HP gave us hplip linux drivers for their printers, so when I needed to buy new computer stuff I bought HP (laptop and color laser network printer). Everything (screen resolution, graphics hardware acceleration, wifi, etc) works out of the box. No surprise really, as all these components are Intel with known open source drivers.

Anyway, there is one little thing you need to do make of this laptop a dream GNU/Linux laptop.This bug (the laptop sometimes crashes when the lid is closed) affects this laptop, but there is an easy workaround:

$ sudo chmod +x /etc/rc.local

$ sudo vi /etc/rc.local

(change "vi" into "nano" if you don't know vi...)
Before the "exit 0", add this line

/bin/bash -c "/bin/echo 1 > /proc/acpi/video/*/DOS"

$ sudo /etc/init.d/rc.local start

Every time you boot your laptop, this setting will be enabling so you can safely bring the laptop into sleep. Maybe, it would be a good idea to bookmark the page of the Ubuntu LaptopTestingTeam/HP6710b.

Demonstracja produktu

System operacyjny - oryginalnie - Windows XP Professional, obecnie - Kubuntu 7.10 PL,
Procesor - Intel® Core™2 Duo T7100 1,8 GHz 2 MB pamięci podręcznej L2, Zestaw układów Mobile™ Intel® 965GM Express,
Pamięć - Pamięć DDR II, 667 MHz, 1024, 2 gniazda SODIMM z obsługą pamięci dwukanałowej; Możliwość rozszerzenia do 4096 MB,
Oprogramowanie zainstalowane fabrycznie: HP Backup and Recovery Manager, Sonic Digital Media Plus oraz Microsoft Office 2007 Professional, Adobe Acrobat Reader, HP Wireless Assistant, HP Mobile Printing Driver, Synaptics Touchpad Driver, HP ProtectTools Security Manager, Symantec Norton Internet Security, Sonic Digital Media Plus, HP Backup and Recovery Manager, Intervideo WinDVD player, HP Help and Support Center, (ze względu na wymianę systemu na Kubuntu - brak)
Dysk twardy - Serial ATA, 80 GB (7200 obr./min),
Urządzenie optyczne - DVD+/-RW SuperMulti DL,
Nośniki wyjmowalne - Opcjonalne urządzenia zewnętrzne Multibay II (brak),
Wyświetlacz - 14,1 cala WXGA z powłoką przeciwodblaskową (rozdzielczość 1200 x 800),
Grafika - Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator X3100; Maks. 384 MB wspólnej pamięci systemowej
Wymiary (szer. x głęb. x wys.) 3,4 (z przodu) x 33,1 x 24,3 cm
Waga - 2,4 kg,
Zasilanie - 6-ogniwowy akumulator litowy (55 Wh), opcjonalny akumulator HP Extended Life (8-ogniwowy) i opcjonalny akumulator HP Ultra-Capacity (12-ogniwowy);
Zasilacz zewnętrzny - HP Smart 90 W, technologia HP Fast Charge
Czas pracy akumulatora - Do 5 godzin i 25 minut (do 10 godzin i 30 minut z akumulatorem HP Extended Life, do 14 godzin i 45 minut z akumulatorem HP Ultra-Capacity),
Karta dźwiękowa - Dźwięk High Definition, głośniki stereo, wyjście słuchawek stereo/wyjście sygnałowe audio (line out), wejście mikrofonu stereo, wbudowany mikrofon mono
Obsługa komunikacji - Broadcom 802.11a/b/g, Bluetooth™ 2.0, Modem 56 Kb/s,
Dostępne gniazda urządzeń dodatkowych: 1 gniazdo kart PC typu I/II obsługujące 32-bitowe karty CardBus i karty 16-bitowe, uniwersalny czytnik nośników 6w1,
I/O porty i złącza - 4 porty USB 2.0, VGA, wejście mikrofonu stereo, wyjście słuchawek stereo/wyjście sygnałowe audio (line out), Firewire (1394a), złącze zasilania, RJ-11, RJ-45, wyjście TV S-video,
Klawiatura - Pełnowymiarowa klawiatura,
Urządzenie wskazujące - Tabliczka dotykowa z przewijaniem,
Bezpieczeństwo - HP ProtectTools, wbudowany układ zabezpieczający TPM 1.2, czytnik linii papilarnych HP Fingerprint Sensor, opcjonalny czytnik kart procesorowych, Gniazdo blokady Kensington, program Symantec Norton Internet Security
Stacje dokowania - Stacja dokowania HP Basic, stacja dokowania HP Advanced, stacja dokowania HP NAS 3 w 1, regulowana podstawa notebooka HP, podstawa monitora HP, zewnętrzny napęd HP MultiBay II (wszystkie akcesoria sprzedawane oddzielnie),
Gwarancja - Roczny serwis z odbiorem i odesłaniem do klienta (dostępne są rozszerzenia gwarancji sprzedawane oddzielnie), roczna gwarancja na akumulator podstawowy,

