Computer & Web Solutions

Dell Inspiron 600m Pentium M Dothan, 1.6Ghz 2mb 400FSB

System Information
Screen
Wireless Network
ACPI
Random Gnome Desktop Background

Original setup for this system was with Fedora Core 4. All of the settings worked while it was using Fedora Core 5. I have now transferred this system to a computer user that is not as technical as I am. After playing with Ubuntu for 6 months, the system has be reinstalled with Ubuntu 7.04. In the last week I was given it to update it, so I have updated it to the 7.10 version. All of the system was found with both installs of Ubuntu and with the 7.10 version even the modem had gotten drivers installed. The WiFi Card is working great and with Network Manager installed the ability to connect to a network with ease for a non-technical person is a must.

Dell Inspiron 600m
Pentium M 1.6Ghz
14.1 XGA 1024x768
512MB RAM
60GB Hard drive
DVD
Broadcom Ethernet
True Mobile 1350

Screen setup.

The screen selection on the setup was easy, Dell, Laptop LCD 1024x768 screen

I found no advantage on installing the ATI driver for this laptop in linux. I ended up using the basic X driver.

Dell True Mobile 1350

I got this to work by installing ndiswrapper on the computer. I also installed wine to extract the driver files from dell's support website.

To install ndiswrapper do the following in the ndiswrapper1.2 directory.
$ su
enter root's password
# make distclean
# make
# make install
# cd utils
# ./ndiswrapper -i /<path to your inf file>/bcmwl5a.inf
Note: there are two inf files that are extracted bcmwl5.inf and bcmwl5a.inf only the last one worked with my TrueMoble 1350.
# ./ndiswrapper -l
You should then see something like this.
Installed ndis drivers:
bcmwl5a driver present, hardware present
# modprobe ndiswrapper
If you get no error after this line you are good to go, if you get an error here follow the uninstall instructions for ndiswrapper, because something was wrong.
# ./ndiswrapper -m
This adds wlan0 to your network devices on /etc/modules.conf
now to make the network card work click on the menu Desktop->System Settings->Network

On the hardware tab you should see ndiswrapper Type Wireless device wlan0 status configured.

Click on the Devices Tab click new, and select wireless connections, then click forward. Select your ndiswarpper network device. Then go through the rest of the setup as normal. You should now be able to use your wireless network card.

NOTE: on each update of the Kernel you will have to recompile and reinstall ndiswrapper.

ACPI setup for the computer

Never got time to play with this since I have ended up giving this computer to another person. They did not want to be able to suspend the system.

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.