Mandriva on Dell Inspiron 1525 Laptop
This will be a live (real time) blog about installing and configuring Mandriva 2008 on the Dell Inspiron laptop computer which I have purchased and am currently awaiting deliver.
The purpose of this blog is to document the process of converting the 1525 N laptop to use the Mandriva operating system.
Suggestions will be appreciated in the comments section of this blog. I have set up a wiki companion page to this blog for the purpose of keeping the large lists that will be created. If you are familiar with wiki’s, you are welcome there as well. Feel free to use the discussion sections for the associated pages. Pasted lists will be protected pages.
You are welcome to E-Mail Me with any thoughts you may have on the subject as well.
Just for overkill, I’ll also be writing in my forum. It’s yet to be determined if I will be ranting or raving there.
So here we go:
Feb. 29
Ordered Dell Laptop with Ubuntu Linux pre-installed.
Waiting for arrival.
Downloading and burning Mandriva 2008 iso image.
MARCH 3rd 2008:
Soliciting suggestions for preperation and pre-install.
[one month later]
Another Backorder Date!
Cancelled!
screw dell.
APRIL 1 2008
Finally got the laptop today. I’ll be putting the Ubuntu configurations on the wiki tonight in preperation for moving the operating system to Mandriva.
I will be installing Mandriva 2008.1 rc2 free. Since this is a free version (not powerpack) the Inspiron needs to be connected to the router by cable. This is because the driver for the wireless card is not available on the free version and will be useless until it has access to the driver online.
I will be attempting to install Mandriva alongside of Ubuntu in a dual boot configuration for now. I chose custom partitioning and resized the large partition to about half it’s original size. I then created on the empty partition I created a / partition a /usr, /var, and /home.
I was given the option of other disks or network I wanted to use. FTP continued to make errors. HTTP seems to have worked and does the same thing so all is well so far.
In the package group selection I chose internet station, Network Computer (client), LSB, Network Computer (server), Firewall, KDE and GNOME workstations and checked Individual Package Selection.
I didn’t need to select/unselect many things. I chose proftpd, iptables, Units (one of my favorite console applications), emacs and a game or two.
I dumped scribus and kpilot and heavy graphics games because I’ll not be using either of those on the laptop.
Since I am installing both KDE and Gnome the installation will take quite a while so I watch some television.
*
First and second installation failed. The installation went okay but I had trouble with the sound card driver. The speakers screeched and couldn’t be turned off until the initial login which took quite a bit of time. I also had some problems getting some packages installed. That was probably because I was using the development version. I will now wait until the 2008.1 release is final before attempting again.
April 13th
Mandriva 2008.1 is now official. I will attempt another install. I decided to go with the powerpack version because it has more restricted drivers which may fix my soundcard issues. I have the disk in the machine and am about to reboot into it.
I must say, after using Ubuntu for the last couple of weeks on the laptop that is a very nice operating system. I particularly like how sudo works on it. I would probably stick with Ubuntu except that it just doesn’t feel right. I feel like I’m missing out on something that I can’t put my finger on. I also need Mandriva for some compatibility issues when connecting to my other boxes with Xauthority.
Anyway, here goes.
April 15th
Sadly, It was a complete failure. I tried 6 different times to install Mandriva on the laptop. I fixed bootloaders, I stopped services before booting. I spent twelve long hours messing with it and ended up further behind than I was before I formatted the harddrive.
I’ve spent over 8 years on linux and almost all of that on Mandriva. This is only the second time I could not get it to install on a piece of hardware. The first time was trying to install it on the first Mac I ever got to spend any time with.
I would still like to put Mandriva on this box, but I’ll not be trying again until I see several examples of it working for other people.
Live and learn. I’m going back to testing games.
May 27th:
Thanks to the comments on this blog, I decided to give it another shot. I’m now using Mandriva on the 1525 N.
The sound card issue was fixed with alsamixer -c0 -V capture. It was a long time of waiting for the first login process and it was very loud but worth the effort.
Installation was done using 2008.1 version of Mandriva on DVD and http media. The laptop needed to be plugged into a wired LAN for the installation using http.
Everything works fine. The webcam and wireless too.
hi,
i have also installed mandriva linux one 2008. but after installation, it does not have driver for the ethernet card … it is detecting the card but it is saying maodule associated with it is “unknown”. also when i try to configure a LAN/modem, it says that “no device found of that type”
can u suggest something
TIA
April 2nd, 2008 at 2:28 amHi anurag,
April 3rd, 2008 at 5:18 pmSo far, my attempts at installing 2008.1 on the 1525 has been a disaster. I had no trouble with the LAN/ethernet card but the wifi card wouldn’t cooperate. I also had some trouble with the sound card and pulseaudio.
I think the problem with that is the release candidate or beta of the 2008.1 OS I have.
Needless to say. I don’t have much advice to offer yet.
I have put off another attempt until 2008.1 MDV is official.
The 1525 (not the 1525N) comes with a few options for LAN hardware.
I’m guessing you have a different LAN card on a 1525 than I have because ethernet connection was not a problem I ran into.
[...] attempt to install Mandriva Linux has been unsuccessful thus far. I’ve had to revert to the original configuration using [...]
