How to – Broadcom BCM4310 Wireless, HP 530 Laptop, Ubuntu Hardy

After a recent purchase of A HP 530 laptop and 2 weeks of trying to get a budget laptop to work with Vista, it was time to re-format and replace the vista virus with a operating system.

Its a bit of a joke that this laptop got sold with Vista.  With 1GB of Ram and a Celeron 1.6Ghz processor it was completely unfit for the purpose of running the installed Vista Home Basic.  After an upgrade to 2 GB of Ram and an HP extended 9 cell battery it was still uncapable but with a battery life of an hour and half instead of the “out of the box” forty five minutes battery life.  Interestingly after installing Ubuntu Hardy not only did the machines performance become more acceptable as it was not longer struggling with Vista’s bloat, but the surprise for me was that battery life increased to three and a half hours.  The unfortunate downside to Ubuntu was that the built in Broadcom BCM4310 wireless card did not work.
Read more