New laptop - Dell Inspiron e1405

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ttuttle · Post by **ttuttle** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 10:19 pm

Within a week or two, and probably within the next few days, I'm getting a shiny new Dell Inspiron e1405 laptop with a Core 2 Duo processor. Here are the specs for those who are curious:

Intel Core 2 Duo processor T7200 (2.00 GHz/4 MB L2 cache/667 MHz FSB)
2 x 1 GB 533 MHz DDR2 RAM
120 GB 5400 RPM SATA hard drive
8X DVD+/-RW DL optical drive
14.1" WXGA+ (1440x900) "TrueLife" (glossy coating) LCD
Intel Integrated Graphics Media Accelerator 950 GM (GMA950)
Integrated high-definition audio
Integrated 10/100 ethernet (not sure what chip)
Integrated 56k modem (not sure what kind)
Intel PRO/Wireless 3945 (ipw3945) wireless card
Dell Wireless 355 Bluetooth module
85 WHr 9-cell Lithium Ion battery

I'm planning to install Gentoo on it. I'm not sure if it's going alongside the included copy of Windows XP Media Center Edition, or if I'm just going to trash Windows altogether (I'm leaning towards the latter).

I'm starting this thread for a few reasons: to see if anyone else has one of these laptops (or one of the similar e1505 or e1705 models) and has put Gentoo on it and can offer me some tips, to describe my experience installing Gentoo on it (once I get it), and to brag about just how fast it is once I get it running! :D

Any ideas about how to get more speed out of it (since GCC doesn't have specific support for the Core Duo chips, and hasn't been keeping the scheduling/optimization algorithms up to date with the constant release of new chips), and any experiences with other Core (2) Duo and other dual-core CPU laptops would also be helpful. Specifically, does Core 2 Duo support 64-bit code, and does anyone use it that way? (I've heard a rumor that it's actually slower in 64-bit mode.)

Thanks,

ThinkingInBinary

ttuttle · Post by **ttuttle** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 11:40 am

/me just found out that it's going to ship today or tomorrow, instead of September 19, as they had originally estimated.

Fran · Post by **Fran** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 2:55 pm

Everything works ok in mine. Good laptop. The only difficulties I had were with suspend to ram (there is a thread written by me in the forums) and xorg (to get 1440x900 you'll need 915resolution and this line in the config file: "5a 1440 900 32"). That's all.

ttuttle · Post by **ttuttle** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 6:51 pm

Fran wrote:Everything works ok in mine. Good laptop. The only difficulties I had were with suspend to ram (there is a thread written by me in the forums) and xorg (to get 1440x900 you'll need 915resolution and this line in the config file: "5a 1440 900 32"). That's all.

Cool. Did you get suspend to work eventually? (I'm not too worried about it, since I expect it to require tinkering.) So the 802.11 and Bluetooth cards work? How about the modem? What are your CPU frequency scaling settings, and how much battery life do you get?

Thanks,

ThinkingInBinary

JugglingSuns120 · Post by **JugglingSuns120** » Wed Sep 13, 2006 4:04 am

Hi, I am in the process of setting up gentoo on an external drive for my E1405 laptop. Im currently working on straightening grub out but I did run across this in my searches, It may be useful to you its on the 1505 but it the hardware is similiar. It covers whats needed to get it up and running.

http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-444696.html

AJ

ttuttle · Post by **ttuttle** » Thu Sep 14, 2006 5:49 pm

JugglingSuns120 wrote:Hi, I am in the process of setting up gentoo on an external drive for my E1405 laptop. Im currently working on straightening grub out but I did run across this in my searches, It may be useful to you its on the 1505 but it the hardware is similiar. It covers whats needed to get it up and running.

http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-444696.html

Thanks, that page looks useful.

Fran, can you answer my other questions?

Fran · Post by **Fran** » Sat Sep 16, 2006 8:06 am

Sorry, I forgot this thread

Yeah, suspend to ram works ok. I didn't want bluetooth, so I don't know if it'll work, but wifi works. I haven't tested the modem, I have broadband. I don't know very well what you mean by cpu scaling settings, I didn't touch anything besides setting support in the kernel. The cpus are at 800MHz in idle. I get approx. 5-6 hours with normal use with the 9 cell battery, but I have a less powerful configuration, so maybe you'll get less (mine is 1.6GHz, 512megs, 60gig hd).