April 9th, 2008 at 5:35 pmi tryed to install it just one time but i failed and i was scared by the sound that it made after mandriva one (LIVE) booted up =)) it was a HIGH sound that i couldnt stop it was after the midnight and my wife was sleeping =) i cant figure out how i shuted down after pressing every single key combination i knew and buttons just to make it shutup!
April 15th, 2008 at 2:23 pmThis happend on my dell insp 1525 after trying to boot mandriva one (LIVE CD)
Lucianu,
April 16th, 2008 at 6:19 amI know that ear splitting sound also. My wife came down the stairs at 2 o’clock in the morning to see what the trouble was. I was able to stop that by pressing the letter i during bootup and saying no to starting sound and alsa services. Had that been the only problem I might possibly still be trying. I guess the 1525 just isn’t meant to have Mandriva on it.
mine has a marvell ethernet card …. i have tried a lot to get it working but all in vain
do u have any suggestion for sound problem?
in kmix, if increase “IGain”, it starts giving a “zzz…”sound … but if i play any audio ….. no sound comes
… that zzz sound continues
April 16th, 2008 at 7:41 amanurag,
It seems you have a bit of a different setup than I have.
For the ethernet card try running drakconnect. If that doesn’t help, try opening a terminal and logging in as root user. su - [enter] and type modprobe sky2
I think that is the correct controller for your card. If not rmmod sky2 will remove it.
I’m not sure exactly what your sound card issue is. I have been hearing a lot of chatter about dissatisfaction with pulse-audio. If you can run sounddrake and disable the pulse-audio that may or may not help. It’s worth a try.
April 16th, 2008 at 6:03 pmHi,
I reported this screeching sound bug to Mandriva. I had just the same problem.
If you have any comments or more info on the issue, just leave a comment at the bugzilla.
https://qa.mandriva.com/show_bug.cgi?id=40816
Best wishes,
May 13th, 2008 at 10:36 pmKrisztian Kadar-Nemeth
Thanks Kristian,
I see Adam has responded to this bug;
It’s just feedback from the mic. Cover your ears, let it finish booting, then
run alsamixer -c0 -V capture (or possibly alsamixer -c1 -V capture) and un-set
the mic as the capture source.
I won’t be attempting another Mandriva install on that laptop for a while so if anyone tries this, I’d love to see how it went.
May 14th, 2008 at 6:49 pmI have succeeded in transferring Mandriva to the laptop. I used the powerpack disk and added an http site for the installations which fixed all the problems except the sound card screaming.
May 27th, 2008 at 8:41 pmI did as Adam suggested and let it scream. I went ran alsamixer -c0 -V capture and lowered the mux that was causing the problem.
I also had a problem with not enough volume in the speakers. Disabling the sound card in bios improved that some but not enough the make up for the fact that this laptop has lousy speakers and sound card.
Thanks Ben for the experiment, for giving another try. I didn’t have time to reinstall Mandriva and answer the questions of the bug report, so thank you for helping to complete the report.
Anyway I think if you plug a HEADPHONE into the laptop, that will not let any sound out so you can avoid the screeching sound while you set alsamixer.
May 28th, 2008 at 2:57 amI am sure Dell will not sell the laptop without Genuine Microsoft OS. Have a few friends working at Dell and they confirmed the same.
Emm you said your budget was 60k… then you can get the same config as mine. There is a new discount available, they are offering a few RAM upgrade from 1GB to 2GB.
August 12th, 2008 at 8:55 pmAlso you can talk to the sales guy for more discounts…
Your friends at Dell should look at their own company website more often.
http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/linux_3x?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs
Dell sells several laptops preloaded with Ubuntu linux.
August 14th, 2008 at 12:38 pmI’m sure somebody else has commented on this, but I think it’s the mics that are the problem. I have an inspiron 1525. If you plug in headphones, you can avoid all the beeping. The loudness is a feedback loop between the laptop mics and speakers (I think). I noticed when I ran the live CD that I could hear my typing, etc. through the headphones, even though they were on the table and not in my ears. I think the problem is that KMix’s default setting in “Switches” had an “Analog Loopback.” I think this is what causes that horrible noise.
October 5th, 2008 at 1:02 pmI am very, VERY happy with the look and feel of Mandriva One, otherwise. I just found it today after getting frustrated with trying to get Compiz Fusion to work on Ubuntu 8.04.
Thanks for your help and posting this information to help the rest of us!
Mandrivia just sounds superb. I also have a dell laptop and will surely try to install itbecause i am getting positive feedback on it.
December 13th, 2008 at 10:32 pmHi
December 14th, 2008 at 4:27 amMy laptop is Dell Inspiron 1525. I have installed Mandriva Linux Free 2009 without powerpack. I found that it had not installed wi-fi driver for commonly found Intel Pro wireless WLAN 3945ABG card. Also it does not have any support for Intel HD Audio (ICH8 family) using ALSA drivers. So sound is also not working. Also Mandriva 2009 is not able to use fuctionality provided by Dell Media direct switch. Also special function key (between Ctrl and Alt) ‘Fn’ key used in combination with other keys, doesnot work.
sachinshamkuwar
I had to be hooked to the net via lan while I set up my wifi card but it works perfectly now.
December 16th, 2008 at 5:21 pmMy fn key also works.
I use plf media. Perhaps that could be why.