&ref; '> &tabi; Linux. "> &tabi; XFree86. "> Linux support "> Tested "> Machine Graphic Card &celpec; &celnet; &celpec; &celscsi; &celpec; &celson; &celpec; &celtest; '> Simultaneous users RAM size Disk size Machine example '> &celref; Name Vert. F. (Hz) Hor. F. (kHz) Bandwidth (MHz) Resol. Freq. (Hz) &celtest; '> &celref; Card type Chipset &celpec; &celtest; '> &celref; Scanner Interface &celpec; &celtest; '> &celref; Camera Interface &celpec; &celtest; '> Subject URL '> Code Function '> Rem. '> Rem. '> Rem. '> Rem. '> Rem. '> Rem. '> Rem. '> Rem. '> Rem. '> Rem. '> Rem. '> Rem. '> Rem. '> Rem. '> Rem. '> Rem. '> Rem. '> Rem. '> Rem. '> Rem. '> Rem. '> Rem. '> Rem. '> Rem. '> Rem. '> XE3 '> Rem. '> Rem. '> Rem. '> Rem. '> Rem. '> Rem. '> Rem. '> Rem. '> &oui; &xfree86; (ati) '> &oui; &xfree86; (fireglRem.) '> &oui; &xfree86; (chips) '> &oui; &xfree86; (cirrus) '> &oui; &xfree86; (mga) '> Rem. '> &oui; &xfree86; (nv ou &nvidia;) '> &oui; &xfree86; + &nvidia; '> &oui; &xfree86; (neomagic) '> &oui; &xfree86; (siliconmotion) '> &oui; &xfree86-3; (SVGA) '> &oui; &xfree86-3; (S3) '> S3 Trio 64V2 PCI &cels3; '> Matrox Millenium II PCI &celmatrox; '> Matrox Millenium II AGP &celmatrox; '> Matrox Productiva G100 AGPRem. &celmatrox; '> Matrox Productiva G200 AGP &celmatrox; '> Matrox Millenium G200 AGP &celmatrox; '> Matrox Millenium G250 AGP &celmatrox; '> Matrox Millenium G400D AGP &celmatrox; '> Matrox Millenium G450D AGPRem. &celmatrox; '> ATI fireGL2 AGPRem. &celatifiregl; '> ATI Radeon 7000 AGP &celnon; '> ATI fireGL8800 AGP &celnon; '> ATI Rage II C AGP &celati; '> ATI Rage 128 AGP 8&Mo; &celati; '> ATI Rage Pro ZX AGP &celati; '> ATI Rage XL AGP 8MB &celati; '> ATI Radeon Mobility AGP &celati; '> ATI Rage LT Pro &celati; '> ATI Rage Mobility &oui; &fb; Rem. '> Sis 5595 AGP &oui; &fb; '> Cirrus Logic GD 5424 PCI &oui; &xfree86-3; (SVGA) '> Cirrus Logic GD 5446 PCI &celcirrus; '> Cirrus Logic GD 5465 AGPRem. &celcirrus; '> Elsa Gloria SynergyRem. &oui; &xfree86; (glint) '> Elsa Gloria Synergy + AGPRem. &oui; &xfree86; (glint) '> Elsa Gloria Synergy II AGP &oui; &xfree86; (glint) '> 3DLabs Oxygen GVX1 AGP &oui; &fb; '> Neomagic MagicGraph 128XD NM2160 &celneo; '> Neomagic MagicGraph 256AV NM2200 &celneo; '> Chips & Technologies CT65545 &celchips; '> Chips & Technologies CT65548 &celchips; '> Chips & Technologies CT65554 &celchips; '> Silicon Motion LynxE SM810Rem. &cellynx; '> Silicon Motion LynxE EM4Rem. &cellynx; '> Accel Eclipse PCI &oui; &fb; &nointer; '> Accel Galaxy AGP &oui; &fb; &nointer; '> HP Fx-4 AGP &oui; HP X ServerRem. '> HP Fx-6 AGP &oui; HP X ServerRem. '> HP Fx-5 AGP &oui; HP X ServerRem. '> HP Fx-10 AGP &oui; HP X ServerRem. '> Intel i810 AGPRem. &oui; &xfree86; (i810) '> Intel i815 AGPRem. &oui; &xfree86; (i810) '> Intel i830MP AGPRem. &oui; &xfree86; (i810) '> Intel i845G/E AGPRem. &oui; &xfree86; (i810) '> S3 Savage AGPRem. &oui; &xfree86; (savage) '> Trident TVGA 9000i &celsvga; '> nVidia TNT2 AGP &celnvidia; '> nVidia GeForce 2 GTS AGP &celnvidia; '> nVidia GeForce 3 AGP &celnvidia; '> nVidia Quadro2 Pro AGP &celnvidia; '> nVidia Quadro2 EX AGP &celnvidia; '> nVidia Quadro4 Pro AGP &celnon; '> nVidia Quadro4 900 XGL AGP &celnvidianf; '> nVidia Quadro4 200 NVS AGP &celnvidianf; '> nVidia Quadro4 750 XGL AGP &celnvidianf; '> 3DLabs Wildcat III 6110 AGP &oui; &pilote wildcat/RedHat 7.3 '> WD90C24 PCI &celsvga; '> Accton EN2242 minipci &oui; &pilote; tulip '> Intel PRO 10/100 BT &oui; &pilote; eepro100 &ou; e100 '> Compaq Fast Ethernet Adapter (Intel Pro/100 based) &oui; &pilote; eepro100 &ou; e100 &ou; HPRem. '> Compaq Gigabit Ethernet Adapter (Intel Pro/1000 based) &oui; &pilote; e1000 &ou; HPRem. '> Intel i82557 / i82558 10/100 BT (D5013A/B) &oui; &pilote; eepro100 &ou; e100 '> Intel S82093A / i82559 10/100 BT &oui; &pilote; eepro100 &ou; e100 '> 2 x Intel i82559 10/100 BT &oui; &pilote; eepro100 &ou; e100 '> &carte; 100VG (J2585B) &oui; &pilote; hp100 '> &carte; HP Gigabit (BCM5700 like) &oui; &pilote; bcm5700 &ou; HPRem. '> &carte; HP Gigabit (Tigon3 like) &oui; &pilote; tg3 &ou; HPRem. '> &carte; HP chipset RealTek &oui; &pilote; RealTek '> &oui; &pilote; bcm5700Rem. '> &oui; &pilote; 3c59xRem. '> 3Com 905B-TX 10/100 BTRem. &celpilote3com; '> 3Com 905C-TX 10/100 BT &celpilote3com; '> 3Com ??? 10/100/1000 BT &celpilotebcm5700; '> &oui; &pilote; pcnet32 '> AMD 79C971 KC 10/100 BT &celpcnet; '> AMD 79C972 AKC 10/100 BT &celpcnet; '> SMC 1211 TX EZ Card 10/100 BT &oui; &pilote; rtl8139 '> Mega IDE raid controler (0, 1, 1+0) &oui; &pilote; megaideRem. '> AMI Megaraid (Raid 0, 1, 3, 5, 10, 50) &oui; &pilote; megaraidRem. '> Strong ARM (Raid 0, 1, 3, 5, 10, 50) &oui; &pilote; aacraidRem. '> Compaq Smart Array 5i &oui; &pilote; ccissRem. '> &oui; &pilote; ncr53c8xxRem. '> &oui; &pilote; sym53c8xxRem. '> &oui; &pilote; aic7xxxRem. '> &oui; &pilote; aic79xxRem. '> &oui; &pilote; qla1280 '> &oui; &pilote; qla1280 '> AMD 79C971 KC 10/100 BT + SCSI (D6692A)Rem. &celpcnet; Symbios Logic 53c875 &avec; &net; (D6692A) &celncr53; '> AMD 79C974 KC 10/100 BT + SCSI &celpcnet; Symbios Logic 8751SP &avec; &net; &celncr53; '> Adaptec ARO Raidport &celnon; '> Adaptec AIC 7860 PCI + Adaptec AIC 7880 UW PCI &celaic7xxx; '> Adaptec AIC 7770 EISA &celaic7xxx; '> Adaptec AIC 7880 UW PCI &celaic7xxx; '> Adaptec AIC 7880 UWD PCI &celaic7xxx; '> 2 Adaptec AIC 7880 UW PCI &celaic7xxx; '> Adaptec AIC 7895H PCI &celaic7xxx; '> Adaptec AIC 2910bui (7860) PCI &celaic7xxx; '> Adaptec AIC 7892 PCI &celaic7xxx; '> Adaptec AIC 29160 PCI &celaic7xxx; '> Adaptec AIC 7880 PCI + Symbios Logic 53C876 &oui; &pilote; aic7xxx &et; &pilote; ncr53c8xx '> Symbios Logic 8952U Ultra2 Wide PCI &celbof; '> Symbios Logic 53C810 PCI &celncr53; '> Symbios Logic 53C895 PCI &celncr53; '> 2 Symbios Logic 53C895 PCI &celncr53; '> Adaptec AIC 7880 PCI + 2 Symbios Logic 53C896 PCI &oui; &pilote; aic7xxx &et; &pilote; sym53c8xx '> AMD 79C972 10/100 BT + SCSI (D6692A)Rem. &celpcnet; Symbios Logic 53c875 &avec; &net; (D6692A) + Adaptec AIC 7880 PCI &oui; &pilote; ncr53c8xx &et; &pilote; aic7xxx '> Driver update disks for various distributions RedHat 7.x, 8.0, SuSE 7.x 8.0 may be downloaded from the site of Adaptec '> 2 Symbios Logic 53C896 PCI &celsym53; '> 2 Symbios Logic 53C1010 PCI &celsym53; '> 2 Symbios Logic 53C897 PCI &celncr53; '> Qlogic Ultra3 Wide PCI &ql1280; '> Qlogic Ultra3 Wide PCI &ql1280; '> Cirrus Logic CS 4614 &celalsa; '> Crystal CS 4232 &celoui; '> Cirrus Logic CS 4280 &celalsa; '> Cirrus Logic CS 4281 &celalsa; '> Cirrus Logic CS 4299 &oui; &pilote; cs4299 '> ESS Maestro 2 &oui; &pilote; maestroRem. '> SoundBlaster compatible &oui; &pilote; sb '> ESS Maestro 3 &oui;Rem. '> Analog Device 1816 &oui; &pilote; AD1816Rem. '> Analog Device 1848 &oui; &pilote; AD1848 '> Analog Device 1885 &oui; &pilote; AD1885 '> ADI 1981 &celbof; '> Sound Blaster Live! &oui; &pilote; emu10k1Rem. '> Neomagic 256AV NM2200 &oui; &pilote; nm256_audio '> VIA Twister &celbof; '> Intel 82810 Audio &celalsa; '> VIA 82C686 &celalsa; '> AZTEC 2320Rem. &celalsa; '> Xircom CEM56-100 56Kb 10/100 BT &oui; &pilote; xirc2ps_cs '> 3Com 3C556 10/100 BT &oui; &pilote; Rem. '> Lucent 802.11b wireless &pilote; orinocoRem. '> 3Com 3CXFE575BT 10/100 BT &celbof; '> Emulex Fibre Channel LP 982 &pilote; emulex '> Network Card '> Sound Card '> SCSI Card '> Modem Card '> Modem/Net Card '> FastRaid Card '> NetRaid Card '> Raid Card '> Top Tools Management Card '> USB Modem '> Fibre Channel Card '> Video Card '> &aucune; N/A '> N/A '> ??? '> &non; '> &oui; '> &oui; &pilote; &alsa; '> The latest drivers and installation floppies for the supported distributions (RedHat and SuSE) are available at the following address: . HP provides a command line interface tool to configure the Smart Array card available at '> To use a driver disk on a RedHat 6.2 distribution, you need to boot with the latest boot disk made by RedHat. Either by remaking a CD-ROM containing it, or by using it directly. It"s available at the following address '> To use the native SCSI bus of this machine, it"s necessary to use the sym53c8xx driver with a version upon 1.6c. A driver disk for RedHat distributions is available for versions 6.1, 6.2 &et; 7.0. For the SuSE 7.0 distribution, you have to enter the manual mode to load the driver, as autodetection doesn"t work correctly. '> Parallel Port '> RedHat '> SuSE '> Mandrake '> Hewlett-Packard '> Medasys '> gPhoto2 '> SANE '> &pilote; PPSCSI '> &pilote; USB '> SaMBa '> Apache '> PostFix '> Perl '> Squid '> ]> Configuration Guide and Use of HP Products under Linux (Version &curver;) &curdate; This document describes the use of products available in the &HP; (HP) catalog with Linux and some free software. It gives the state of the support for hardware, software to use, answers to some frequently asked questions and gives elements of sizing. The goals are to offer a general view of free software functions and their use at best with HP products; as well as to make new users of HP products rapidly operational and also to allow others to choose their products knowing facts. Bruno Cornec Hewlett Packard

Bruno_at_HyPer-Linux.org

1997-2003 Bruno Cornec This HOWTO is a free documentation thanks to Medasys and HP for whom I do that job; you may copy, redistribute and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, Front-Cover Texts or Back-Cover Texts. This document is distributed hoping it will be useful, but without any guaranty; you're completely responsible of its use, and couldn't complain in case it doesn't work, or even if it breaks the hardware. All the software included in it, if not already copyrighted is released under the GPL. 0.8 - The 25th of July, 1999 - Bruno Cornec First version publically available 0.85 - The 7th of September, 1999 - Bruno Cornec Docbook 3.1. Monitors section. A lot of typos corrected Numerous links added Makefile rewritten. 0.86 - The 27th of September, 1999 - Bruno Cornec August and September 1999 machines. DSSSL 1.45 + own StyleSheet. Makefile adapted. 0.87 - The 19th of January, 2000 - Bruno Cornec Informations on new machines Oct 1999-Jan 2000. ENTITY for Apache, RedHat, Samba, ... Use of an own DSSSL and DTD. 0.88 - The 15th of March, 2000 - Bruno Cornec Informations on new machines Feb-Mar 2000. English translation. 0.89 - The 8th of July, 2000 - Bruno Cornec Informations on new machines Apr-Jul 2000. Paragraph on scanners Paragraph on HP as a free software user Paragraph on Kayak Sound and Maxilife Revision of the version number 0.90 - The 11th of August, 2000 - Bruno Cornec Informations on new machines Aug 2000. DocBook 4.1 - DSSSL 1.56 0.91 - The 11th of October, 2000 - Bruno Cornec Informations on new machines Sep/Oct 2000. Press releases 0.92 - The 27th of December, 2000 - Bruno Cornec Informations on new machines Nov & Dec 2000. Parisc information OfficeJet X terminals Tape drives 0.93 - The 6th of March, 2001 - Bruno Cornec Informations on new machines Jan-Apr 2001. Report of headers and footers on following pages (PS). More on the LP1000r Change of licence for GFDL DocBook 1.64 0.94 - The 21th of December, 2001 - Bruno Cornec Informations on new machines May-Dec 2001. Automatic management of the date Big updates to put in place on HyPer-Linux.org Japanese translation lot of modifs 0.95 - The 24th of July, 2003 - Bruno Cornec Informations on new machines Jan-Dec 2002. Antispam mail addresses. :-( Links on TOC for PDF Notes at the bottom of page. Links for scanners added. Links for digital camera added. Proliant servers added. iPAQ added. This document is a guide on the use of products proposed by the hardware manufacturer &HP; (HP) under Linux. It's a quick reference guide, covering all what you need to know to size, install and configure your products under Linux, or which complementary software will be useful for their use. Frequently Asked Questions find answers, and references are given concerning other sources of information related to HP technologies and applications. Opinions expressed here are those of the author, and don't commit both &Medasys; &ou; &HP;. Informations are provided in the aim to be useful to the readers. However, there can't be, through this document, any warranty of any kind either from Medasys &ou; HP on these systems under Linux, as well as from myself. Neither Medasys, nor HP, nor the author could be responsible for any problem caused by the use of this information. However, software editors don't guarantee you a lot either (re-read the contracts). New versions of this document will be announced regularly on the Usenet groups &et; . They will also be updated on the various anonymous ftp sites which archive such information, mainly . Hypertext versions of this and other Linux HOWTO are available on many web sites, including &et; . 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 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 : French by Bruno_at_HyPer-Linux.org English by Bruno_at_HyPer-Linux.org Japanese by junichi_shimoda_at_hp.com As english isn't a native language for me, I would really appreciate any correction on the english version. 