HP Folio 13

Hardware	PCI/USB ID	Working?
GPU		Yes
Ethernet		Yes
Wireless		Yes
Bluetooth		Yes
Audio		Yes
Touchpad		Yes
Camera		Yes
Card Reader		Yes

Hardware

CPU Intel Core i5-2467M (1.60 GHz Dual-core, 3 MB Cache). i3 Model available too.

Mainboard Intel HM65

RAM 4GB 1333MHz DDR3 (single DIMM slot, no spare slots)

Display 13.3" HD LED (1366x768)

Graphics adapter Intel HD3000

Soundcard Intel HD Audio

Network Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B, Broadcom Corporation BCM4313 802.11b/g/n

Hard disk 128GB SSD

Webcam HP Truevision HD

Touchpad Synaptics touchpad with multi-touch gestures.

Configuration

This article refers to the HP Folio 13 ultrabook. The model specifically is the dm3-1008TU, which is the i5 variant. An i3 variant is also available with otherwise the same hardware (13-1016TU). For more: http://www.hp.com/united-states/campaigns/folio13/index.html#.T3RIaNXK3co

Installation

The Folio 13 lacks an optical drive, so you will need to create a USB install media and boot from the USB (hit F9 at startup to select USB as boot drive). The following notes refer to Arch x86_64 installed using a nightly netinstall ISO (March 17 nightly). As noted below, you will need to alter the kernel boot line in order to prevent the display from blacking out once the kernel loads. This applies to the install media and 1st boot once installation is done.

If you experience PGP package signing errors during the package download and install phase of installation, you may need to do the foloowing: after selecting packages, but before installing packages, go to TTY3 (Alt-F3), login as root, and edit /tmp/pacman.conf. Add the following line after "Architecture = auto" - SigLevel = Never. You may also need to generate pacman's signature keys using the command "pacman-key --init".

If you wish to have all 128GB of space available on the SSD, first backup the factory partition using HP's backup tool (available when you login to the pre-installed Win 7) - you will need a 16GB USB drive to do so. You can then totally wipe/repartition the SSD during Arch installation, with the 16GB USB available to do a factory reinstall (although why would you want to!?). Of course if you do not want a backup USB, go ahead and just repartition the drive.

Video

In order to prevent the screen from turning off/black at startup, you need to add i915.modeset=1 acpi_backlight=vendor to Kernel parameters

Touchpad

More correctly, the HP Folio has what is known as a clickpad i.e. no actual physical buttons exist. It mostly works out of the box with a few niggles: the pointer can jump around a bit (this seems improved in recent drivers) and the button areas are quite stiff (it does improve with use).

See Touchpad Synaptics#Buttonless touchpads (aka ClickPads) for details.

Suspend to RAM

Suspending manually (i.e. systemctl suspend) works, comes back with all devices OK. Lid switch ACPI events do not work. However, the state of the lid is reported in the file `/proc/acpi/button/lid/LID0/state.` Though this is not the preferred way to manage services, it is possible to read this file in an infinite loop and trigger a command to sleep or hibernate when the lid is closed. An example script might look like this:

 #!/bin/bash
 
 delay_time="2.5"
 cmd="systemctl hibernate"
 
 while true ; do
   state=( $(</proc/acpi/button/lid/LID0/state) )
   [[ ${state[1]} = "closed" ]] && $cmd
   sleep $delay_time
 done

Save this file to `/usr/local/bin/lid` and mark as executable with:

 # chmod +x /usr/local/bin/lid`

It is preferable to run this script as a daemon (see systemd). Alternatively, it is possible to launch this in userspace, such as in ~/.xinitrc or other startup system. If so, the `cmd` variable may need to be prefixed with `sudo` and one must allow the command to be executed by a regular user as detailed at Allow users to shutdown. Users may increase the delay_time to decrease system calls or change the command to be executed when the lid is closed.

This is a hacky solution, only to be used, if at all, until acpid registers lid events. Nonetheless, the HP Folio 13 is sufficiently powerful that the extra load created by checking a file every few seconds has no perceptible impact on the user experience.

Function Keys

Mostly work. The screen brightness function keys do not work and neither does the wireless on-off key. The sound level/mute and keyboard backlight on-off keys do all work.

Update: the sound level/mute keys no longer seem to work with kernel 3.6.x. This is a known bug related to GNOME, and has a fix in GNOME 3.6 [testing] as of 19/10/12.

Update 29 July 2013: Function keys now all work. This update/fix appeared around kernel 3.10.

Bluetooth

Does not work out of the box. You will need to add the following to /etc/rc.local:

modprobe btusb &&
echo "0a5c 21e3" >> /sys/bus/usb/drivers/btusb/new_id

Finally, you will need to add 'bluetooth' to your rc.conf daemons.