• “sudo dmidecode | grep tx” says:

  Product Name: HP Pavilion tx2500 Notebook PC

• Actually, I think I bought mine as a tx2510 US.

You may had already read this page. Some of the information may be still useful, still, the majority may be outdated, and I've copied here what I thought could still be relevant.

The module r8169, which drives the RTL8111/8168B card, is affected by bug 12296: after suspend/resume, the dhcp will stop working.

A workaround consists in creating a file “/etc/pm/sleep.d/25_r8169” with the following content:

#!/bin/bash

case "$1" in
        hibernate|suspend)
                # Remove the r8169 module
                rmmod r8169;
                ;;
        thaw|resume) 
                # Remodprobe the r8169 module
                modprobe r8169;
                ;;
        *)
                ;;
esac

exit $?

The dsdt of the BIOS (I have no idea of what it is) is flawed, and thinks only Windows is eligible to access it; while under Jaunty the problem could be solved by following this procedure, now because of (non-) bug 395239, the procedure stopped working.

The “solution” is probably to recomplile the kernel, but I didn't try.

The real solution would be that HP releases a fixed BIOS. I already wrote to the support asking for it, but with no chance. Some owner of a laptop still covered by warranty may have a better luck.

Audio works out of the box: however, pulseaudio conflicts with the “SmartLink modem daemon”. If you enabled this driver with the “Hardware Drivers” utility, you will hear no sound at all.

A temporary solution is to run “sudo killall slmodemd” in a terminal. A permanent one, if you don't use the modem, is to disable the “SmartLink modem daemon” driver at all.

I followed the procedure described in launchpad bug 208183, namely:

• download the driver from HP website (I took it from here), it's called “sp36684.exe”
• run it with wine : “wine sp36684.exe”
• always click “next”, until the installer crashes
• install ndisgtk, run it: “sudo ndisgtk”
• click “install new driver”
• browse to /home/yourusername/.wine/drive_c/SWSetup/SP36684A and select “bcmwl5.inf”

Warning: if you enable the driver in “Hardware Drivers” (System → Administration → Restricted Drivers), which is the proprietary driver developed by Broadcom for Linux, it will work reasonably, but you will occasionally experience (depending on the wireless networks, I think) important slowdowns when resuming from suspend, frequent losses of wireless functionality, and also occasional freezes. Moreover, it seems to me that the signal strenght is better with ndiswrapper, but this may be just my sensation.

The pen works out of the box, but not the touch: a solution is suggested in this comment, and it works.

Worked out of the box, but at wakeup mouse and keyboard didn't work. The problem can be solved by adding “ i8042.reset” to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT in /etc/default/grub.

The device just works (try to install package fprint-demo and then run “fprint-demo”), however I didn't have the time and information to set up it properly.

Doesn't work if HPET is enabled, as reported in bug 307090. The problem can be solved by adding “ hpet=disable” to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT in /etc/default/grub, presumably in addition to “i8042.reset”, see above: in the end, my line looks like this.

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash i8042.reset hpet=disable"

The situation of the buttons is the same as Jaunty: the “rotate” button, which in Intrepid could be manually configured to trigger the rotate script, is now recognized as XF86AudioMedia (which means that as default, it will start the media program - Rhythmbox, I think), while the “DVD” button, which in intrepid used to (justly) be recognized as XF86AudioMedia, is now totally inactive, as well as the two buttons under the screen still don't work at all.

To enable rotation in the best way: install wacomrotate from this PPA, then create a file containing the following:

#!/bin/bash
xrandr -q | grep -q '+\w* (' && xrandr -o left || xrandr -o normal

(this is what this post suggests for left-handed people, but it's what I - right-handed - just find convenient) and call it “rotate.sh”. Then create a file in the same folder containing the following:

  #!/bin/bash

  # From Red_Lion post #576:  http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=845911&page=58
  # Modified by toobaz: http://www.pietrobattiston.it/wiki/doku.php?id=karmic_on_hp_pavilion_tx2500

  old="0"
    while true; do
        if [[ -e /sys/devices/platform/hp-wmi/tablet ]]; then
	        new=`cat /sys/devices/platform/hp-wmi/tablet`
	        if [[ $new != $old ]]; then
                              ./rotate.sh
		        if [[ $new == "0" ]]; then
			        cellwriter --hide-window &
		        elif [[ $new == "1" ]]; then
			        cellwriter --show-window &
		        fi 
	        fi
	        old=$new
	        sleep 1s
        fi
    done

and call it for instance “automagic_rotation.sh”. Make both files you created executable. Finally, open gconf-editor, go to /apps/metacity/global_keybindings, and in “run_command_1” (or another “run_command_x”, if it is already taken), write:

XF86AudioMedia

then, still with gconf-editor in /apps/metacity/keybindings_commands, write the full path of “rotate.sh” in “command_1” (or “command_x”, corresponding to what you just chose in the last step).

Finally, go to “System” → “Preferences” → “Startup applications”, add a new one with the whole path of the second file (“automagic_rotation.sh”, in my case) as “Command:”.

In that way, rotation will be triggered:

• with the “rotate” button
• automatically, when rotating the screen.

Works.