The only thing I couldn't get to work is the card reader, but it doesn't work in windows either. Maybe it's broken. I hadn't used a memory card reader before though, so maybe it's my fault (how the hell does it work in windows? Should there be an unit for the card reader, as if it was a floppy unit? Or should it appear when I insert a card, like an usb flash drive?)

ttuttle · Post by **ttuttle** » Fri Sep 22, 2006 7:24 pm

Alright, I got the laptop a week ago and I've been setting it up. Almost everything appears to work so far, including the touchpad, hard drive, DVD burner, graphics, sound, ethernet, wifi, bluetooth, and MMC/SD card reader. The MS part of the card reader doesn't work yet though.

kopp · Post by **kopp** » Sat Sep 23, 2006 12:06 pm

Hi,
I'm planning on buying the same laptop, with almost the same config but no bluetooth and smaller HD.
I see you picked up the 9-cells battery but on Dell website, it says the battery is sticking out of the computer case when connected. How bad is it ?
Did you get suspend to disk to work ? And how long is battery life ?

ttuttle · Post by **ttuttle** » Sun Sep 24, 2006 2:10 am

If you look on Dell's website, the model pictured in the Flash animation has the extended battery. The part that sticks out is a cylinder that sticks out in about the middle 2/3 of the back, by less than an inch. Personally I haven't found it to be a big deal, but I've noticed two things: first, it's harder to carry the machine with the back edge in my hand (so I hold the front instead), and second the extra weight makes the laptop unstable (if you hold it by the sides just two inches from the back, it will tilt backward). But these "problems" haven't bothered me.

Battery life is anywhere between 2-3 hours (while emerging stuff, 100% CPU on both cores at 2.00 GHz) to 6-8 hours (screen dimmed, hard drive spun down most of the time, wireless power management turned up, CPU mostly idle. It's certainly decent, and with a little tweaking is quite good. I would definitely recommend the larger battery, because without it you will probably get under 2 hours of emerge time on battery.

Notes on battery: I just unplugged it, and it read about 4 hours. I turned the screen down, and it read about 5:15. I turned on wireless power management, and it read about 5:30. I paused my music and it jumped up to 7:00. You should know that playing or recording sound uses DMA, which prevents the CPU from dropping from the C2 state into the C3 state (they're different sleep states--C3 saves more power, but can't see bus activity, so the CPU can only use C3 when no parts of the system are going to change the memory "behind its back"). The battery has been jumping between about 7:00 when the hard drive is spinning and 7:30 when it's not. Turning my gkrellm update speed down gives me a little more time. Spinning down the hard drive and turning the wireless power management all the way up gets almost to 8 hours. Overall I would guess you will get between 5 and 7 hours of battery life, if you manage it well.

kopp · Post by **kopp** » Sun Sep 24, 2006 1:54 pm

Ok thank you for the information. There was no 360-view on Dell.fr, I had to go on the international website. Anyway, it's really not that bad for all the '+' it has. I think I will go with the 9 cells then. It looks like a good investment.
I can't wait until I get it.

Fran · Post by **Fran** » Sun Sep 24, 2006 2:01 pm

kopp wrote:Ok thank you for the information. There was no 360-view on Dell.fr, I had to go on the international website. Anyway, it's really not that bad for all the '+' it has. I think I will go with the 9 cells then. It looks like a good investment.
I can't wait until I get it.

I also went for the 9 cell battery 2 months ago and I'm very happy with it. 50% more battery life for a 5% higher volume of the laptop is a good deal, imo.

ttuttle · Post by **ttuttle** » Sun Sep 24, 2006 2:44 pm

kopp wrote:Anyway, it's really not that bad for all the '+' it has. I think I will go with the 9 cells then. It looks like a good investment.
I can't wait until I get it.

It's definitely a good deal if you can get the entire system at 20% off like I did. Unfortunately, though, they didn't have the 160 GB drive available when I bought it, or I would've upgraded to it.

kopp · Post by **kopp** » Sun Sep 24, 2006 3:04 pm

Well, I only have the 80Gig HD, that's enough for me. I have this for my desktop too and it is far from being full.
I don't have 20% off but I have free shipping and 2Gigs of ram instead of 1gig. These offers end next tuesday, I wonder if I should wait for after and get better offer or get it now.
Finally, did you set it up in 64bits mode or 32bits ?

EDIT . Finally, I've gone with those offers. I've jsut ordered it. It will be delivered between 7 to 12 days.