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_at_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 , 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_at_rrremovethis.oeil.qc.ca. Most of the information provided here come from research made in HP documentations, files provided with Linux kernel sources, the FAQ of the Usenet newsgroup with a HTML version available on all mirror sites like the CICT, my own experience on HP products, a lot of tests and deployments realised, and remarks from Linux users as well as many HP's engineers. Numerous people have contributed to this document and augmented its contents. You'll find the most complete possible list in the . I would like to thank just now, without any particular order, those without whom this document would simply not exist : Marc Hia Balié Marc_Hia-Balie_at_hp.com, who ordered that document and accepted to make it a free documentation. Linus Torvalds, for the Linux project (without it, nothing would exist). Richard Stallman, for the GNU project (without it, nothing would exist either). Nat Makarévitch nat_at_nataa.frmug.org, for his work as translator and his advocacy conferences. Xavier Cazin xc_at_itp.fr, for his talent to convince me to use DocBook. Eric Dumas dumas_at_Linux.EU.Org, for the management of the french LDP. Rémy Card Remy.Card_at_linux.org, for ext2 and his love of electricity :-) René Cougnenc, to have helped a lot of people to begin with Linux, including myself. Dany Coffineau Dany.Coffineau_at_alcatel.fr, for teachnig me Unix. François Strobel Francois.Strobel_at_alcatel.fr, for his peacefulness and legendary patience :-) Frédéric Dubuy F.Dubuy_at_atrid.fr, who contributed to the writing of that document and took all the work I couldn't achieve, while I was writing it. Without saying he's also the graphist of the logo ! Alain Pascal pascal_at_montrouge.omnes.slb.com, for the several tests made. Pascal Lemonnier Pascal.Lemonnier_at_medasys.fr typography expert who found a lot of typos. Ralf S. Engelschall rse_at_engelschall.com, who realised the wml tool set, used to manage the languages of this document. Cees de Groot cg_at_sgmltools.org, who realised the SGMLTools used to generate the first version of this document. Norman Walsh ndw_at_nwalsh.com, who realised the SGML DTD DocBook. which allows to generate all the versions of this document from a single SGML source. James Clark jjc_at_jclark.com, who realised the tool Jade. Cornec family cornec_at_victoria.frmug.org, for his patience and his support. Before going into more details in the presentation, it could be useful to give some definitions of terms and software mentionned in that HOWTO. 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 : GNU project Web site You find there all information on the GNU project, including the licenses produced (GPL and LGPL) and various discussions on free software. Open Source project Web site This site proposes a new definition, a bit less restrictive, of free software - called here OpenSource Software - by well-known people. FreeBSD project Web site Here are explained the advantages of the very open BSD license. 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, ... 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 &et; Itanium), Alpha, Motorola (680x0 &et; PowerPC), Sparc, StrongArm, Mips. Without mention of the ports, operational or in process on PalmPilot, superH, 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 &curker; (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 The system offers the following technical characteristics : Multi-tasking : executes several programs in pseudo-parallel. Multi-users : many users acting on the same machine at the same time (without worrying on licenses). Portable and interoperable : works on several hardware architectures. All the sources are available. Linux supports a lot of file systems, outside the native ext2 : System V, BSD, Sun, MS-DOS, VFAT, NTFS, Mac, HPFS, EFS, ISO9660. On the network side, it supports the following protocols TCP/IP v4 &et; v6, Appletalk, Netware (client &et; server), Lan Manager SMB (client &et; server), X-Window, NFS, PPP, SLIP, UUCP. Performant architecture : modular kernel, built at will, execution in protect mode on 80x86 processors, page load on demand, page share between executables when reading, virtual memory with swap on disk, use of a dynamical disk cache in memory, dynamic libraries, process management, pseudo terminals, virtual consoles. Security : protection of memory between processes: one user program can't compromise the whole system operation. The kernel may also, on the other hand, filter network packets. Respect of norms and standards : Posix, with System V and BSD extensions. Support of COFF and ELF binaries. Binary compatibility with SCO, SVR3/4 through the iBCS2 module. Native Language Support as well as national keyboards, fonts... Once the definitions are given, it is important to stay on at ideas promoted by the free software movement. It's important as well to clear some wrong ideas hawked on these software. This section gives then a various set of elements in favour of the introduction of free software and ends on the real problems remaining to solve. 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 . 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_at_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. 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. Source code access This point is the most important of the choice, because it allows the undestanding, adaptation, correction, distribution, improvement of the software. Reliability That quality is derived from the previous one: the free software is the combined result of the experience and the intelligence of all the participants. Its reliability increases then as time passes, with all the corrections which are made. More over, no marketing pression requires the software's producer to deliver it to its customers before it is in a satisfactory state. Portability This quality is not intrinsic to free software, but is very often seen in a free software. Indeed if a softawre meets success, it will necessarily be adapted to other environments than those initialy considered. Thus by increasing its disponibility, its portability and reliability are also increased. linux works today on a HP Jornada or IBM watch, as well as on s390 or SuperDome. Universality One essential quality of free software is the character naturaly universal of the data format used. Even if they don't follow standards, the availibility of the source code assures the user that he will understand them, and more over be able to write any filter needed to reuse these data or exchange them with other software. This allows also users to stabilize their environment, because they are not required to migrate due to incompatibility of data formats in their applications. Don't forget that your data are precious ans thet it's better to archive them under a *ML format (HTML, XML, SGML, ...) rther than a proprietary one. Performance Resulting from a lot of examinations, the use of algorithms coming from advanced research works, as well as tested by various usages, free software have good performances by nature. Frequently large portions of code are rewritten to allow the reuse of the original ideas