But then thats it, 2 hours of discovery and its done. i dont need the vista (for which i paid 5K) anymore. But it did serve the purpose of browsing website and helping me choosing the first linux distro that gonna run over my laptop. After much search i found Dell has official support for Ubuntu (after cursing why this service not available in india) so i settled for Ubuntu ( a distro i longed for long). Amazingly my friend had the Ubuntu 8.04 CD burned and ready for me. I popped in the CD and off goes ubuntu, detecting every possible hardware. Glad i decided this penguin to be my pet.
Amazingly Dell had crapped my HDD by 20GB, i decided to clean all stuff. Took the Vista CD, formatted all the partition, installed Vista over a 50GB partition. Popped Ubuntu again and installed it from Live CD. Thats it. Ubuntu Installed. Every piece of art started churning to live.
But as i have experienced for 3 years, linux make you search. Well ubuntu is great as software installation is not a problem, just apt-get it. But once i upgraded to 2.6.24-19-generic kernel problems propped from thin air. So here's the list of problems and my solution.
My hardware config (in case you are interested)
sudo lshw -short -sanitize
H/W path Device Class Description
==========================================================
system Inspiron 1525
/0 bus 0U990C
/0/0 memory 64KiB BIOS
/0/400 processor Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T5850 @ 2.16GHz
/0/400/700 memory 32KiB L1 cache
/0/400/701 memory 2MiB L2 cache
/0/400/1.1 processor Logical CPU
/0/400/1.2 processor Logical CPU
/0/1000 memory 4GiB System Memory
/0/1000/0 memory 2GiB DIMM DDR Synchronous 667 MHz (1.5 ns)
/0/1000/1 memory 2GiB DIMM DDR Synchronous
/0/100 bridge Mobile PM965/GM965/GL960 Memory Controller Hub
/0/100/2 display Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller
/0/100/2.1 display Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller
/0/100/1a bus 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4
/0/100/1a.1 bus 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5
/0/100/1a.7 bus 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2
/0/100/1b multimedia 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller
/0/100/1c bridge 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 1
/0/100/1c/0 eth0 network 88E8040 PCI-E Fast Ethernet Controller
/0/100/1c.1 bridge 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 2
/0/100/1c.1/0 network BCM4312 802.11a/b/g
/0/100/1c.4 bridge 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 5
/0/100/1d bus 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1
/0/100/1d.1 bus 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2
/0/100/1d.2 bus 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3
/0/100/1d.7 bus 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1
/0/100/1e bridge 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge
/0/100/1e/9 bus R5C832 IEEE 1394 Controller
/0/100/1e/9.1 system R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Host Adapter
/0/100/1e/9.2 system R5C843 MMC Host Controller
/0/100/1e/9.3 system R5C592 Memory Stick Bus Host Adapter
/0/100/1e/9.4 system xD-Picture Card Controller
/0/100/1f bridge 82801HEM (ICH8M) LPC Interface Controller
/0/100/1f.1 scsi3 storage 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) IDE Controller
/0/100/1f.1/0.0.0 /dev/cdrom disk DVD+-RW TS-L632H
/0/100/1f.2 scsi0 storage 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) SATA AHCI Controller
/0/100/1f.2/0.0.0 /dev/sda disk 250GB WDC WD2500BEVS-7
/0/100/1f.2/0.0.0/1 /dev/sda1 volume 70MiB Windows FAT volume
/0/100/1f.2/0.0.0/2 /dev/sda2 volume 50GiB Windows NTFS volume
/0/100/1f.2/0.0.0/3 /dev/sda3 volume 30GiB Windows FAT volume
/0/100/1f.2/0.0.0/4 /dev/sda4 volume 152GiB Extended partition
/0/100/1f.2/0.0.0/4/5 /dev/sda5 volume 50GiB HPFS/NTFS partition
/0/100/1f.2/0.0.0/4/6 /dev/sda6 volume 60GiB HPFS/NTFS partition
/0/100/1f.2/0.0.0/4/7 /dev/sda7 volume 20GiB W95 FAT32 partition
/0/100/1f.2/0.0.0/4/8 /dev/sda8 volume 86MiB Linux filesystem partition
/0/100/1f.2/0.0.0/4/9 /dev/sda9 volume 972MiB Linux swap / Solaris partition
/0/100/1f.2/0.0.0/4/a /dev/sda10 volume 21GiB Linux filesystem partition
/0/100/1f.3 bus 82801H (ICH8 Family) SMBus Controller
/1 power DELL RN87384
/2 wlan0 network Wireless interface
Amazingly post installation sound went bloop. So just update alsa for the new kernel.
sudo apt-get install module-assistant
sudo m-a update
sudo m-a prepare
sudo m-a a-i alsa
Next was 3D Cube, just open config manager and set cube (also add 4 workspace to get cube effect)
compizconfig-settings-manager
Next came the wireless adapted (LED stopped blinking)
apt-get install linux-backports-modules-2.6.24-19-generic
Next install some cool player, along with their codecs
apt-get install banshee*
apt-get install mplayer*
apt-get install xine*
apt-get install gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly-multiverse gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad-multiverse
gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg libxine1-ffmpeg libdvdread3
Started banshee found the media button (play/pause/stop/next/back) are working cool but volume button are screwed. Fix is simple, goto System>Preference>Sound Set the Default Mixer Track to the one which works for you. Here's the one i set.
Fortunately every other stuffs working cool, so i am happy this posts not dragging more. Any more issues found/resolved will be appended for you (me).
