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December 23rd, 2024 8:46:48 AM

Dell Latitude D820 Intel Core Duo, T2600, 2.16 Ghz, 667Mhz FBS
Fedora Core 6 installed 1-12-2007
Ubuntu 7.04 installed 4-28-2007
Ubuntu 7.10 install pending

System Information
Introduction
The install story

ACPI
Random Gnome Desktop Background

Hardware Components	Status under Linux	Notes
Intel Core Duo T2600 2.16Ghz	Works	FC5 kernel-smp-i686 FC6 kernel-i686 Ubuntu 7.04
15.4 WXGA+ 1680x1050 LCD	Works	Select Dell Laptop LCD 1680x1050
nVidia M120 512MB	Works	yum install kmod-nvidia Restricted Driver nvidia drivers
2.0 GB 667Mhz RAM	Works
120GB 5400RPM SATA Hard drive	Works
Broadcom Extreme Ethernet	Works
Internal 56k Modem	Doesn't Use	In progress
8x DVD-+RW	Works
Dell True Mobile 1390 802.11g WiFi Card Intel ProSet Wireless 3945 WiFi Card	Works Works(better)	Wireless Broadcomm Chip Network Wireless Intel Chip Network
Intel ProSet Wireless 3945 WiFi Card	Works	Ubuntu 7.04 Restricted driver download.
Dell True Mobile 350 Bluetooth	Works
Volume Up, Down, and Mute keys	Works	Configure Keyboard Shortcuts
85 WHr Lithium-Ion Battery	Works	I got 2 batteries for 4 - 5 hours per battery. With Intel ProSet Wireless Card I get 5 - 6 hours per battery.
Intel hda-intel audio (FC5)	Works with some tweaking	Information Detailed
Intel hda-intel audio (FC6)	Works	no tweaking needed on FC6
Intel hda-intel audio (Ubuntu)	Works	no tweaking needed on 7.04

System Information

1 PCMCIA
1 Express Card
1 Fast IR port
4 USB 2.0 ports
1 Com port
1 VGA 15 DSub port
1 1394 FireWire Port
FingerPrint Reader

Introduction

RedHat/Fedora was the first distro that I ever tried. Back when RedHat 5.2 was out I installed it on my Fujitsu Lifebook 420D. This new computer takes me back to the good old days. Back then I had to manually configure the video driver for X because of the lack of a good driver for Neomagic. This computer has a similar problem with the sound, which I will enlighten you about later. I also have some issues with the wireless networking card. I must say that my Inspiron 600m did not have this many problems with its network card, and it was also a broadcom chip for its wireless card.

(UPDATE 1-12-2007)

I replaced the WiFi card with the Intel ProSet Wireless 3945 mini-express pci card. This card is great when it comes to setup. Also the card work well with nvidia X drivers so there is no problem as I had listed before. I also had a hard drive problem which got replaced so I figured a clean install of Fedora Core 6 was in order. Changes listed below in their sections.

(UPDATE 11-18-2007)

Back in April I switched to Ubuntu from Fedora, this distribution of linux seemed to find the hardware on this laptop with less tweaking issues. Now that Dell and Ubuntu have started to shipping computers with Ubuntu pre installed system updates will start to include more Dell hardware support. I am currently getting ready to update this system to Ubuntu 7.10 but I have a few more testing to do before I update my production system to this new version.

The install story

Well I wanted to leave at least some version of windows on the system just incase I would ever need it. I downloaded a GParted live CD was good to resize the partition and I deleted the dell 70mb partition as well. This did not happen to give me the ability to move the Windows Partition to the front of the drive. I used another program to move the Windows Partition to the first locations on the drive. I also had to change boot.ini file for windows to boot. After I installed Fedora Core 5, I had to change the boot.ini file again. For some reason the partition table made sda1 come after sda2, but that was a small issue.

/dev/sda
sda2 starts 1, end 2743, Size (MB) 21,517 ntfs
sda1 starts 2744, end 2756, Size (MB) 102 ext3
sda3 starts 2757, end 14593, Size (MB) 92852 LVM Physical Volume

(UPDATE 1-12-2007)

With a new blank hard drive I figured I never used the Windows Partition that I left on the system before so I never installed Windows. This gives me 20GB more of data for my linux partition. Since I use VM Ware I figured that if I really need windows it will work there. My FC6 was downloaded from Bittorrent and I used the DVD. There is only small problem with this DVD is that it picks the i586 kernel instead of the i686 kernel. You will need to replace the i586 kernel so the speed scaling of the CPU happens with this system. Make sure you have a copy of the rpm of the current kernel you are going to be replacing in each version. Here were my steps to replacing the kernel.

If you have not done any updates you can pull the kernel for the i686 off of the dvd other wise download the kernel i686 version for an ftp download.

at a console as su or root.type the following:
rpm - e --nodeps kernel-2.6.18-<your current version>.i586.fc6
you will get a message about grub this is ok, and do not reboot your system you currently have no kernel.
Then you have to install the new kernel which is just as easy.
rpm -ivh kernel-2.6.18-<your current version>.i686.fc6
This installs the i686 version of your kernel. It is now save to reboot your system at this time if you received no error on this install.

After the kernel is correct I was able to install all sorts of programs with out the kernels complaining about speed scaling or not having the correct devel packages.

(UPDATE 11-18-2007)

When I installed Ubuntu back in April I let Linux be the entire drive. I am currently looking at installing the 7.10 version of Ubuntu but I think I will be upgrading the hard drive of this system to a new 320gb hard drive. This will give me plenty of space to have all of the software I need including Virtual Machine images.

