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JoeThielen
3 Posts
0
10466
May 25th, 2007 16:00
D630/Mandriva 2007.1/WinXP
Hello all. Firstly let me express my appreciation to Dell for now offering, and supporting, Linux! And also thank you for still offering Windows XP.
I've bought many desktop Dells in the past for my company and have loaded them with Linux. They work quite well. Now my laptop is giving out and it's time to buy a new one. I'm looking at the D630, T7300 (2.00Ghz), 14.1 WXGA, 1.0GB DDR2, 120GB SATA, 8xDVD +/- RW.
I do not use Ubuntu, I have been a Mandrake/Mandriva user for years. In addition, I am going to want to dual-boot between WinXP and Linux. So I am assuming I need to purchase the machine with WinXP, then add Mandriva myself. I am planning on loading Mandriva 2007.1.
My questions are related to hardware. I've always had a very bad time getting some of the major components to work, as I'm sure any other Linux laptop user has experienced, and I want to see how well this particular unit stacks up...
My primary concerns are:
#1: Wireless. I'm going for the Intel 3945 802.11a/g Dual-Boot mini card. According to the links (intellinuxwireless.org) this appears to be a well-supported card. But on my current laptop with a Linux/WinXP, the Intel card I have also works fine... in Linux. But in Windows, after I loaded the Linux driver, it seems like the wireless card likes to flunk out on me. I don't know if the firmware updates or whatever did something strange, or I am just misunderstanding something. I would very much like to avoid this issue this time around. Anyone had any experience here? Specifically with the Intel 3945 dual-booting between Linux and WinXP?
#2: Video. I see from the Wiki (http://linux.dell.com/wiki/index.php/Tech/Video/Intel#Intel_Mobile_945GM.2FGMS.2F940GML_Express_Integrated_Graphics_Controller) that the 945GM appears to be supported via the i810 driver. This is good news. But I want to make sure the wide-screen resolution is supported. If I go for the "+" LCD model, will that resolution be supported by this driver in Linux? I've seen Linux on some widescreen laptops where the video chip isn't fully supported and it's trying to run regular screen resolution on a widescreen chipset and it looks really screwey. It'd really love to avoid that issue altogether!!!
#3: SATA HD & IDE DVD Burner. I've noticed recently (especially with the 965 desktop chipsets) that after installation of Linux on a SATA HD with an IDE CD/DVD, that Linux no longer can find the CD/DVD drive. Is the CD/DVD drive on the D630 SATA or IDE? Does anyone know if Mandriva Linux 2007.1 (kernel 2.6.17-13mdv) will work here with BOTH the HD and CD/DVD after loading???
I think that will cover the majority of my issues. I usually don't have a problem with audio or anything else. I'm not very concerned with power management and whatnot.
Any help would be greatly appreciated (and result in a SALE here :) ).
Message Edited by JoeThielen on 05-25-2007 12:12 PM
I've bought many desktop Dells in the past for my company and have loaded them with Linux. They work quite well. Now my laptop is giving out and it's time to buy a new one. I'm looking at the D630, T7300 (2.00Ghz), 14.1 WXGA, 1.0GB DDR2, 120GB SATA, 8xDVD +/- RW.
I do not use Ubuntu, I have been a Mandrake/Mandriva user for years. In addition, I am going to want to dual-boot between WinXP and Linux. So I am assuming I need to purchase the machine with WinXP, then add Mandriva myself. I am planning on loading Mandriva 2007.1.
My questions are related to hardware. I've always had a very bad time getting some of the major components to work, as I'm sure any other Linux laptop user has experienced, and I want to see how well this particular unit stacks up...
My primary concerns are:
#1: Wireless. I'm going for the Intel 3945 802.11a/g Dual-Boot mini card. According to the links (intellinuxwireless.org) this appears to be a well-supported card. But on my current laptop with a Linux/WinXP, the Intel card I have also works fine... in Linux. But in Windows, after I loaded the Linux driver, it seems like the wireless card likes to flunk out on me. I don't know if the firmware updates or whatever did something strange, or I am just misunderstanding something. I would very much like to avoid this issue this time around. Anyone had any experience here? Specifically with the Intel 3945 dual-booting between Linux and WinXP?
