Dell Inspiron 6000

VinzC · Posted: Mon Nov 07, 2005 9:21 am Post subject:

Yup, and the same in /etc/portage/package.unmask... This is ein Kolossale Liste

. Erm... did you try also the modular KDE?

Just kidding. I think I'm going to wait till when Xorg 7 becomes unmasked in portage.
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seppelrockt · Guru Joined: 14 May 2004 Posts: 423

seppelrockt · Guru Joined: 14 May 2004 Posts: 423

Just had a closer look to the changelog of kernel 2.6.14-gitXX and I must say I'm looking forward to -rc1! There are many patches for libata and friends and initial support for Intel GMA900/i915GM in intelfb. Stay tuned!

VinzC · Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2005 6:49 pm Post subject:

geekounet · Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2005 12:32 pm Post subject:

Hello,
i would like to use the modem, but i don't find the driver. Do someone got it to work ?
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seppelrockt · Guru Joined: 14 May 2004 Posts: 423

seppelrockt · Guru Joined: 14 May 2004 Posts: 423

If you want to know what's going on with libata in the future (ATAPI support, power management, NQC, ...) you might check out this page.

Did you know that our Chipset is ICH6M and thus supports NQC and AHCI? I didn't - but next time I might build the AHCI kernel stuff as well.

VinzC · Posted: Fri Nov 11, 2005 9:18 am Post subject:

amaroc · n00b Joined: 13 Nov 2005 Posts: 71

Hi,

before I start to ask a question I would like to give an overview what happened with my I6K and gentoo so far.

After long investigation what laptop could fulfill my requirements I decided to go with the I6K (GMA900, WUXGA, 2GB) and not my 1st favorite HP nx8220. I'm using SuSE since 4.3 on my desktop PCs (1997?) and SuSE/knoppix/kanotix on different company-laptops (Fujitsu-Siemens, Toshiba, T41) for about 3 years. Together with my decision to buy my first own laptop I wanted to give gentoo a try. To summarize: I'm deeply impressed how stable the system runs and how easy gentoo can be installed and maintained up-to-date.
I didn't had much trouble during the installation that could not be solved by reading gentoo-docs, this forum, this thread, google, etc. However, here are some issues that I had to solve:
- gcc version-switch after starting with 2005.1 cd-image and emerge -uDN --> had to use fix_libtool... (I guess it should be part of the handbook)
- X and the garbaged console --> had to use the old vesa_fb instead vesa-tng
- vbetool even for simply switching the backlight ON --> took some time to find out
- suspend to disk with 2GB memory --> needed "ImageSizeLimit nocache" to avoid looong suspend/resume
- utf8 support --> still not perfect (some console/mc and kmail issues)

There is still one point where I'm not able to proceed. Suspend2ram does not work properly. When I resume from S3 it's possible to switch between console and X but any harddisk access fails. The HDD-LED lights constantly and I have to use the power-button :-(

I've tried a lot of different options (ata_piix modifications, console only, unload all modules, etc.) but no joy.
I'm currently using linux-2.6.13-suspend2-r4 sources because I like it stable ;-)

Question: Shall I continue to try different kernel-versions&patches or better wait for 2.6.14 to be unmasked.

Thanks in advance!

seppelrockt · Guru Joined: 14 May 2004 Posts: 423

amaroc · n00b Joined: 13 Nov 2005 Posts: 71

seppelrockt · Guru Joined: 14 May 2004 Posts: 423

amaroc · n00b Joined: 13 Nov 2005 Posts: 71

VinzC · Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2005 8:58 am Post subject:

Just adding my 2c. I didn't configure many laptops, just an IBM Thinkpad R40 and a Dell Inspiron (mine). If I had to vote for ease I would chose the Thinkpad. I didn't even have to use masked packages to have Gentoo suspend to disk, recognize everything aso. I can say installing Gentoo on it was a piece of cake compared against Dell's stuff. If you don't like hair loss don't try Dell's laptop (at least i6k) :-)

.

Should I compare both laptops - considering Gentoo installation only - I'd say Dell's are more of a hazardous path. Thinkpads are a charm. Note this is expected as IBM claims for supporting Linux (mainly Red Had). Too bad Thinkpads usage is not so friendly as Dells.

IIRC juniper has succeeded in having suspend to RAM work properly. He's lurking in this forum I think.
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amaroc · n00b Joined: 13 Nov 2005 Posts: 71

Hi VinzC,

seppelrockt · Guru Joined: 14 May 2004 Posts: 423

VinzC · Posted: Thu Nov 17, 2005 9:39 am Post subject:

Well, I am one of these guys who tried IBM hardware and I must agree with what your promo guy said. It's true - we can grant them such an assertion - that IBM hardware is really good. I wouldn't say best for I don't know everything and every single brand on the earth.