with a better code and thus to increase performances. Several tests made by various organisms tend to prove it also &tabref; &Apache; Web Server and competitors SMB &Samba; server vs Windows NT Once more, there is no obligation to diffuse an application whose performances would be bad. Interoperability Interoperability is a reality of today's enterprises. Historically, Unix environment was always a ferment for interoperability with other systems (big or medium size systems, as well as personal computers). The support in Linux, for example, of a lot of network protocols, filesystem formats, and even binary compatibility modes assures a good interoperability. By the way, interoperability requires 2 actors, and having only one open is generally not sufficient. That's the goal of having RFCs, norms, standards, ... Reactivity When considering the more and more longer development cycles of the software editors, the reactivity brought by the free software movement is interesting for a lot of sites, concerned by the rapid obtention of corrections to a given problem. Thus, during the recent discoveries of IP problems (ping of the death,...), patches were always available within the next 3 days. And above that, only the patch correcting the hole found was delivered. There were no functionality added, which could have create other instabilities. Security The best computing security possible is ensured by a robust construction, public and reknown algorithms, a quick communication around flaws, ... In other words by transparency. Obscurity is in this domain bad, useless and even dangerous. In the free software world, the reactivity described in the previous paragraph is a garanty of increased security, ... at the condition that patches are applied regularly. 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. Studies from IDC bring to light the irresistible rise of Linux as a server operating system. In 1998, Linux is credited with 17% of market share, with an increase of 212%, which is the most important in that domain. The following graphics give the whole market share repartition.

This was confirmed in 1999 with a market share climbing to 24% and an ancrease of 93%, always more than four times the increase of the follower.

Dataquest estimates on its side that Linux servers will represent, with 1.1 million of units, 14% of the servers sold in 2003. The Net itself produces marketing tools to demonstrate the superiority of free software. Counters are regularly updated by Netcraft and others, on web server software, and another was done by IOS Counter for the servers on Internet. Results, reproduced below, show the importance taken by &Apache; with more than 16 millions of operational sites (among them 30% run Linux), crushing the competition, as well as the free operating systems Linux and *BSD which dominate the world of Internet servers.

A detailed explanation based on the most precise numbered results is also regularly updated, showing the advantages to use free and open source software, Cf: . Financial factors also speak for free software. And first the price to aquire them is low. Low, because it's never zero. Even if you can find it on the Internet, you have to consider the costs related to that link. However costs are greatly less expensive than for commercial software. So a RedHat 9 Linux distribution, delivered with more than 1400 software packages, costs about 60 USD when you have to pay more than 800 USD to obtain Windows 2003 server, delivered only with IIS. On the other side, free software don't have the notion of license by user or by supplmentary service. Thus there is no additional cost when you have to increase the use of these software in your entity. That's of course not the case with commercial software whose economical logic is often based on the number of licenses. Free software bring in addition a better mastering of the TCO (Total Cost of Ownership), mentionned so frequently in the massive deployment of personal computers. Thus administration costs are reduced because systems like Linux or FreeBSD, as Unix, are managed completely remotely, either through command line orders (&avec; telnet &ou; ssh) or in graphical mode by using X-Window. More over, we benefit from a true multi-users mode, improving these management operations. Always in this domain, it's also possible to do remote management, either through the own hardware capacities of the machine (as the Remote Assistant card integrated in most HP NetServers or Prliant servers with the RILO card), or by doing a remote connexion (through modem, ISDN adapter or a permanent link) thanks to the native PPP protocol and secure connexion systems as tunneling or ssh. This managemnt could even be realised by an external entity, in outsourcing. At last, the costs due to the hardware themselves could be controled; on one side, if by chance free software don't meet the needs, it's always possible to buy then commercial software solutions to cover the rest on the same hardware. On the other side, solutions based on free software have good performances by nature, and can use hardware platforms which would be considered as obsolete, if installed following the standard criterias of other operating systems or applications. The fact to separate the graphical interface from the rest of the working system is here key. It's so possible to use "old" hardware, mainly to model. It's then possible to invest, with a fine knowledge, when puting the solution in operation, if needed. The power increase may naturaly take place progressively. This argumentation was already given in the previous sections. I think nevertheless that some notions may be explained with complementary information. So concerning the reliability aspects of free software based solutions, it's important to note that it implies an operational running time very high (standard characteristic of Unix systems in general). This is mesured by the command uptime. One of Medasys and HP customers, Saint-Michel Hospital in Paris, has a Vectra VL5 acting as router under Linux since more than 300 days. And that's not a isolated case. Respect of standards and norms, as well as the extreme portability of free software assures also to applications developed on these platforms the same qualities. And notably, if after their use, the performances or services brought by free software based architectures were insufficient (it may be caused by architecture problems such as PCI bandwidth, number of processors available, ...), it would be easy to migrate to machines offering more performances and capacities of evolution, as the HP 9000 systems, running HP-UX. At last a development plan centered around performances implies a modularity, such as it's possible to resize the system kernel nearest to the