HP Mini 2140 - I Get To Try One!

I have been wanting to get my hands on an HP Mini 2140 netbook ever since I read the first announcement for it. I already own an HP 2133 Mini-Note (wouldn't it be nice if they would be more consistent about naming/numbering similar models?), and the packaging is nearly identical - in particular, it has the same sturdy case, and the same wonderful keyboard. There are crucial differences in the internals, though, the most significant of which is the Intel Atom 270 CPU, rather than the VIA C7-M, and their associated chips. Of course, in terms of avoiding headaches and difficulty, at the top of the "associated chips" list I would put the Intel GMA 950 display controller, rather than the VIA Chrome in the 2133. These differences should make installing Linux a LOT easier on the 2140 than it was on the 2133... SHOULD make...

Grrr. Sometimes things are easy. Sometimes not. This one is a definite NOT. Because the 2140 came with a relatively old SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop (SLED) 10 installed, I decided to just skip that and go straight for the throat - install Ubuntu Netbook Remix, and be done with it and ready to work in 30 minutes or less. Yeah, right... Unfortunately, it wouldn't boot UNR from a USB stick. No idea why, it just wouldn't. Fortunately, it would boot the same image from an SD card. Still no idea why, but at least it boots and I can run the UNR installation process. Very smooth, very fast, looks good... installation done, time to reboot... and CRASH! GRRR!

GRUB comes up, but as soon as the Linux kernel tries to boot, it crashes in a huge mess. Repeated tries, repeated failures, it looks like it's always the same crash, but there is way too much info dumped to the console for me to see it all go flying past. Maybe a BIOS problem... well, the BIOS in this (brand new) system is indeed one revision out of date. Download and install the new BIOS... no problems... try to boot... no dice, still crashes! Reinstall, just in case the BIOS change has some effect on installation (I know, I'm grasping at straws here)... nope, still crashes miserably on boot.

Now I'm getting irritated and desperate. Try booting the Ubuntu LiveCD, still crashes. Maybe it's something unique to Ubuntu... try booting the Mandriva LiveCD... still crashes. UGH. Go back and restore the original SLED distribution from the recovery DVD, to make sure this isn't simply a defective 2140. Restores fine, boots, loads and runs fine. On the positive side, that whole process didn't really take all that long. On the negative side, having seen and worked with UNR and Moblin for a while now, I wouldn't want to give this netbook to someone with the bare-bones SLED 10 distribution!

Ok, so this is something about the newer Linux distributions. No idea what. Search the web for 2140, Ubuntu, Netbook Remix and such, until I stumble onto this post from someone who had the same problem. They say it is because the 2140 BIOS is shipped with Dual Core support enabled, even though it only has a single Atom. Hmmm. That could be. Check the BIOS.. yup, Dual Core enabled. Change that, reboot... HOORAY! It works, and it looks as beautiful as I had expected it to a couple of hours ago when I started this!

There has to be more to this, though. Why was that option enabled in the BIOS, why are there so few notes about it on the web, what are the consequences of disabling it in the BIOS... Ok, I found an Ubuntu bug on launchpad about this. It seems the Dual Core option is enabled to support Hyperthreading in the Atom CPU. That sounds familiar, my Dual Atom nettop shows as having four CPUs because of Hyperthreading... The bug thread ends by saying this is fixed in Linux kernel 2.6.29, but that kernel is in Ubuntu 9.10 (currently in Alpha), not 9.04. I'm preparing this for a friend, so I am certainly not going to give it to her with either an Alpha distribution, or an updated non-standard kernel... sigh. I'll have to leave Dual Core disabled in the BIOS for now. It looks like there are relatively few reports of this on the web because it was not a problem with earlier Ubuntu releases (i.e. pre-2.6.28 Linux kernels). I suppose that I could have gotten around this by loading Ubuntu 8.10, but my enthusiasm for using an older distribution is not much higher than it is for using an Alpha of 9.10...

So, now I can continue with software installation and configuration. More on that, the 2140 in general, tomorrow.

jw 1/7/2009