This (future self reference) post aims to record the steps taken for setting up the HP elitebook 2760p as a working linux notebook using Linux Mint (22) as the distribution and Cinnamon as the desktop environment of choice (this is an older notebook).

Note: this post will be a (forever) work in progress as optimization happens over time.

Bios setup

  • Press Esc button

  • Change the boot order to allow boot from USB

Install Windows

  • Only used as needed, give it ~64GB (some tools still require windows to run)

Install Linux Mint

  • Install alongside windows, allocate ~96GB to linux partition (we’ll edit partitions later)

  • Plus recommended system updates, then reboot PC

Check Grub

  • Check that the grub menu displays both and that both OS’es boot

  • Debug otherwise (it happens)

Partition drive

  • Use gparted within the live USB to:

  • Remove any windows unnecessary partitions (recovery, reserved …etc)

  • Create linux swap ~20GB partition

  • Create data ntfs shared partition

Data partition

  • Copy over data from external HDD

  • Use Unison to sync Notebook and tablet

Use swap partition – instead of swap file

  • Same/similar as tablet setup (see blog post)

Automount shared data partition

  • Same/similar as tablet setup (see blog post)

Enable hibernation

  • Same/similar as tablet setup (see blog post)

Startup applications

  • disable unnecessary default applications at boot

  • Disable touch: xsetwacom set "Wacom Serial Penabled 2FG Touchscreen Finger touch" Touch off

  • Remap jog dial left/right to pagedown/pageup keys

sudo setkeycodes e006 104
sudo setkeycodes e007 109

  • For this to work the commands need to be added to the sudoers file: sudo vim /etc/sudoers.d/setkeycodes

  • And add the following lines

ALL ALL = NOPASSWD:/bin/setkeycodes e006 104                                                         
ALL ALL = NOPASSWD:/bin/setkeycodes e007 109

Power optimizations

  • Install tlp for auto-optimizations (refer to tablet guide)

  • Use powertop to monitor usage (refer to tablet guide)

Re-map Bezel hardware buttons

Left/right jog dial

  • The left/right jog dial needs to be remapped through setkeycodes and is executed at startup (see the startup applications section); it does not work through udev

press jog dial

  • The press jog dial to trigger full screen is done through udev (refer to the tablet setup for a bit more background)

  • Edit hwdb file: sudo vim /etc/udev/hwdb.d/61-keyboard-local.hwdb

  • Add the following lines:

# Input device ID: bus 0011 vendor 0001 product 0001 version AB83
# evdev:input:b<bus_id>v<vendor_id>p<product_id>e<version_id>-<modalias>
evdev:input:b0011v0001p0001*
 KEYBOARD_KEY_1c=f11
  • Then update and trigger the rules:
sudo udevadm trigger
sudo systemd-hwdb update

Install with your desired preferences

  • Unison Sync
  • Redshift
  • VIM
  • Thunderbird
  • Plus others



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