Installing
Prerequisites
To install any type of Debian on your newly unwrapped HP 620, you have to have the following:
- The Debian Installer (d-i) CD (I do use netinstall usually)
- Any kind of boot cd that can boot your system again (e.g. Xubuntu installer)
- A lot of patience
Preparing the system
First: my system came preloaded with Windows 7. I started the installation process, because I wanted to install Linux in parallel. After futile attempts to resize the partition, create a new one and install Debian squeeze and Xubuntu (one after another), which worked from an install point of view but never managed to boot the system, I gave up and deleted all partitions.
In the BIOS I removed the option to 'protect the disk' and set the controller to IDE (just to be sure).
After that it was pretty straightforward. I installed Debian (minimum, because that's how I roll) and rebooted, just to be greeted by "No System Disk or Disk Error". How inconvenient. But strangely enough, starting the system with the 'boot first disk' option from the Xubuntu worked - and after the first system update, the system was bootable.
The only thing that was left was to activate the wlan device. I installed Xfce and the works, removed network-manager and installed wicd, then downloaded the driver for RTL8192SE from RTL and installed it according to the included readme.
Then I tried to get those pesky extra keys (volume, mute) to work, installed keytouch and the keytouch-editor (via aptitude), but then it segfaulted all the time when trying to create a new configuration. Well, I will leave that for another time.
Out of the important points, the HP 620 works for me. The installation is a bit rough, not all keys work (yet), but after all, everything seems to work now. Now that I know about the pitfalls, I would definitely recommend it so far for running Debian.
