Experiences with Scientific Linux 4.0 on a Dell Inspiron 9300
(2GHz(2MB cache), 512MB dual channel DDR, 7500RPM SATA hard drive, 24x
CDRW-DVDrom SATA drive, WUXGA (1920*1200) LCD, default Win XP, no Bluetooth,
Intel pro wireless 2915 A/B/G wireless card, standard battery (lasts 3 hours
without extensive use))
This is for people trying to get their 9300s to work with SL 40. Hopefully
the solutions and work arounds presented will save some of you a lot of
time, and hopefully the problems presented here will invite solutions from
the experts on this list which will act to complete the procedure to get SL
40 working on a Dell 9300.
********** Installation
* The first 'what's going on in there' moment I had was right after I
started the SL 40 install. As soon as it tried to start the graphical
install, the screen sort of crazed over.... nothing appeared for quite a
while so I rebooted. After a couple of minutes playing around, I found that
the installer recognised my ATI Radeon Mobility X300 (or is it M300)
immediately, but had issues with the 'Expand' function of the LCD screen. In
the BIOS, the LCD is configured to expand the display to full screen even if
it is being driven at a lower resolution. SWITCH OFF THIS OPTION and
graphical install goes thru.
* I did an 'everything' install, which ran smoothly (2 linux partitions, 2
windows vfat partitions) except at the very end when it gave an error about
rh2install.img not being a directory or something and crashed... this
happened twice, before it ran the post-install config.
I found that since I created vfat partitions and mounted them (or some such
reason) it created the install image in one of the vfat partitions... the
next time I ran the install I didnt mount the vfat partitions, and the FULL
install ran through... my sound card was detected, the display panel had to
be manually selected to be a 1920*1200 Generic LCD, the wireless driver was
installed (more on this later) and SL booted without major problems
************* Repositories
* These can simplify life!!! They are under Community-> Repositories on the
SL website. ATRPMS and DAG. Use yum if possible, up2date can also be made to
work for most things.
* SL 40 already has a HUGE amount of updates available. First do all the
updates from the default up2date channels, before adding atrpms and dag.
First of all, do the kernel update so that new packages you install do well.
* Up2date stops doing anything sometimes, you can always close it and
restart, it takes up from where it left off last.
* when using up2date: DONT SELECT ALL UPDATES on channels other than the
SL-base and the SL-errata channels. Updates on atrpms and dag are best
selected one at a time, most times you might have to manually resolve
dependancies. I havent tried yum, but supposedly it is supported better on
all these channels.
* the rpm gpg keys for atrpms and dag need to be downloaded as on their
website. Also, interestingly, I had to download the SL GPG keys also, from
the SL website (you have to snoop around the iso download site for them).
You should do this before you start installing anything, as it will make
installation much easier.
************** Wifi
one problem was that the ipw2200 driver (which is available on the atrpms
repository and also on the sourceforge project page) was installed, but my
wireless card was not active.
* I discovered that the firmware was not installed in /etc/firmware and
/lib/firmware. Since the firmware version needs to match the driver version,
I downloaded both from the sourceforge site and installed the new driver and
the new firmware (both in /etc/firmware and in /lib/firmware).
Before I could do that however, I had to download the ieee crypto libraries
(available on atrpms or dag repositories)
You can check whether the driver is installed by doing
lsmod | grep ipw
and a bunch of entries showing the ieee crypto modules and the ipw itself
should show up. You can check if the firmware is being accessed by doing
dmesg | grep ipw
and it should show what the ipw2200 driver did on boot up.
* I discovered a BIOS setting which allows the wireless card to be ON by
default, this can be important for boot-up configuration of the card in
linux. Thus you need to go to BIOS and set it up to be ON by default. Also
make sure that the ON/OFF setting is Fn+F2 and application. This ensures
that you can switch the card on and off with the function key.
* The Wifi light does not work, i.e. it does not indicate whether wireless
is on or off. the Fn+F2 key DOES WORK, though it shows NO INDICATION in SL
(in kwifimanager etc).
* Kwifimanager: The kwifimanager wireless kill on/off switch doesnt work. In
fact, the kwifi version that comes with SL40 is the BUGGY version which has
problems _saving_ the wireless configuration. I downloaded wireless
assistant and wireless monitor from sourceforge, which allowed me to change
connections without typing wep keys everytime, but still had to change
ifcfg-eth1 to enforce default settings.
* You might need to create a /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth1 based
on ifcfg-eth0, to make sure your wireless network is enabled and always
attaches to your network on bootup. In this file, put in configuration for
your network including security key etc (google ifcfg). otherwise, by
default the card sometimes connects to the best available network, unsecured.
* A useful command while doing the above settings changes is
service network restart
especially for the ifcfg changes
* A useful way of setting WEP keys is to start Accessories->KHex Edit, and
type in a 13 character ascii phrase in a new file and see it's hex
equivalent which becomes your new WEP key.
************ Display
* The 1920*1200 selection for resolution and display type should be done in
post-install config, however it can also be done through System Settings ->
Display
* The available resolutions in Preferences -> Screen Resolution do not
include wide-screen formats. However, the options shown are simply the list
of options given in /etc/X11/xorg.conf (Subsection "Display") You can edit
this file to add ANY compatible configuration that youre comfortable with.
