That wasn't too long...

I expected to have to wait longer, what with all the snow in Tennessee. The package arrived on Thursday, but I didn't get the notice online until that night, so I picked it up yesterday afternoon.

The tablet is as beautiful as I thought it would be. The seller was honest -- it looks new, aside from a few scuff marks on the base station. He did a fantastic job packaging it for shipping. It's a little heavier than I imagined, but not heavy.

Now this blog is about putting Ubuntu Linux on this machine. I haven't started that process yet, as I want to play with it a bit and get a sense of how it was intended to work in Windows. I don't particularly like using Windows (XP Tablet, in this case) but the experience of using a pen as input device is novel, and adds pleasure to the normal frustration I have with that OS.

E.G.: Windows took three hours and something like seven reboots to update itself. And the wireless interface -- why were there two controlling bits of software in the dock, and why did the one that was active (the Intel software) not work with Windows? It took me something like two hours to figure out that I had to deactivate it, partly because the inactive, native controller was hidden away by the dock, so I didn't know that there were two bits of software. The Intel app is still running now, though, sucking up CPU! Idiocy. Anyhow, it'll all be gone soon, but I'll Ghost it or something, for the next owner, now that I seem to have it all working. (That is, if I should ever sell it.)

Final aside: Windows permissions are weird. 'Nuff said.

The seller wiped the drive and used the restore disks (OS DVD and Driver CD) to reset the machine, which was nice. One problem though: the buttons didn't work, neither the pen buttons nor the physical buttons. Reinstalling the driver, and installing a driver direct from HP didn't make them work, either. I was worried that I had a hardware problem, but it turns out that I didn't.

I found the XP fix here. (There is another fix, for Win7, though.) It seems that the XP installer(s) don't install i8042prt.sys to the C:\Windows\System32\Drivers folder. You need to expand it (it's compressed for storage) from the OS DVD. Then rerun the installer.

This is the actual button driver, I gather. Seems important, but y'know, when you've got to get a product out the door, things slip. It's like buying a BLT, and getting a mouthful of mayo and lettuce. Perfectly reasonable mistake, right? No. Where's the damn BACON? It's a BLT, for chrissake! It's not like I asked for an Italian, and you forgot the provolone. Man.

So, that is the first, and last, Windows tip you'll see here. Enjoy it, like a tasty grape-like flavored medicine.

Onward to Linux Paradise!

m a r