Wireless Broadcomm Chip Network

I have run into a problem running nVidia kernel modules and the ndiswrapper at the same time. My solutions to this is as follows. I install nVidia driver on the stock Fedora kernel through livina.org's yum repo. I then download a 16k stack kernel and have created my own version of the kmod for ndiswrapper. This seem to be the best solution I have found to date. I have supplied the current kernel and current version of ndiswrapper I am using on my system.

My download site for the current working kernel, and kernel module.

kernel-smp-2.6.17-1.2157_FC5.stk16.i686.rpm
kmod-ndiswrapper-smp-1.18-2.2.6.17_1.2157_FC5.stk16.i686.rpm

Kernel is right from www.linuxant.com/driverloader/wlan/full/download-fc5-kernel-i686.php you can always download and create your own rpm from the instructions on rpm.livna.org/kernel-modules.html

(UPDATE 1-18-2007) From a person using FC6 on a Latitude D620

wifi card - ndiswrapper 1.34 works AND WITH
video card - get kmod-nvidia from livna
NOTE: You can run the stock FC6 video drivers but then you can't activate "Window Effects" ala Compiz :)
kernel - no issues with original install kernel, yum updated kernel, and livna's "kernel to match the kmod-nvidia module."
sleep - works like a charm. I found out accidentally when I fell asleep next to it... when I woke up it was dead, but hitting the power button INSTANTLY brought it back. (Need to manually re-associate the wifi card with an AP.)

 

Wireless Intel Chip Network (UPDATE 1-12-2007)

This was by far the best wireless card I have setup on a laptop so far. I got most of the information for this install from http://ipw3945.sf.net. I am glad that Intel supports the linux community with their wireless cards. Even though it still needs firmware it works a lot better than broadcomm's card. Make sure you download the ucode, ipw3945d, and the 1.1.3 version of the source for this driver.

Copy the ipw3945d for the x86 to the /sbin directory. Copy the ipw3945-ucode to the /lib/firmware directory. Compile the ipw3945-1.1.3 with make. Then I copied the ipw3945.ko to the /lib/modules/<current kernel version>/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/ directory. Then I did a chmod 744 on that file in the wireless directory. Then do depmod -a to add the module to the kernel. Then I add a custom ipw3945 init script the the init.d directory. I make the init script executable and used chkconfig -add ipw3945. This makes the wireless card work. I am now using Network Manager so I am unsure if this will work with out Network Manager.

(Update 5/6/2007)

I had to download the new version 1.2.0 for kernel 2.6.20 and up. I am now using ipw3945-1.2.1 version since it fixes only a few small errors. Download the wifi drivers from ipw3945.sf.net.

(Update 4/28/2007)

The Intel ProSet 3945 WiFi Card installed via the Restricted drivers with this install the WiFi card installed with out any need to tweak or install the drivers into the kernel like Fedora needed.

Sound Configuration

This was a little tricky to get working at first, and with the first kernel I was using and several after the original kernel I had to recompile and install the ALSA 1.0.11 driver. On the kernel version above I did not have to recompile the driver. Maybe this has been fixed but I will list what I did just incase you have to at least compile it once.

Download all of the 1.0.11 files you want and need for your system from www.alsa-project.org and for the alsa-driver-1.0.11 only:

./configure --with-cards=hda-intel --with-sequencer=yes --with-oss=yes --with-pcm-oss-plugins=yes

Then do a make and make install. I also built alsa-oss-1.0.11, alsa-lib-1.0.11, alsa-tools-1.0.11, alsa-uitils-1.0.11. All you have to do for the rest of them is configure, make, and make install. I then rebooted the computer, and unmuted the sound and now I have sound.

(UPDATE 1-12-2007)

With the install of Fedora Core 6 the sound card works with out needing any special downloads from the alsa project web site.

ACPI

So far all I can say is this part of the install just works. I haven't had any problems resuming from a sleep. I only tried this about 3 times. I purchased the 9 cell battery for this system and I get about 5 1/2 to 6 1/2 hours of run time when the system is on battery. Since that can be most of the time with the system on during a good work day I really haven't been putting this computer to sleep.

Updated 7-29-2006 well it stopped working after the last kernel update that switched to 2.6.17 version. Since I don't use it I have not started to work on it.

(Update 1-22-2007)

Installed new kernel 2.6.19-1.2895.fc6 and when I try to resume from suspend I see all of the lights come back on the LCD display comes up, scrolls a few lines of text then goes black. Still researching this.

Random Gnome Desktop Background

I got sick of having the same desktop background all of the time on this computer. So I searched the internet for a why to change it to other pictures on my computer. Sure enough I found a script that allows this to happen. If you would like to know how to do this with your linux feel free to contact my via the Contact Us link above. The link below is a modified file from the one I downloaded that allows me to have a random desktop image. Download this zip file uncompress it and edit the script to suit your needs.

Gnome Random Desktop image

 

Configure Keyboard Shortcuts.

If using GNOME Click on System, Preferences, Keyboard Shortcuts. Scroll down to the Sound area. You will see Volume mute, Volume Down Volume up. Click on one of them and press the special button. Once I did that for each button those buttons worked. Volume mute is 0xa0, down is 0xae, and up is 0xb0 on my system.

In Ubuntu these keys were already setup for volume so I didn't need to customize this like I did in Fedora.