I recently acquired the Inspiron 1525 from Dell and installed the Linux Fedora 8 operating system. For the most part this has been a very pleasant experience, as just about everything worked straight away, or with very little effort. In particular, I had no trouble getting the wireless to work, which is often a major headache. Indeed, it worked once I simply enabled the Gnome Network Manager, the details of which can be found on the Fedora Wiki. The integrated web cam is the only hardware exception that I have encountered, so far, though its early days and I may yet find other devices that present problems. As regards the web cam, Linux does not appear to even recognise the device. Moreover, so far I have been unable to find any useful information on how to get the camera working. It would seem that Dell has not provided a Linux driver for this device and they have provided very little information about what exactly the camera is. Consequently, I am unsure as to whether any driver exists. So, in this case, as is often the case with web cams and Linux, it appears that this piece of hardware has no Linux support, but I may be wrong about that, and I may yet be able to find what I need.
On the more general question of Linux support, as I understand things, Dell does not provide technical support for ordinary customers, other than through these forums and web pages. As I understand it, only business customers can at present actually purchase ( Ubuntu) Linux ready laptops and work stations and similarly get the accompanying technical support. Everyone else is allowed to " choose" the inferior operating system - who's name I dare not mention- and pay for it whether they want it or not, and take the chance of running another operating system.
Still I applaud Dell for making the bold step of selling Linux installed and supported computers to the business community. Let's hope they will extend that policy in the near future to everyone. Linux's time, after all, has come.
My main concern was that the wireless hardware would be difficult or impossible to setup. But it seems to work almost out of the box. That is a good sign.
The laptop can be ordered with multiple wireless cards. Can you recall which card you are using ? (I am thinking about ordering the Dell™ Wireless 1395 802.11b/g Mini-Card - Europe - Pentium Dual Core Processors .)
The fact that the webcam is not working is no problem for me, I think I will never use it.
I hope to hear from more Inspiron 1525 linux users before ordering the laptop. I would hate it to be stuck with only Windows Vista on the laptop. (Windows XP seems to be difficult / impossible to install on this laptop according to some articles on the internet.)
You are right, I have to pay for an operating system I do not want to use, but it is almost impossible to get a laptop without an operating system, or with the operating system of choice installed (Like Windows XP or Linux.). I hope laptop developers will think about Linux compatibility and will make the internal hardware details available of devices which are currently not supported.
I have installed Xp on Inspiron 1525 just disable the Flash Cache module in BIOS and change the SATA operation to ATA mode and now boot from Win XP CD. Delete all the partitions created by dell for vista and recreate them and XP will be installed successfully...
Apologies, I stupidly forgot to state which wireless card was installed on my Inspiron 1525 laptop. As you say there are several available, and perhaps the choices are different for different geographical regions. I'm currently based in the US, and I opted for the Intel 3945 WLAN ( 802.11 a/ g) Mini Card. I have no idea whether the 1395 card you suggested is Linux compatible. In general, its remarkably difficult to figure out what hardware is and isn't Linux compatible and each Linux flavour and platform has its own compatibility issues. As I expect you know, there are various web sites that list Linux compatible hardware, for instance http://www.linux.com/ feature/ 118497 has some useful links. More generally, the web site Linux-laptop.net has a lot of useful information concerning these issues for particular laptops, though the last time I looked there was nothing on the Inspiron 1525.
I also should have specified the processor in my machine, its an Intel Core 2 duo T5450, 1.66 GHz chip, with 667 Mhz 2M L2 Cache. From the Linux perspective this is therefore an X86_ 64 platform. I also have the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100 and the ethernet card is a Marvell Technology Group 88E8040 PCI-E Fast Ethernet Controller, which both worked, as you say, out-of-the-box.
A particular issue that I am beginning to discover is that, in general, there appears to be less Linux software available for the X86_ 64 platforms since, I guess , they are relatively new. So, if there are any particular software programs you intend to install, it is well worth checking in advance whether the Linux 64 bit versions are available. In most cases one can find 64 bit software but not always, and finding this information can also sometimes be non-trivial.
Still haven't solved the web cam problem. Also haven't tested the blue-tooth capability, no idea whether that works.