Remember that the aspect ratio is 1.6:1, so you can add configs like
"1920x1200" and "1600x1000" and they'll show up in the Screen Resolution
preferences the next time you start X. one precaution here: put the
resolutions in correct order: e.g. 1920x1200 should come first, 1600x1000
should come after 1600x1024 etc... I think this has an impact on whether the
high resolutions work... and it doesnt hurt to be a little organised!!!
************ Input Devices
* Its useful to edit the xorg.conf file and set the XKbModel to "Inspiron"
(google xkbmodel inspiron). however, this does not enable functions like CD
drive eject, volume control etc. the Media buttons on the laptop dont work
either.
* My USB mini mouse was recognised instantly. The touch pad on the laptop
works in compatibility mode, scroll functions and advanced functions dont
work. Try installing the synaptic patch found at one of the atrpms/dag
repositories: I havent had success yet due to dependencies (apt, which
depends on rpmlib, which refuses to upgrade)
* man xev and xmodmap to program any shortcuts you want. You can also make
the media buttons (The ones on the front of the laptop base) using these
two. But the Fn+F8, F10, Pageup/dn etc are not recognised as keystrokes in
my experience, even after you set xkbmodel to inspiron...
*********** CD/DVD
* My system uses SATA drives, possibly because I went for a 7500RPM hard
drive. I'm not sure if 5400 drives are also SATA. You should check this
through System Tools -> hardware browser
* If your hard drive is sata, so is your DVD, and linux currently doesnt
officially support cd/dvd SATA drives, although it is expected in the future
(google SATA linux, hdparm SATA). You can download a patch for it, but you
need to recompile the kernel so it's not everybody's piece of cake!!
* DVD playback is choppy (I recommend VLC player for dvd, or xmms-ogle
plugin, the latter has a very smooth install process while the former has
loads of features). This is because of the fact that SATA drives are not
supported, which precludes use of DMA on the drive (google hdparm sata).
However, since the system is fast, there's a workaround :)
you can achieve acceptable playback by setting the read-ahead buffers to zero
hdparm -a0 /dev/hdc
My sata drive was mounted as /dev/hdc, it should have been /dev/sdb or
something if linux supported sata. Note that using hdparm on /media/dvd or
such wont work, you have to check where these point, which should ultimately
lead you to an entry in the /dev sysytem.
when you do this, run DVD exclusively (dont multitask) and your playback
should be ok.
*********** Misc issues
* HALDAEMON: If you set ifcfg-eth0 to not detect your ethernet on boot up
(because adds half a minute to boot time on it's own if your cable is not
plugged in) then haldaemon crashes on ALTERNATE boots, in my experience,
locking up the system entirely so you have to hold the power button to restart.
* Suspend/Hibernate: You can switch to KDE, go to Control Center and look
for power management to enable suspend/resume, hibernate etc... but in my
experience the computer goes into suspend and never wakes up... you have to
push power whence it boots from scratch. If you leave your laptop on battery
long enough, it will simply shutdown when battery runs out and NOT RESPOND
TO THE POWER BUTTON UNTIL YOU CONNECT THE POWER ADAPTER.
* Sound card: It is recognised, but sometimes not started on X startup...
you might have to go to System Settings -> sound card detection, and play
the test sound to activate it in the first place. EVEN AFTER THIS, you need
to open up volume controls and set different volumes to non-zero values.
Especially if you're plugging in external speakers, you need to un-mute
headphones etc etc
* Windows XP dual boot: It works!!! Though there might be some contention on
this issue, I suggest using the linux partitioner to repartition your drive,
then reinstalling winxp and then installing SL 40 (read the point on Win Xp
from Dell)
* In case you install Win XP after SL 40, you might need to reinstall the
boot loader. boot through the SL40 install disc 1, go to linux rescue, and
do the following:
chroot /mnt/sysimage - to use your SL 40 installation settings
grub-install /dev/sda - sda was my hard drive
exit
before you do this, google grub-install to ensure youre doing the right
thing. In case you havent configured grub to boot other OS, you can edit
grub.conf to add the WinXP partition
* Windows XP from DELL: These days DELL doesnt give OS CDs with the laptop
by default. Instead, they make a partition on the hard drive which has all
the restore data. There are 2 options:
1> call dell and tell them to send the CDs free of charge, make sure they
get your system SPECs correctly and make sure they enumerate ALL the cds you
need: winxp install CD, drivers and tools CD and application CD in the
least, if not mc affee, corel wordperfect, aol etc etc
2> preserve the restore partition on your drive when you repartition it to
add linux partitions. If you do this you can use some bios utilities to
re-install all the apps, drivers and everything your dell came pre installed
with on the partition of your choice.
Ideally, you should do BOTH of the above things.
* Re partitioning: I recommend at least a win xp install and apps partition,
a win xp data partition, a linux install partition and a swap partition.
Also recommended are a linux data partition and a linux boot partition. Make
sure you have the 'primary' and 'extended' partition settings right: all OS
installs should be in primary partitions, linux allows upto 4 primary
partitions, install partitions could come first in the drive before data.
e.g. /dev/sda1 linux, sda2 winxp install, sda3 winxp data, sda4 extended
with linux data & swap. I donot know if the boot partition needs to be
primary, but this is likely. You also need to account for the default DELL
restore partition (I dont have it anymore though)
* WinXP might need the driver CD to get all devices working
Experts are implored to post better solutions than those given here!!
--Vaibhav Vaidya
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