capacities of the hardware or to use dynamically loaded modules following the needs. A packages installation may vary from 40 MB for a minimal system up to many GB for a complete distribution. The system linearity allow also the support of multi-processors machines (SMP) (tested up to 32 processors on a Sparc machine). The system modularity allows also to obtain an operational system on a 1.44 MB floppy disk, either to realize a minimal repair environment, or to provide a perfectly operational router. The world of embedded systems shows besides more and more interest for systems such as Linux, because above it's modularity, source availability makes communication with dedicated peripherals easier (acquisition cards, sonde, ...). Entities as CERN or Thomson already use such solutions. That argumentation is probably the most important of all, because it's useless to have free software if it's not to make something useful with it or to offer solutions to demands of entities willing to use it. In which sectors free softawre may bring solutions today ? Well, you have to admit it's in nearly all the sectors of enterprise computing. Historically, Open Source Software were used to realise Internet/Intranet servers, because their growth was following the one of the Net. It's so possible to cover all aspects linked to the Internet, from the Web server (&Apache;), FTP server (Wu-Ftpd), DNS server (Bind), the E-Mail server (Sendmail &ou; &Postfix;), the Usenet groups server (INN), the proxy server (IPmasqadm), the firewall (IPChains &ou; IPTables), Virtual Private Network (OpenSSH), the Cache server for the Web (&Squid;) or also the Time server (NTP) or as directory service(LDAP) server, or as content management(Midgard) server ... All these software are available in standard in a Linux distribution. The client computer should be equiped with the software corresponding to the application used (mail reader, news reader, web browser, ...) whatever its operating system. The choice of the client is free, as all these tools respect the standards decreed in the RFCs. The second preferential domain for free software is the file and print server domain. For these services, clients may be multiple: Unix type (use of NFS &et; KNFS &ou; also Coda &et; Inter-Mezzo, for file sharing and of lpd &ou; CUPS for print service), Microsoft Windows type (use of &Samba;, which allows also the use of local client printers), Novell type (use of Mars_nwe) or MacIntosh type (use of NetAtalk). All these software are provided in standard in a Linux distribution and don't need any modification at the client level to work. The other domains where a system such as Linux may bring solutions is the computation one, with support of multiprocessor, linked to the realisation of clusters with multiple nodes &avec; Mosix &ou; BeoWulf with high-speed network interfaces (100 Mbit/s, Gigabit &ou; Myrinet); those of data security with the support of HP NetRaidRem. cards, allowing Raid level of 0, 1, 3, 5, 10, 50, and HotSpare disks, managed by the harware; those of centralized fax server, with a free software like HylaFAX or also as an archive/backup server with HP SureStore DAT or DLT libraries thanks to a GPL software like Amanda or a commercial one like Arkeia or at last as a database server with free solutions like PostgreSQL,MySQL &ou; commercial like Oracle, to speak only of these three. On the client side, even if it's less highlighted for the moment, possibilities to use solutions based on free or commercial software are numerous. Here also the Internet part is the main one, with tools like graphical web browsers (Netscape, Mozilla [&avec; 101 good reasons in its favor] &ou; Konqueror) &ou; textual (lynx &ou; w3m), a lot of graphical mail readers (Kmail, XFMail, ...) &ou; textual (mutt, elm, ...). But you also have the whole panel of indispensable tools for a personal computer today as a PDF reader (Acrobat Reader &ou; xpdf), image manipulation tools (ImageMagick, the Gimp, RealPlayer tools ...), word processors (LyX, LaTeX, SGMLTools, Wordperfect, ...), commercial office suites (ApplixWare, StarOffice), or opensource (Koffice, OpenOffice.org, ...), sound management tools (Xmms, eplaymidi, xmcd, ...), CD burning tools (cdrecord, BurnIT, ... with complements as mkisofs, cdparanoia, cdrdao), free and commercial emulators for various systems (Wine, Executor, WABI, DOSEmu,Win4Lin, VmWare...), compilers and interpretors for all the languages (C, C++, Pascal, Fortran, Basic, Tcl/Tk, Perl, Python, Ada, Eiffel, Lisp, Scheme, Prolog...), including commercial versions ( PGI, Intel...), graphical environments (Gnome, KDE, Motif, OpenMotif, ...). The evolution of these last tools indicates that the 2000's may be the years where Linux and free software will break through at their turn on the client. We should note that the completeness of Linux distributions increases continuously in order to make them able to cover more and more computing solutions. A recent study on the Debian distribution showed that investment should have been of 2 billions euro in order to develop its 55 millions of code ! I want to mention that this document was realised on an HP Brio BAx, then on a Vectra VL400 equiped only with a Linux distribution, with the help of tools like DSSSL style sheet, OpenJade &et; DocBook, ViM which allowed to generate from a single source the formats HTML, Txt, RTF, PostScript, &et; PDF. This one was for a long time a blocking point to the expansion of free software in the firms. It's not the case today. Many service providers or hardware manufacturers, like HP, control today these solutions and propose support around them, uoto missions critical if requested. Other sources of information are also available, in abundance, through several web sites dedicated to these solutions, specialised mailing-lists, and various Usenet groups, such as for Linux, the international groups under comp.os.linux.* or for the french speaking people under fr.comp.os.linux.