So far I've installed Gentoo on an IBM server (an xSeries) and I had absolutely no problem at all. I installed Gentoo on an IBM Thinkpad R40 and no problem at all. I mean *really* no trouble; not even the troubles like we all have configuring - you know - xorg, touchpad, mouse, usb, ohci/ehci/uhci aso. Installation was fluid just as though I had installed Gentoo all my life

.

I must recon IBM hardware is the best hardware I've had to use, configure and install. Note I haven't tried many, just a few brands like Dell, Compaq and IBM. Compaq is the worst server hardware between these three, not even with Linux (which I didn't bother installing because of numerous disappointments between Windoze and Compaq). Dell's smart enough indeed; there are some traps but it's not impossible with some patience. But with IBM it's been a real pleasure.

Given the difficulties I've had installing Window$ $$$$$erver on xSeries I expected at least some while installing Linux. There were absolutely none in fact. You should just open an IBM server and see how it's made inside. Brilliant.

Note: I'm not paid by IBM to say that

. I just don't like their laptops, that's all.

Further note: I don't want this post to be a flame war against hardware differences. I'm human. And humans have failures and opinions. So do I. Hence let's not forget the initial topic

.
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Gentoo addict: tomorrow I quit, I promise!... Just one more emerge...
GNU/Linux user #369763
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seppelrockt · Guru Joined: 14 May 2004 Posts: 423

@ VinzC: Yes I like the IBM notebooks, too hardware-wise. Especialy since the new Lenovo ones have inproved in screen quality and such _without_ loosing the old IBM qualities. But ones has to say that even IBM has better and not so good notebooks around (e.g. there 12" notebook is said to be very loud).

My point was that as long as they are based on the same Intel platform, there is no "special IBM hardware" that makes a SATA CD-ROM work on the IBM but not on Dell. This is instead done by careful integration (e.g. a sane BIOS - think on the LID bug un the Dell) and IBMs efforts to _support_ Linux on their laptops. And this IS (next to the hardware) a good reason to buy IBM/Lenovo laptops (I don't like the Lenovo flames at all).

But back to the topic: I plan to open a new thread to write a "Gentoo on Dell Inspiron 6000 HowTo V2" in the (near?) future. This new thread should ONLY consist of a step-by-step guide to install Gentoo on the I6k with all the things we found out in this 20+ pages thread.

I will wait some more weeks until the Xorg/kernel situation might have inproved a little (we are quite close, I hope) and then do a complete reinstall of my setup (while writing the steps down). I might ask some people for help on dedicated topics I didn't know about (e.g. suspend, ATI video card). Hopefully this will help new owners of the i6k to install Gentoo - I guess this thread here has grown to a monster in the last month.

FYI, I have basicaly the VGA out working on my I6k with this lines in my xorg.conf:

m0rd0 · n00b Joined: 15 Feb 2005 Posts: 40 Location: Bristol, UK

A new thread with just the tips and tricks would be great. Reading this topic has helped me resolve quite a few issues with my Inspiron 6000, but it takes some reading.

I seem to have hit the same issues as everyone else on here now, with the exception of graphics card problems. The one thing I have, and I haven't seen mentioned on here, is the HDD noise on shutdown. I know there are two threads about this elsewhere, but with this being the primary Dell Inspiron 6000 reference I thought it might be worth mentioning here.

First of all, it'd be nice to know if everyone experiences this. For a full breakdown of the problem, and solutions tried so far, see http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-394861-highlight-inspiron+6000.html.

In brief:

seppelrockt · Guru Joined: 14 May 2004 Posts: 423

I was wrong! Vanilla-sources-2.6.14.2 (stable on x86) work here like a sharm! I only had to do a make oldconfig from my config-2.6.12.5 and append libata.atapi_enabled=1 to the grub kernel boot line and everything is fine - no patches needed!

The only problem that remains is the freeze caused my cdparanoia.

VinzC · Posted: Thu Nov 17, 2005 6:17 pm Post subject:

seppelrockt · Guru Joined: 14 May 2004 Posts: 423

Can somebody here tell me something about the secret of ripping a Audio CD on the i6k? Neither cdparanoia nor cdda2wav work here caused they don't find my CDROM drive :-(

So please: EVERYBODY take his/her favorite CD and try to rip it! I need your help seriously!

m0rd0 · n00b Joined: 15 Feb 2005 Posts: 40 Location: Bristol, UK

VinZc:

Yeah from your description it sounds like we've got the same thing. Thought it might be head parking but the fact it doesn't do this in Windows threw me a bit. It also seems to be pretty noisy, I'm not a regular user of laptops (Or in the Inspiron 6000's case a a portable desktop replacement) but i don't recall ever hearing a disk that noisy on shutdown. Ah well, I'll just make sure to take lots of back ups. At least with Dells modular design its easy to replace things.

Oh yeah, here's my modification of the ACPI lid code to match the new ACPI layout:

/etc/acpi/events/lid_event

seppelrockt · Guru Joined: 14 May 2004 Posts: 423