HP Pavilion G6-2313AX dual booting Ubuntu 12.10 and Windows 8

Here is my experience with HP Pavilion g6-2313AX with Windows 8 and Ubuntu 12.10 dual boot.

Before starting Installtion:

Get Windows 8 DVD with key and Ubuntu DVD for installation.

Installing Windows 8:

Installing Windows 8 is easy. While installing Windows 8, leave lot of free space for installing Ubuntu later. Windows will create 4 partition i.e sda1 , sda2, sda3, sda4. I gave only 100 GB for Windows 8 to live in my notebook.

Ubuntu recommends that EFI boot partition should be 200 MB and Windows 8 create EFI partition only of 100 MB. So first I installed Windows 8 and then Ubuntu. Windows 8 create only 100 MB EFI partition so I stopped the installation of Windows 8 in the middle and used Live Ubuntu from pen drive to boot and open GParted. Deleted every partition except sda1 and sda2.  Now change the size of EFI partition to 400 MB.

If for some reason GParted fails than use Ubuntu installer to resize the EFI partition. When using Ubuntu installer do not delete sda1(Windows recovery) and create EFI partition of 200 MB and continue with installation and cancel Ubuntu installation after disk formatting stage has done. Now go to Windows 8 partition. Delete every partition except sda1 and sad2. Format(not delete) the sda1 and sda2 with Windows 8 to clear any old entries for fresh install and creat 100 GB partition using Windows 8 partitioning system. Windows 8 will automatically create sda3 and sda4. Windows create sda3 - 128 MiB partition automatically while installation. Windows 8 will install successfully. Now with UEFI only Windows 8 boot by default.

HP Pavilion g6-2313AX has secure boot and I have disabled the legacy support from BIOS to avaoid any future problem while dual booting Windows 8 and Ubuntu 12.10. For it I used the GParted for partitioning the 1 TB hard disk drive.

Windows 8 and Ubuntu dual boot with UEFI  disk partition scheme. 

• /dev/sda1 is windows recovery partition.
• /dev/sda2 is EFI boot partition.
• /dev/sda3 is Windows 8 system drive automatically created by Windows while installation.
• /dev/sda4 is the NTFS partition where Windows 8 is installed.
• /dev/sda5 is ext4 and Ubuntu is installed in this drive.
• /dev/sda6 is swap partition for Ubuntu.
• /dev/sda7 is the ext4 partition and its mount point is /home.

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Installing Ubuntu:

Boot from Ubuntu DVD or Ubuntu pen drive. Click Next ,next.... and then there is partition manager asking to to use whole disk. Choose "Something else". Now you will see windows drive and some free space. Do not touch any of the windows drives from sda1 to sda4. Make new partition for Ubuntu and choose right mount point. Don't forget to leave some space for Linux Swap. Ubuntu will go inside drive which has mount point "/" i.e sda5 here. Now continue with installation.
New partition created during Ubuntu installation:

• /dev/sda5 is ext4 and Ubuntu is installed in this drive.
• /dev/sda6 is swap partition for Ubuntu.
• /dev/sda7 is the ext4 partition and its mount point is /home.

When the installation of Ubuntu finishes it will ask for restart. But after restart, the OS that boot is Windows 8.  So to boot Ubuntu go to boot option by pressing escape key just after power button is pressed and press F9 key to see boot option. Ubuntu should be there as second option.

Missing old GRUB Menu On Start-up:

Install GRUB to see a list of Operating System to choose from for boot. For this install Boot Repair in Ubuntu with this command:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:yannubuntu/boot-repair && sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y boot-repair && boot-repair

After this click Recommended Repair option or advance if you want. Follow the instructions. On reboot you will see old GRUB menu. Windows may fail to boot so disable secure boot from BIOS.

HP Pavilion G6-2313AX with Windows 8 and drivers.