*. Concerning competences, more and more young engineers or academics finish their learning cycle being trained to the use of free applications and operating systems. This wealth of competences arrives now on the labour market and will contribute to increase the movement of generalisation of these tools. At last, many firms have internaly ignored competences. In fact, their employees often install this software at home, and have a good mastering, usable when arrives the deployment of the software in their professional structure. Advocating free software consists also to mention some generally accepted ideas concerning them and to fight them. "There is no support, no training" As seen previously, support is currently structuring itself. A firm like &RedHat; provides today support for their solutions. Only in France, we may mention firms like &Medasys;, Atrid, Alcove which assure support on free software. Likewise, always in France, training on free software may be given by HP France, Learning Tree, the IUT de Vélizy, without mentioning generic network and Unix trainings (besides proposed also by the same organizations) which represent a fundamental base in a training course. And at last, we should mention the ability of each of us to self-train, mainly thanks to the huge documentation available (See the ). "There is no documentation" There is a whole set of manuals, the Linux Documentation Project, made of FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) and HOWTO, counting more than 300 documents around Linux, the main being translated in french, &et; in japanese available as free documentation. This documentation has a various quality, more or less up to date, following the subjects, certainly but it makes a corpus allowing to apprehend alone a Linux distribution and all its components. For myself, I always found in it everything I needed to do my job with free software. And, in case of complementary information, a lot of web sites and Usenet groups may again bring some of the elements needed. And without counting the innumerable manual pages available on line. Each distribution comes also with a comprehensive set of manual covering all the tasks of installing, handling and managing them. On the other side, the editors O'Reilly &et; SSC have specialised in providing books around free software, written generaly by the writers of the software themselves. Their books are considered as reference books in their respective domains. "A free or nearly free product is a toy" You should always make a difference between free (as speech) and free (as beer). Too many freeware in Microsoft environment are in fact toys and of poor quality. It's absolutely not the case for free software, as stated in the previous sections. Remember just that they are reliable by construction. "Linux is difficult to install" Linux is a professional operating system. At that title, it requires competences to install it, as well as any other professional operating system, like the other Unix or Windows NT for example. But it isn't more difficult to install than those either, mainly thanks to distributions as RedHat, Mandrake, ... You need about 30 minutes to realize a complete installation of such distributions, so quite the same as for HP-UX and noticeably less than for Windows NT Server. On the other hand, as before installing a server with Windows NT you have to verify its compatibility with the Hardware Compatibility List of Microsoft, for Linux it's also greatly recommended to verify the Hardware HOWTO, and for HP machines to refer to . "Free Software are not adequate for heavy tasks" This is less and less true and this criticism has been obsoleted with the latest versions of the Linux kernel which will include a journalised filesystem, allowing a true application cluster. But already Linux authorises the use of multi-processors, several nodes to realise computation clusters. And don't forget it's used by the portal Voila (France Telecom) or the engine Google among other prestigious references. As well, FreeBSD is used with success as the world biggest ftp server : Walnut Creek CDROM server Useful projects to consult in this area of high availability are , &et; "What appeal do I have in case of problem with the editors ?" There is no appeal, because software licences deny all responsabilities for the writers, in case of problem. But, in reality developers are always ready to help in case of problem and try to correct as soon as possible the bugs encountered (for the F00F bug of the pentium, a patch for the Linux kernel was published within 3 days, for example). On the other side, commercial editors guarantee very badly users against problems other than packaging errors. Please read the notes furnished with your software to judge. 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. The aim is not to examine completely or to compare the functions of the various operating systems available. It's more upon looking at the respective positions of Linux in comparison with other systems. Only systems having a sufficient representation on the market are considered. 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, Itanium). 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. The comparison 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). As mentioned upper, few advantages remain to SCO. They have thus recently decided to walk the legal way, to try taking back superiority. This attempt, far from the Free/Open Source philosophy, should incite ISVs to consider migrating to Linux. The comparison 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 comparison 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. An analysis of the advantages of Open Source for desktop machines is available at An analysis of various tests published between Windows vs Linux are available at At last, those who want to migrate from Windows to Linux will probably find useful the page To maintain such a chapter is an endless task :-). 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 . In France, there is for a longer time a site on these themes, under the responsability of Jacques Misselis, hosted by l'École Centrale de Lyon at the address . 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 . 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, &et; Linux Standard Base. HP also communicates through its web site around Linux and free software. You'll find some links here. FireHunter announce (1998-10-06) Covision program announce (1999-01-27) Linux support on NetServers and IA-64 announce (1999-01-27) PA-Risc port announce (1999-03-01) Informix HP association announce (1999-03-02) Kayak Linux support (1999-03-17) World Linux support announce (1999-04-20) HP OpenView announces (1999-05-17) Availability of Apache on HP 3000 (Summer/1999) Visualize Linux support announce (1999-06-21) Open Source Software commitment by HP (1999-08-09) Aberdeen group analysis on HP position on free software (1999-08-09) HP Linux vision (01/01/2000) HP announces the certification of its DAT and DLT products under Linux (02/02/2000) HP Brings Award-winning 3-D VISUALIZE Graphics to Linux Desktop (02/02/2000) &et; HP and Intel Release IA-64 Developer's Kit for Linux (2000-06-13) HP Announces Linux Support for State-of-the-art 3-D Graphics Accelerators (2000-07-25) HP Expands Commitment to Linux (2000-08-14) HP adds Linux support for its Chai appliance platform Software (2000-09-26) HP NetServers make Linux Hum for Solid State Design Medasys chosen by Hewlett-Packard France Education/Research as Linux competence center Hewlett-Packard