It took 2 weeks to install Ubuntu Intrepid to my liking on my HP laptop, and I know theres a few more 1225 DX users out there suffering from the same issues so heres my issue, fix, and, compatibility report.

If you have the same laptop, and have your own suggestions or issues feel free to reply.

Default specs (mostly stolen from best buy )

HP Pavilion DV4-1225DX
  • AMD Turion™ X2 RM-72 Dual-Core Mobile Processor
  • 4GB DDR2 memory
  • Multiformat DVD±RW/CD-RW drive with double-layer support and lightscribe
  • 14.1" WXGA high-definition widescreen display
  • 250GB SATA hard drive (5400 rpm)
  • ATI RADEON HD 3200 graphics RS780M (shared memory, HDMI output)
  • 5-in-1 digital media reader
  • Expansion port 3 (nobody actually uses this thing)
  • 2 USB 2.0 ports + 1 USB/ESATA port
  • built in (802.11b/g BCM4312 rev 01 chipset)
  • Default OS Vista Home Premium 64bit


Ubuntu install notes.
  • A bios update is available. If your going to overwrite vista you should probably install this first. (it's not life or death, but might help somebody)
  • Gparted refused to resize my windows partition, when I installed with an 8.04 live cd. (I updated immediately to intrepid after install). If you have this issue and want to dual boot you may need to shrink the vista partition within windows using disc manager.

Known Issues after install.
  • No sound except out of headphones. (no sound through internal speakers)

    lspci -v output (for anyone that cares)

    00:14.2 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 Azalia
    Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Unknown device 30fb
    Flags: bus master, slow devsel, latency 64, IRQ 16
    Memory at d2500000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
    Capabilities: <access denied>
    FIX: add the line
    Code:
    options snd-hda-intel model=dell-m4-1
    to the file
    /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base
    *This fix works, but seems to have issues with sound quality and volume control. If someone stumbles upon a better solution let me know. It took over 1/2 a week for me to find this fix so I'm just happy that there is one.
  • Keyboard and touch pad lock up on return from suspend and hibernate.
    Fix: add
    Code:
     i8042.reset
    to the end of the kernel line in grub. You can also add it to the default options line if you want it automaticly added whenever grub is updated to a new kernel if you like.
    example of updated Kernal line (in case your not clear)
    Code:
    kernel		/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.27-11-generic root=UUID=88b99fce-0f2b-421d-9071-5974649671ce ro quiet splash i8042.reset
    *this fixes the listed problem, but there seems to be another more intermittent issue with returning from hibernate, but as long as I have suspend I don't care.
  • Many 3d games output pure junk to the screen when using the restricted driver.
    This only seems to effect openGL games like Open Arena, Alien Arena, and Warzone 2100
    Fix: Radeon HD 3200 has documented issues with the ATI driver version used by Intrepid. The only solution is to compile and install the newest catalyst drivers (if you dare)
    click here for instructions on how to compile the ATI drivers for ubuntu
    *This hardware also has known issues with mythbuntu, but i don't use that software so I don't know if this will fix it.
  • Kernel panics aka system lockup immediately upon connecting to certain encrypted networks.
    This affects my university's WPA-2 enterprise network(PEAP, MSCHAPV2). This is a part of a larger issue with Ubuntu 8.10 and network manager, downgrading or upgrading network manager MIGHT fix this, but only intrepid seems to have CDMA (cricket wireless internet) support so neither are an option for me.

Credits: (sites I found these fixes on)