CentOS-5 on a HP Compaq-nc6400

1. The Laptop

Manufacturer: Hewlett Packard
Model: Compaq nc6400
CPU: Intel Centrino Duo T5500
RAM: 2GB
Hard drive capacity: 80GB

2. Hardware

CD/DVD read: works
CD/DVD write: works
LAN: works
Wireless: works (with ipw3945d, dkms-ipw3945 and ipw3934-firmware from RPMForge, see below)
Sound: works
Video: works
USB: works
Firewire: not present
Media card reader: don't know (get's detected and is shown in lspci as well as in dmesg)
Touchpad or other pointing device: works
Accelerator buttons (info, sound): don't work (Unkown key pressed)
Accelerator buttons (wireless on/of): works
Adaptive CPU speed: don't know
Sense battery level: works
Suspend (manual): works
Suspend (close lid): works
Fingerprint reader: works
PCMCIA: works

3. Additional information

3.1. Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG

After adding the RPMForge repository to YUM, the correct drivers are available:

yum install ipw3945d dkms-ipw3945 ipw3934-firmware

3.2. Fingerprint reader

The integrated fingerprint reader works with fprint.

3.3. lspci

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/PM/GMS, 943/940GML and 945GT Express Memory Controller Hub (rev 03)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/GME, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 01)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 01)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 01)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 4 (rev 01)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 01)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 01)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 01)
00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 01)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 01)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev e1)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GBM (ICH7-M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 01)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) IDE Controller (rev 01)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 82801GBM/GHM (ICH7 Family) SATA AHCI Controller (rev 01)
02:06.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCIxx12 Cardbus Controller
02:06.2 Mass storage controller: Texas Instruments 5-in-1 Multimedia Card Reader (SD/MMC/MS/MS PRO/xD)
02:06.3 Class 0805: Texas Instruments PCIxx12 SDA Standard Compliant SD Host Controller
02:06.4 Communication controller: Texas Instruments PCIxx12 GemCore based SmartCard controller
08:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5753M Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express (rev 21)
10:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection (rev 02)

4. Comments

The installation of CentOS-5 went without problems. Running the CentOS-plus kernel for video capturing using a PCMCIA firewire card.