HP Pavilion G6-2313AX with Ubuntu 12.10

HP Pavilion G6-2313AX Review with Windows 8

I recently purchased HP Pavilion G6-2313AX Laptop. Its ships with free DOS and its hardware specification are:

Product Name	g6-2313ax
Product Number	D5F90PA
Microprocessor	2.3 GHz AMD Quad-Core A10-4600M
Microprocessor Cache	4 MB L2 cache
Memory	6 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Video Graphics	AMD Radeon HD 7660G/7670M Dual GPU (2 GB DDR3 dedicated)
Display	15.6" diagonal HD BrightView LED-backlit (1366 x 768)
Hard Drive	1 TB 5400 rpm SATA
Multimedia Drive	SuperMulti DVD burner
Network Card	Integrated 10/100 BASE-T Ethernet LAN (RJ-45 connector)
Wireless Connectivity	Bluetooth 802.11b/g/n
Sound	2 x Altec Lansing Internal speakers; Dolby Advanced Audio v2 Audio playback; Dual speakers
Keyboard	Full-size island-style keyboard
Pointing Device	TouchPad supporting multi-touch gestures and on/off button
PC Card Slots	Multi-format digital media card reader for secure digital cards & multimedia cards
External Ports	2 SuperSpeed USB 3.0 1 HDMI 1 VGA 1 RJ-45 1 Headphone-out (Stereo) 1 Microphone-in
Dimensions	37.6 x 24.4 x 3.63 cm
Weight	Starting at 2.48 kg
Power	90W AC Power Adapter 6-cell Li-Ion
What's In The Box	HP TrueVision HD Webcam with integrated digital microphone (High Definition low-light)

Source

I use Windows Operating System rarely. Here is my experience with it while using Windows 8 on HP Pavilion G6-2313AX.

1. As HP Pavilion G6-2313AX comes with free DOS, I installed Windows 8 on it.
2. With default installation only few device driver are installed and after installing Windows update few more device drivers are installed and updated.
3. Many people are complaining for device driver for HP Pavilion G6-2313AX. Easily Downloaded all the Windows 8 64 bit device drivers for HP G6-2313AX from HP web-site with this link.
4. Skip the Qualcomm Atheros drivers as HP G6-2313AX has the Ralink Bluetooth and WiFi adapter.
5. After installing all the device drivers everything is working fine.
6. Now HP Pavilion G6-2313AX is a running smooth. Looks like it does not has any kind of heating problem while using Windows 8 if proper drivers are installed. No need of cooling pad that came with it. I am using its cooling pad to cool down Raspberry Pi board.

Here is the Windows 8 experience index for HP Pavilion G6-2313AX with default windows 8 installation:

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HP G6-2313AX is better supported by Windows 8 if compared to Ubuntu Linux. Performance is good with Windows 8. But even after installing official drivers from HP does not improve this score in each category. After using this laptop for more than a week, the performance is good for normal use but not for heavy application use.

Plus Points:

• It has 1 TB HDD.
• It has 6 GB DDR3 RAM
• It has 2.5 GB (512 MB Integrated+2 GB Dedicated) graphics.
• It has a good keyboard.
• Touch-pad is better than other laptops.
• Web-Cam quality is good.
• Video & audio chat experience is very good while using it with Google Hangout.
• Audio quality is good.
• No heating problems if used with proper driver installation.
• No need to buy separate cooling pad.
• Build quality is very good.

Negative Points:

• Resolution is low (1366 x 768).
• AMD Quad-Core A10-4600M processor do not provide that good performance if compared to similar Intel processors. My other 2 year old dell laptop with i5 processor gives better performance than this.

Overall its not that good buy for approx INR 38000 or USD $710. A major drawback with this laptop is that it has AMD processor. Its the first time I bought AMD laptop and not happy.

HP Pavilion G6-2313AX with Ubuntu 12.10

HP Pavilion G6-2313AX dual boot Windows 8 and Ubuntu

HP Pavilion G6-2313AX Drivers Download

I recently bought HP Pavilion G6-2313AX from flipkert. After reading reviews I found out that many people are having trouble to download drivers for HP Pavilion G6-2313AX. All Windows 8 drivers are available from HP web site and is available to download from this link.

If you any other HP Pavilion G6 series laptop then one can find drivers easily here.

I installed to Windows 8 and Ubuntu 12.10 on HP Pavilion G6-2313AX. Windows 8 works good with default installation and few device drivers are available from windows update like wifi, touchpad, graphics etc and other device drivers have to be downloaded from HP website.

While Ubuntu 12.10 on HP Pavilion G6-2313AX have problems with wifi, grphic card, touchpad, screen brightness, much more load on processor as compared to Windows 8.

HP Pavilion G6-2313AX with Windows 8.
HP Pavilion G6-2313AX with Ubuntu 12.10
HP Pavilion G6-2313AX dual boot Windows 8 and Ubuntu.