

• PA-Risc port announce (03/01/1999)

  http://www.hp.com/pressrel/mar99/01mar99e.htm

• Informix HP association announce (03/02/1999)

  http://www.hp.com/pressrel/mar99/02mar99i.htm

• Kayak Linux support (03/17/1999)

  http://www.hp.com/pressrel/mar99/17mar99e.htm

• World Linux support announce (04/20/1999)

  http://www.hp.com/pressrel/apr99/20apr99a.htm

• HP OpenView announces (05/17/1999)

  http://www.openview.hp.com/solutions/itsm/press/press.asp?docid=314

• Availability of Apache on HP 3000 (Summer/1999)

  http://www.businessservers.hp.com/falladvisor/sum99/Summer99/apache.html

• Visualize Linux support announce (06/21/1999)

  http://www.hp.com/pressrel/jun99/21jun99g.htm

• Open Source Software commitment by HP (08/09/1999)

  http://internetsolutions.enterprise.hp.com/linux/news/PRelease4.html

• Aberdeen group analysis on HP position on free software (08/09/1999)

  http://internetsolutions.enterprise.hp.com/linux/news/aberdeen_white_paper.html

• HP Linux vision (01/01/2000)

  http://www.hp.com/visualize/programs/news/archive/linuxvision.html

• HP announces the certification of its DAT and DLT products under Linux (02/02/2000)

  http://www.hp.com/pressrel/feb00/02feb00c.htm

• HP Brings Award-winning 3-D VISUALIZE Graphics to Linux Desktop (02/02/2000)

  http://www.hp.com/pressrel/feb00/02feb00b.htm and http://internetsolutions.enterprise.hp.com/linux/feb02page.html

• HP and Intel Release IA-64 Developer's Kit for Linux (06/13/2000)

  http://www.hp.com/pressrel/jun00/13jun00a.htm

• HP Announces Linux Support for State-of-the-art 3-D Graphics Accelerators (07/25/2000)

  http://www.hp.com/pressrel/jul00/25jul00b.htm

• HP Expands Commitment to Linux (08/14/2000)

  http://www.hp.com/pressrel/aug00/14aug00.htm

• HP adds Linux support for its Chai appliance platform Software (09/26/2000)

  http://www.linux.hp.com/news_events/press_releases/linux_chai.html

• HP NetServers make Linux Hum for Solid State Design

  http://netserver.hp.com/netserver/docs/download.asp?file=cs_solid.pdf

• Medasys chosen by Hewlett-Packard France Education/Research as Linux competence center

  http://hpwww.ec-lyon.fr/hpeduc/education/offre/linux/educ_linux.html

• Hewlett-Packard France Education/Research announces commitment to Linux promotion

  http://hpwww.ec-lyon.fr/hpeduc/education/offre/linux/hp_linux.html

• HP's open letter to the Open source Community (10/18/2000)

  http://www.linux.hp.com/news_events/open_letter.html

• HP Ultrium Tape Drives Certified to be Linux Compatible (11/21/2000)

  http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/21nov00b.htm

• Bruce Perens, Open Source advocate, joins HP (12/04/2000)

  http://www.itworld.com/Comp/2362/LWD010404hpdrivers/:w!

• OSDL opens today with 19 sponsors including HP (01/24/2001)

  http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/24jan01b.htm

• HP Extends Linux Support for Enterprise Solutions (01/31/2001)

  http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/31jan01a.htm

• HP's commitment for Linux during Linux-Expo Paris 2001 (02/02/2001)

  http://www.france.hp.com/main/une/temoignages/linux/expo.php3

• HP opens print driver source code (04/04/2001)

  http://www.linux.hp.com/news_events/perens.html

• EMEA announces around Linux (Trusted Linux, Mandrake Certification, ...) (08/2/2001)

  http://www.HyPer-Linux.org/HP-HOWTO/mirror/Press/PREMEA20010822.pdf

• B. Maillard Interview (HP France) (08/24/2001)

  http://solutions.journaldunet.com/itws/010824_it_hp_maillard.shtml

• HP Expands Open Source Offerings with Linux Security Software and Embedded Software Platform for Intelligent Devices (08/27/2001)

  http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/27aug01b.htm

• HP Builds Supercomputer from Off-the-Shelf Parts (Oct. 2001)

  http://www.hpl.hp.com/news/2001/oct-dec/supercomputer.html

• HP's Linux strat�gy

  http://www.hpbriefingroom.com/north_america/linux/index.html

• HP, Red Hat Provide Selected Universities Worldwide with Grants of Red Hat Linux Software

  http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/06nov01a.htm

• I've participated to a conference organised by Cyperus during the Linux-Expo Paris 2001. You could see it at this address rtsp://discovery.oleane.net:554/2001/janvier/linuxexpo/linux207.rm

HP France has also published an article on Linux and free software in its May 1999 issue of HP Computer News, an article on HP Linux support in the September 1999 issue, and an article on Linux RedHat solutions on HP Visualize workstation in the November 1999 issue.

3.2.1. Intel based computer range

Page last updated the 2001-12-21.

That computer range is today the main set of HP machines supported by Linux, and that till many years. In case you didn't already do it before, some preliminaty readings are recommended before to try to install Linux on these platforms.

The Linux Installation HOWTO contains a great number of information to install Linux. If you bought linux on a CD-ROM, chances are that installation instructions are provided with it (the little booklet inside the disk case, and/or files on the CD).

The Linux Kernel HOWTO should be read to have details on kernel construction. I will just mention here points which are specific to HP hardware.

Outside particular indication, Linux support means during the installation of a RedHat/Mandrake type distribution. In special cases, a kernel rebuild will be necessary to support completely some hardware elements. You should note that what is true for one distribution is generally true for another, as these functions are linked to the kernel or the XFree86 server, and not to the distribution itself.

In case of problem, the first reflex should be to update the BIOS of the HP machine, and to verify whether the problem is always there. If yes, you may then contact HP support, if your configuration is supported by HP (This document focus on what is working, superset of what is supported, and has no value in that area). On the other hand, if your machine is working correctly, don't update the BIOS without reason, this is always a risked operation. BIOS updates are available from http://www.hp.com/cposupport/software.html