Vista's performance on my company laptop, an HP 6710b is dismal at best. Except for the ultra-crap integrated Intel GFX card the specs are fairly decent, a T7500 CPU @ 2.2Ghz, 2GB of Ram and a 120GB 5400-rpm HD. Upon first boot I was given the option to install either 64bit Vista or 32bit Vista, I opted for 64bit but that was short lived as it's performance felt as if it was running a Celeron 466 with 128MB of ram. So I went over to 32bit and it performed substantially better, but it still was not as good as the performance I was expecting to see.

When I leave for home for the day I put my laptop into standby mode and undock it and pack it into my bag, next day I dock the laptop and turn it on but for some reason Vista takes an extraordinarily long time to get to the state where it's ready to be used. There is so much disk thrashing going on I am often left in awe at how ridiculously slow it is. Then there's the shoddy dual screen issue. Whenever I lock the laptop, then unlock it after coming back Vista goes through this sadistic ritual. This is what happens, I unlock -> and immediately move the mouse to an application I want to use -> 3 seconds into this Vista decides it's going to flash both monitors for a couple seconds, shuffle the apps between windows -> and then finally it settles down. It's highly annoying. I read that you can disable the TMM service which will eliminate this problem but then dual screens won't work properly. How did this product make it past QC?!

Then there's the other issue with the standby/wakeup 'feature', but at this point I'm not sure if it's the laptop or Vista as the culprit. Basically after putting the laptop into standby mode it will turn itself on while it's in my bag, install some updates and then sometimes it will shutdown, other times it will just slowly drain the batteries until I realise that the bag is getting quite hot and something is not quite right.

Oh let's not forget the Vista Aero problem. Even though this laptop is certified to run Aero (I get a 3.4 on the Windows Experience Index) it barely ever does. For some reason whenever I unlock the laptop it reverts to Vista Basic, why? I have no idea but I can't re-enable Aero, I lose all 3D functionality and all transparency, the option to re-enable is simply unavailable, I have to reboot to get it working again and hell if I do that, it takes between 5-10 mins for it to bootup and get to the point of actually being acceptable to use!

...and then there's the obscene networking performance, this ranks really low down there with the rest of them. For an entire year it's been well documented on other sites just how bad copying over a network is with Vista. Microsoft finally released a publicly available Service Pack (still in Beta) which eliminates the issue, but again, how did this OS make it through QC?

My biggest issue with Vista is the enormous amount of disk thrashing that it does. Even with 2GB of RAM, and even with a 4GB USB Flashdrive configured with ReadyBoost the disk thrashes away leaving me to wonder how much it has reduced the lifespan of the hard drive.

At this point I would love to have stayed with XP on my home machine, if XP supported DX10. This is the primary and only reason I still use Vista.

I do not wish for my worst enemy to experience Vista.