France Education/Research announces commitment to Linux promotion HP's open letter to the Open source Community (2000-10-18) HP Ultrium Tape Drives Certified to be Linux Compatible (2000-11-21) Bruce Perens, Open Source advocate, joins HP (2000-04-12) (Original: ) Bruno Cornec, yours sincerely, joins HP (2000-04-18) OSDL opens today with 19 sponsors including HP (2001-01-24) HP Extends Linux Support for Enterprise Solutions (2001-01-31) HP's commitment for Linux during Linux-Expo Paris 2001 (02/02/2001) HP opens print driver source code (04/04/2001) EMEA announces around Linux (Trusted Linux, Mandrake Certification, ...) (2001-08-22) B. Maillard Interview (HP France) (2001-08-24) HP Expands Open Source Offerings with Linux Security Software and Embedded Software Platform for Intelligent Devices (2001-08-27) HP Builds Supercomputer from Off-the-Shelf Parts (2001-10) HP's Linux stratégy (2001) HP, Red Hat Provide Selected Universities Worldwide with Grants of Red Hat Linux Software (2001-11-06) HP Extends Linux and Open Standards Leadership with New Blade Servers (2001-12-04) HP Unveils New Linux Solutions for Enterprise, Telecommunications Customers at LinuxWorld (2002-01-29) HP France annonces HP servers A and L under Linux Debian (2002-02-12) HP, DreamWorks Announce Strategic Alliance Aimed at Revolutionizing Animation Production (2002-01-30) HP CEO Carly Fiorina Says Linux Ready for Breakout Year (2002-01-30) HP: Linux as important as HP-UW or Windows (01net) (2002-02-01) HP Announces Global Consortium to Enable New Linux Capabilities for Academic and Industrial Research (Gelato) (2002-03-11) HP's Carrier Grade Servers with Linux Outperform Sun's Netra Servers on Key Industry Benchmark (2002-04-03) HP to Provide U.S. Department of Energy Laboratory One of World's Fastest Supercomputers (2002-04-16) Bdale Garbee chosen as Debian Project Leader (2002-04-17) HP Receives Strong Marks from D.H. Brown for Leadership in Linux and Open Source (2002-04-23) Reuters Supports Adoption of Linux in Financial Services Industry using Intel-Based Servers (2002-05-16) HP Helps DreamWorks Create "Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron" (2002-06-03) , &et; HP, Oracle and Red Hat Combine Engineering Expertise to Further Develop Linux Solutions for the Enterprise (2002-06-05) HP and Cadence Advance Alliance to Bring Electronic Design Automation on Linux (2002-06-11) HP Drives Next-generation Animation on Linux with Walt Disney Feature Animation (2002-06-18) HP and Red Hat Expand Relationship to Deliver Linux Solutions to Enterprise Customers (2002-06-18) U.S. Department of Energy Agency (PNNL) Selects HP to Co-develop Linux Software for Clustered Computing (2002-08-08) HP Unveils Enhanced Linux Product Portfolio Delivering Powerful, Flexible Business Platform (2002-08-13) Sendmail, Inc. and HP Demonstrate Demand for Linux-Based Email Systems on HP ProLiant Servers (2002-08-13) HP's Linux Solutions Chosen by L-3 for Tightened Airport Security (2002-08-13) Media Temple Chooses Linux-based HP Servers to Replace Dell Servers (2002-08-14) HP Announces First Linux Cluster TPC-C Benchmark with Oracle and Red Hat (2002-09-16) HP First to Offer Red Hat Linux Advanced Workstations for Itanium 2-based Systems (2002-09-17) HP Elected as Supporting Member of Eclipse Open Source Consortium (2002-09-25) HP Joins CERN Collaboration to Advance Grid Computing Technologies (2002-09-25) HP Supercomputer to be Deployed at Ohio Supercomputing Center for Advanced Research (2002-10-21) Prentice Hall PTR and HP Publish "The Business and Economics of Linux and Open Source" (Martin Fink) (2002-10-24) Benchmark Shows HP ProLiant Servers Running Linux-based Sendmail Email Solutions Outperform Sun Platforms (2002-10-31) HP, Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center Form Grid Alliance. (2002-11-14) Rice University Terascale Cluster to be Built with HP's Intel Itanium 2-based Systems Running Linux (2002-11-19) HP Showcasing Itanium-based Superdome Server Running HP-UX, Windows and Linux Concurrently (2002-12-09) TeraText Debuts Database Solution on HP Itanium-based Servers Running Linux (2002-12-09) HP Extends Linux Leadership with New Customers, Products and Services (2003-01-21) HP and Red Hat Expand Relationship to Offer Customers New Linux Options (2003-03-19) California Institute of Technology Selects HP Itanium 2 Systems for Scientific Research on TeraGrid Project (2003-04-16) BP Deploys HP Intel® Itanium® 2-Based Systems for Seismic Imaging Research (2003-04-21) The HP 'people's notebook' runs Linux (2003-05-12) HP Achieves First Linux Clustered Oracle Applications Standard Benchmark (2003-05-22) HP Extends Partnership with VMware to Power Server Consolidation and Workload Management (2003-05-28) HP Helps DreamWorks Create Bold New World for Shrek 4-D Animated Attraction (2003-05-29) HP Drives Open Architecture Technology Into Telecom Networks with New Rack Mount Server Based on Intel Processors and Linux. (2003-06-03) HP Reduces Complexity for Open Source Software Developers with New Tool Unveiled at JavaOne. (2003-06-10) HP Showcases New Customer, Investments and Programs in High-performance Linux Clustering. (2003-06-24) HP and SuSE Linux Expand Global Alliance (2003-06-26) DreamWorks Uses Linux-based HP Technology to Create New Animated Film "Sinbad". (2003-07-01) HP Delivers Affordable, Reliable Microtower PC to Small- and Medium-sized Businesses (Mandrake Linux) (2003-07-02) I've participated to a conference organised by Cyperus during the Linux-Expo Paris 2001. You could see it at this address In 2002, I was interviewed alone this time, as you can see at 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. This section presents HP hardware supported today by Linux. Informations are based on the latest stable version of the Linux kernel, which is currently version &curker;. A development kernel (version 2.5) is also available but doesn't offer any guarantee of stability. Page last updated the &curdate;. 