#2: Video. I see from the Wiki (http://linux.dell.com/wiki/index.php/Tech/Video/Intel#Intel_Mobile_945GM.2FGMS.2F940GML_Express_Integrated_Graphics_Controller) that the 945GM appears to be supported via the i810 driver. This is good news. But I want to make sure the wide-screen resolution is supported. If I go for the "+" LCD model, will that resolution be supported by this driver in Linux? I've seen Linux on some widescreen laptops where the video chip isn't fully supported and it's trying to run regular screen resolution on a widescreen chipset and it looks really screwey. It'd really love to avoid that issue altogether!!!
#3: SATA HD & IDE DVD Burner. I've noticed recently (especially with the 965 desktop chipsets) that after installation of Linux on a SATA HD with an IDE CD/DVD, that Linux no longer can find the CD/DVD drive. Is the CD/DVD drive on the D630 SATA or IDE? Does anyone know if Mandriva Linux 2007.1 (kernel 2.6.17-13mdv) will work here with BOTH the HD and CD/DVD after loading???
I think that will cover the majority of my issues. I usually don't have a problem with audio or anything else. I'm not very concerned with power management and whatnot.
Any help would be greatly appreciated (and result in a SALE here :) ).
Message Edited by JoeThielen on 05-25-2007 12:12 PM
- My first experience with Mandriva took place a few weeks ago. Earlier, in 1999, I had a brief epposure to Mandrake, that was not bad, but I stayed with RedHat.
When I tried to install Mandriva 2007 Spring on a virtual machine under VMWare, all went well with the livecd, but the hard drive installer froze when it attempted to write the boot record on the MBR. Then, I tried to install Mandriva on an alternate partition (/dev/hda5) while I had Ubuntu 7.04 on /dev/hda2, and preserving data on hda3, hda6 and hda7. This OS installation also went well, except at the grub boot record writing on /dev/hda5. But that could be easily fixed by booting Ubuntu (hda2) and two line commands:
sudo update-grub
andsudo grub-install /dev/hda
I must add that the Mandriva distribution is really good in multimedia. It recognized an nVidia videocard automatically and set all drivers smoothly. I assume recognition of IDE and SATA devices would never be a problem with Mandriva.
Regarding overall usability and reliability features, however, I prefer Ubuntu. JoeThielen
3 Posts
442
0
Posted June 19th, 2007 14:00
I ended up buying a Dell D830. I've installed Mandriva 2007.1. Most everything is working, the wireless was a breeze after I downloaded some RPMs that weren't included (ipw3945-ucode-1.13-2mdv2007.0 & ipw3945d-1.7.22-3mdv2007.1, FYI). However, I am having a horrible time with the sound. The sound works through the headphone jack. But it doesn't work through the speakers! Unreal. Apparently this is a big problem in Alsa, it seems like a lot of chipsets are coming with something called EAPD (External Amp or something similar). I've tried installing the newest versions of ALSA, but I still have no luck. It seems to have been solved in newer kernels, but not the one included with Mandriva 2007.1. Other than that, the video isn't the greatest. X is working with the generic VESA driver. I can't get i810 or anything else to work. I think I saw some news where a new version of X was coming which would support the chipset in the D830 (965GM?). I have 915resolution running, but that doesn't help, it won't run at the right resolution so things are stretched out width-wise. No problems with the CD/DVD drive. I've not burned anything yet, but I can access it. One neat thing is this "Wi-Fi Catcher"? I've not read much about it, but I've noticed is that while booting the "WiFi" light is flashing. Then when it tries to bring up the wireless interface, it's already ready and connects VERY fast. Anyhow, that's my status. Wish I could get the sound going, and the video would be a big plus too.
mariomiy
23 Posts
442
0
Posted May 27th, 2007 22:00
Your questions regarding hardware are not in my sphere of experience.
However, I recently had outstanding experience with virtualization in replacement of dual-booting.
I installed vmware-server on Ubuntu 7.04, which should work similarly on Mandriva, given that it works well on Fedora already.
It is much more comfortable to have virtual machines instead of dual-booting. A small performance decrease is amply compensated by not having to reboot whenever you need to run a Windows-only application. And if you use a Windows-only application in business, then you will be able to do things on GNU/Linux without affecting your daily routine. If you have any difficulty to install vmware-server, just ask--miyojim@gmail.com.
I am very satisfied with my experiences with about 10 different OSs that I can start and stop at any time without having to reboot my computer. If Windows crashes, it does not bring Ubuntu down, I just need to reset the virtual machine, and it boots very fast. I can have multiples OSs up at the same time, without conflicts; it is a great experience.