[CentOS] HP laptops with CentOS 7?

[Sorin Srbu]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: CentOS [mailto:centos-bounces at centos.org] On Behalf Of ken
> Sent: den 16 november 2017 17:00
> To: centos at centos.org
> Subject: Re: [CentOS] HP laptops with CentOS 7?
> 
> > I'm looking into getting HP laptops for our department running CentOS 7.
>
> For two years now I've been semi-happily using an HP Envy with the
> high-end Nvidia graphics card.  Installing CentOS7, everything worked
> out of box except the wifi.  The problem there was due to the drivers
> requiring a v.3.5 kernel which centos doesn't yet have.  There were some
> very occasional glitches in the video, but subsequent upgrades to the
> nvidia drivers eventually fixed those.
> 
> Audio worked initially, but after installing vlc I've had problems which
> I haven't been able to track down, so the sound with some apps just
> doesn't work.  Notably, anything audio through firefox doesn't work
> except that which uses flashplayer.  Audacity and vlc work just fine.
> 
> The body of the laptop is solid, made mostly out of carbon fiber... it
> seemed like it's bullet-proof.  The pop-out DVD tray I got is really
> flimsy, so must be handled quite gingerly.  I've read that it's been
> upgraded by HP to more solid version in more recent incarnations of the
> Envy.
> 
> I've never used the bluetooth, so I can't testify to how well that
> works, but I've never seen/read any complaints about it, so I'd assume
> it works.
> 
> Of the six or more laptops I've owned in my life, the keyboard of this
> one has been absolutely the most difficult one to get used to.  It seems
> that if I don't hit a key square in the middle of the key, that
> character doesn't make it to the screen.  Same failure if I press the
> key too hard.  This craps on my typing speed immensely,  I used to type
> at over 100 words/minute, but I'm now down to less than half that...
> sucks big time.
> 
> It's nice that it has a big touchpad and I use it all the time. Only
> very seldom to I plug in a usb mouse (e.g., in Blender).  But it's way
> too easy to accidently touch the touchpad, resulting in all kinds of
> random mayhem.  So I modified some code I found to disable/enable the
> touchpad and mapped that code to [Ctrl-`] so that it operates as a
> toggle.  Problem therewith nicely solved.
> 
> Talking with folks on a suse list about the sound problem, I learned
> that they have have no sound problems with there and, further, my
> problem might be a messed up packman stack... whatever that is.  Suse
> also has a much higher kernel version than we do in centos, so switching
> over to suse is in the works.  That's sad because I've been a happy
> RH/centos guy for a long time.
> 
> Hope this review is helpful.

It is, thank you!
Real life experiences are worth a lot to me, thanks again.

--
//Sorin