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 HP has a new program called "Freedom of Choice" on the whole desktop range. Linux is thus one of the operating systems pushed by HP. Cf: &et; . A FAQ is also available. HP insures the support of certified Linux hardware by the following method : all the machines have the Diagtool utility. If this utility indicates a problem, it's taken in account by HP maintenance. If it doesn't, it's considered as a software problem and should be reported to the distribution provider. The partnership between HP and MandrakeSoft on desktop machines is detailed here: The following tables indicate the state of Linux support by these platforms : &tabmach; Brio (D5522A, D5526A, D5857A, D6665A, D5838A, D5848A, D6514A, D5527A, D5528A, D6666A, D6675A, D5849A, D5839A, D5859A, D6666A, D6510A, D6515A, D6667A, D5840A, D5861A, D6668A, D5840C, D5841A, D6516B) &cels3triov2; &celsans; &celsans; &celinconnu; &celoui; Brio (D6810A, D6812A) &celatipro; &celsans; &celsans; &celinconnu; &celnon; Brio (D6638A, D6639A, D6640A, D6644A, D7901A, D7902A, D6645A, D6646A) &chipbx; &celatipro; &celsans; &celsans; &celinconnu; &celnon; Brio (D5841A, D6516B) &celmilii; &celsans; &celsans; &celinconnu; &celnon; Brio (D6760A, D7671A, D6908A, D7930A, D7672A, D7925T, D6776A, D6769A, D6755A, D6895A, D6896A, D6897A, D7931A) &celmilg100; &celsans; &celsans; &celinconnu; &celnon; Brio BA (D7581A, D7584A, D7585A, D7587A, D7586A, D7591A, D7594A, D8411A) &celsisagp; &celsans; &celsans; &celcs4614; &celnon; Brio BAx (D7600A, D7603A, D7624A, D7625A, D7630A, D7610A)Rem. &celmilp200; &celsans; &celsans; &celcs4614; &celoui; Brio BAx (D7605A)Rem. &celmilp200; &celinconnu; &celsans; &celcs4614; &celnon; Brio BA400 (D8760A, D8761A, D8763A, D8764A, D8767A, D8768A, D8769A, D8934A, D8935A, D8936A, D8943A, D8947A, D8952A, D8953A, D9720A, D9721A, D9724A) &celi810; &celsans; &celsans; &celinconnu; &celoui; Brio BA410 (P1682A, P1683A, P1686A, P1687A, P1689A, P1692A, P1694A, P1710A, P1711A, P1718A, P1719A, P1720A, P1722A, 03237A, P2738A, P2739A, P2741A, P2743A, P2745A, P2746A, P3235A, P3263A, P3264A, P3265A, P3266A, P3267A, P3268A, P3269A, P3271A, P3272A, P3662A, P3663A, P3664A, P3665A, P3666A, P4848B, P4849B, P4855B, P4869A, P4870A, P4872A, P5816B, P5817B, P5821B, P5822A) &celsavage; &celsans; &celsans; &celvia82c686; &celoui; Brio BA410 (P1716A, P1721A, P1723A, P3270A, P3273A, P4873A) &celsavage; &celsmc1211; &celsans; &celvia82c686; &celoui; Brio BA410 (P2744A, P3274A, P3667A) &celge2; &celsans; &celsans; &celvia82c686; &celnon; Brio BA600 (D8770A, D8771A, D8772A, D8773A, D8778A, D8780A, D8783A, D8784A, D8785A, D8788A, D8789A, D8963A, D9070A, D9072A, D9080A, D9082A, D9085A, D9091A)&chipbx; &celmilp200; &celsans; &celsans; &celcs4614; &celoui; Brio BA600 (D8406A, D8774A, D8781A, D8787A, D8967A, D9075A)&chipbx; &celmilp200; &celinconnu; &celsans; &celcs4614; &celnon; &tabmach; Vectra xe310 (P5829A, P5833A, P5865B, P5881A, P5891A, P5902A, P5904A, P6014B, P6015B, P6016A, P6138A, P6138B, P7604B, P76005B, P7606B, P7612B, P7616B, P7619A, P7620A, P7621A, P7622A, P7623A, P7624A, P7625A, P8408A, P8409A, P8412A, P8413B, P8414B, P8415B, P8416B, P8417B, P8418B, P8419B, P8421A, P9581B, P9582B, P9583B) &celi815; &celeepro; &celsans; &cel82810; Mandrake 8.1 Vectra xe310 (P6017B, P6137A, P7617B, P8410A) &celi815; &celeepro; &celsans; &cel82810; Preload Mandrake 8.1 Vectra VE5 (D5592A, D5602A, D5603A, D5604A, D5606N, D5608A, D5612A, D5615A, D5618A, D5607A, D5617A) &cels3triov2; &celsans; &celsans; &celinconnu; &celoui; Vectra VE7 (D6530A, D6531A, D6533A, D6610A, D6611A, D6615A, D6616A, D6613A) &celati2c; &celsans; &celsans; &celinconnu; &celoui; Vectra VE7 (D6532A, D6612A, D6617A, D6618A) &celati2c; &cel3com; &celsans; &celinconnu; &celoui; Vectra VE8 (D6550A, D6560A, D6570A, D6554A, D6584A, D6540A, D6541A, D6544A, D6543A, D6578A, D6573A, D6574A, D6580A,D6581A, D6584A, D6583A, D6593A, D6597A, D6598A) &chipbx; &celmilg100; &celsans; &celsans; &celaztec2320; &celoui; Vectra VE8 (D6552N, D6562N, D6565N, D6542A, D6572A, D6575A, D6582A, D6595A, D6582A, D6585N, D6599A) &chipbx; &celmilg100; &cel3com; &celsans; &celaztec2320; &celoui; Vectra VEi7 (D8112A, D8117A, D8121A, D8123A, D8124A, D8126A, D8128A, D8129A, D8131A, D8133A, D8134A, D8136A, D8138A, D8139A, D8141A, D8143A, D8144A, D8145A, D8148A, P1618A, P1619A) &celsisagp; &celsans; &celsans; &celinconnu; &celoui; Vectra VEi7 (D8118N, D8122A, D8127N, D8132A, D8137A, P1620A) &celsisagp; &cel3com; &celsans; &celinconnu; &celnon; Vectra VEi8 (D8166A, D8168A, D8151A, D8153A, D8155A, D8169A, D8171A, D8173A, D8174A, D8181A, D8183A, D8184A, D8186A, D8188A, D9784A, D9785A, D9786A, D9788A, D9791A, D9793A, P1626A, P1628A, P1633A) &celmilp200; &celsans; &celsans; &celinconnu; &celnon; Vectra VEi8 (D8167N, D8152N, D8172N, D8182N, D8187N, D9787N, D9789A, D9792N, P1627A) &celmilp200; &cel3com; &celsans; &celinconnu; &celnon; Vectra VL5 (D4552A, D4543A, D4554A, D4555A, D4556A, D4557A, D4558A, D4559A, D4560A, D4567A, D4562A, D4563A, D4572A, D4574A, D4576A, D4579A, D4577A) &cels3triov2; &celsans; &celsans; &celinconnu; &celoui; Vectra VL6 &celcl5446; &celsans; &celsans; &celinconnu; &celoui; Vectra VL6 &celmilii; &celsans; &celsans; &celinconnu; &celnon; Vectra VL7 (D5710A, D5711N, D5725A, D5720A, D5721N, D5731N, D5797N, D5737A, D5799N) &celcl5465; &celsans; &celsans; &celinconnu; &celoui; Vectra VL7 (D5734N, D5729N, D5739N, D5728N, D5798N) &celmilii; &celsans; &celsans; &celinconnu; &celnon; Vectra VL7 (D5724N, D5796N) &celcl5465; &celamd; &celsans; &celinconnu; &celnon; Vectra VL8 (D5880A, D5882A, D5890A, D5891A, D5893A, D5896A, D5898A, D5900A, D5902A, D6945A) &chipbx; &celmilg100; &celsans; &celsans; &celinconnu; &celnon; Vectra VL8 (D5881A, D5883A, D5894A, D5888A, D5892A) &chipbx; &celmilg100; &cel3com; &celsans; &celinconnu; &celnon; Vectra VL8 (D5887A) &chipbx; &celmilg100; &cel3com; &celinconnu; &celinconnu; &celnon; Vectra VL8 (D6944A) &chipbx; &celmilg200; &celsans; &celsans; &celinconnu; &celnon; Vectra VL8 (D6940A, D6941A, D6942A) &chipbx; &celmilg200; &cel3com; &celsans; &celinconnu; &celnon; Vectra VL8 (D6943A) &chipbx; &celmilg200; &cel3com; &celaic7880; &celinconnu; &celoui; Vectra VLi8 (D7941A, D7943A, D7945A, D7948A, D7951A, D7953A, D7955A, D7961A, D7963A, D7965A, D7958A, D7968A, D7969A, D7973A, D7976A, D9459A, D9460A, D9463A, D9467A, D9774A, D9810A, P1894A, P1898A) &celmilg200; &celsans; &celsans; &celcs4614; &celoui; Vectra VLi8 (D7826A, D7836A, D7837A, D7846A, D7847A, D7848A, D7856A, D7857A, D7866A, D7867N, D7876A, D7877N, D7942A, D7949A, D7952A, D7959A, D7962A, D7969A, D7972A, D8696A, D8697A, D8950A, D9456A, D9457N, D9461A, D9462A, D9770N, D9771N, D9775A, D9778A, D9779N, D9809A, P1896A, P1899A) &celmilg200; &cel3com905c; &celsans; &celcs4614; &celoui; Vectra VL400 (D9815A, D9816A, D9817A, D9818A, D9819A, D9820A, D9821A, D9822A, D9824A, D9826A, D9828A, D9829A, D9830A, D9831A, D9833A, P1555A, P1556A, P1557A, P1558A, P1560A, P2260A, P2261A, P2266A, P2265A, P2778A, P2779A, P3351A, P3353A, P3389A, P3390A, P3391A, P3394A, P3614A, P3615A, P3616A, P3618A, P3687A, P3691A, P3694A, P3697A, P3698A, P3699A, P3700A, P3702A, P3704A, P3728A, P3730A, P3732A, P3733A, P3734A, P3735A, P3736A, P3737A, P3738A, P3739A, P3740A, P3743A, P3744A, P3745A, P3746A, P3747A, P4110A, P4116A, P4119A, P4120A, P4121A, P4128A, P4129A, P4130A, P4134A, P4136A, P4137A, P4138A, P4140A, P4352A, P4354A, P4355A, P4368A, P4369A, P4370A, P4371A, P4745A, P4746A, P4747A, P4748A, P4752A, P4753A, P5060A, P5069A, P5075A, P5120A, P5121A, P5123A, P5125A, P5126A, P5133A, P5144A, P5598A) &coper; &celi815; &cel3com905c