Dominicc
4 Posts
0
February 5th, 2008 05:00
I recently acquired the Inspiron 1525 from Dell and installed the Linux Fedora 8 operating system. For the most part this has been a very pleasant experience, as just about everything worked straight away, or with very little effort. In particular, I had no trouble getting the wireless to work, which is often a major headache. Indeed, it worked once I simply enabled the Gnome Network Manager, the details of which can be found on the Fedora Wiki. The integrated web cam is the only hardware exception that I have encountered, so far, though its early days and I may yet find other devices that present problems. As regards the web cam, Linux does not appear to even recognise the device. Moreover, so far I have been unable to find any useful information on how to get the camera working. It would seem that Dell has not provided a Linux driver for this device and they have provided very little information about what exactly the camera is. Consequently, I am unsure as to whether any driver exists. So, in this case, as is often the case with web cams and Linux, it appears that this piece of hardware has no Linux support, but I may be wrong about that, and I may yet be able to find what I need.
On the more general question of Linux support, as I understand things, Dell does not provide technical support for ordinary customers, other than through these forums and web pages. As I understand it, only business customers can at present actually purchase ( Ubuntu) Linux ready laptops and work stations and similarly get the accompanying technical support. Everyone else is allowed to " choose" the inferior operating system - who's name I dare not mention- and pay for it whether they want it or not, and take the chance of running another operating system.
Still I applaud Dell for making the bold step of selling Linux installed and supported computers to the business community. Let's hope they will extend that policy in the near future to everyone. Linux's time, after all, has come.
Hope that is useful.
Dominic
Johanuw
2 Posts
0
February 5th, 2008 07:00
Thank you for this usefull information Dominic.
My main concern was that the wireless hardware would be difficult or impossible to setup. But it seems to work almost out of the box. That is a good sign.
The laptop can be ordered with multiple wireless cards. Can you recall which card you are using ? (I am thinking about ordering the Dell™ Wireless 1395 802.11b/g Mini-Card - Europe - Pentium Dual Core Processors .)
The fact that the webcam is not working is no problem for me, I think I will never use it.
I hope to hear from more Inspiron 1525 linux users before ordering the laptop. I would hate it to be stuck with only Windows Vista on the laptop. (Windows XP seems to be difficult / impossible to install on this laptop according to some articles on the internet.)
You are right, I have to pay for an operating system I do not want to use, but it is almost impossible to get a laptop without an operating system, or with the operating system of choice installed (Like Windows XP or Linux.). I hope laptop developers will think about Linux compatibility and will make the internal hardware details available of devices which are currently not supported.
Kind regards.
Johan Uiterwijk Winkel.
TechyGog
1 Message
0
February 8th, 2008 12:00
Dominicc
4 Posts
0
February 10th, 2008 01:00
Apologies, I stupidly forgot to state which wireless card was installed on my Inspiron 1525 laptop. As you say there are several available, and perhaps the choices are different for different geographical regions. I'm currently based in the US, and I opted for the Intel 3945 WLAN ( 802.11 a/ g) Mini Card. I have no idea whether the 1395 card you suggested is Linux compatible. In general, its remarkably difficult to figure out what hardware is and isn't Linux compatible and each Linux flavour and platform has its own compatibility issues. As I expect you know, there are various web sites that list Linux compatible hardware, for instance http://www.linux.com/ feature/ 118497 has some useful links. More generally, the web site Linux-laptop.net has a lot of useful information concerning these issues for particular laptops, though the last time I looked there was nothing on the Inspiron 1525.
I also should have specified the processor in my machine, its an Intel Core 2 duo T5450, 1.66 GHz chip, with 667 Mhz 2M L2 Cache. From the Linux perspective this is therefore an X86_ 64 platform. I also have the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100 and the ethernet card is a Marvell Technology Group 88E8040 PCI-E Fast Ethernet Controller, which both worked, as you say, out-of-the-box.
A particular issue that I am beginning to discover is that, in general, there appears to be less Linux software available for the X86_ 64 platforms since, I guess , they are relatively new. So, if there are any particular software programs you intend to install, it is well worth checking in advance whether the Linux 64 bit versions are available. In most cases one can find 64 bit software but not always, and finding this information can also sometimes be non-trivial.
Still haven't solved the web cam problem. Also haven't tested the blue-tooth capability, no idea whether that works.
Regards, Dominic
Dominicc
4 Posts
0
April 29th, 2008 23:00
The integrated web cam on my inspiron 1525 now finally working. Not sure exactly what changed, but very probably some
Linux updates fixed the problem. It is being managed by the V4L2 (video for linux 2) device.