M1530 on Ubuntu - A head up

This is a heads up for those interested in how Ubuntu works on the Dell M1530 8600GT 2.0Ghz etc.

I have Ubuntu Hardy Heron and Vista Home Premium and Dell MediaDirect on the 160GB hard drive, all running smoothly.

Vista Home Premium - the usual stuff

Dell Mediadirect - plays DIVX and MKVs

Ubuntu did not work straight off the bat :

What didn't work/not working like Vista
- Wireless (it works from the installation CD but not after installing it)
- Eject button
- Mediadirect button
- Brightness is in 4 stages so very short
- touchpad is very very slow
- fingerprint reader (no driver)
- Firefox 3.0 is sluggish
- Microphone (haven't tested this properly yet)
- Video playback/MP3

What worked straight out :
- 1920x1200 resolution (using generic graphics driver)
- Media keys (prev/stop/play/pause/next/vol up/vol down/mute)
- Sound (volume control here was a lot more responsive than Vista)
- Plug and play external storage (SD memory card, external drive)
- webcam (install Cheese)

Now because wireless didn't work I couldn't download any drivers to update the NVidia card so I used the generic ndiwrapper drivers for wireless (same as the one from the installation CD). For some reason the Intel drivers don't work or is conflicting with something else.

Video and MP3 playback was solved by download the necessary codecs (Ubuntu will not install these by default due to legal issues). While video works well, 1080p videos are sluggish in full screen mode. This might have something to do with Compiz.

Eject button was solved by typing in a couple of commands :

1. Enable eject button => sudo sysctl dev.cdrom.lock=0
2. Edit the startup config so that it does this every time => sudo sh -c 'echo "dev.cdrom.lock=0" >> /etc/sysctl.conf'

Video driver was resolved under Hardware Drivers and enabling Nvidia card. Not sure if this is the best driver but it works well with Compiz Fusion (yeah all 1920x1200 of it!).

Compiz Fusion, should already be installed, just install the manager from the Synatic Package Manager. Everything works really well.

Brightness can be controlled better by adding the brightness panel at the top menu bar (right click, add to panel...)

Touchpad is very very slow, editing a couple of config files will make it erratic. Will have to wait on this one because I can't use an external mouse every time.

While the webcam works, the performs of the cam is really really poor, so its not just on Vista that sucks. Dell shortchanged us here.

Firefox was acting sluggish, especially when I zoom text using CTRL+scroll mouse. It takes several seconds before the page finally zooms. Some say this is the fault of Firefox and not ubuntu. Use Opera which works well and is very fast.

I haven't tried fingerprint reader or microphone yet and the touchpad is still very buggy. People seem to have different theories on getting Ubuntu to work on the 1530 (as with any notebooks) according to the ubuntu forums.

I noticed that my um...torrent downloads are faster in ubuntu than Vista...

If anyone can advice on the remaining hardware issues please add. I'm also wondering if there is any difference in installing 64bit ubuntu over 32bit.

 

Thank for the post, you fixed my eject button!

To fix the Dell m1530 touchpad, upgrade to Ubuntu 8.10 and follow the directions posted (by me, [email protected]) on the ubuntu forums (NR won't let me post the link since this is my 1st post).

8.10 fixes volume control issues, although Cheese functionality degraded (only runs in low resolutions, known bug already registered).

Fingerprint reader works very poorly in both Vista and Ubuntu (at least with my fingers).

My ff zoom is also slow. I find the compiz zoom (windows key + middle mouse) is much more effective for temporary zooming than using ff zoom.

NVidia 180.08 drivers are a little buggy but video playback works well.

The 64bit alpha Adobe driver also works great.

 

Eject button didn't work I thought it had a hardware link It works for me in OpenSUSE, along with Wireless, LAN and Audio out of the box. Personally I think openSuse is better, but many people like Ubuntu....

 

It's a matter of preference, I've found Suse to be easier for me even though I'm just a linux sporadic user.

 

Hey people, I realize this is an older thread, but anyone have any definitive guide on installing Intrepid (Ubuntu 8.10) on an n1530? I tried but now I'm having these problems:
- Microphone jack on the front not working
- No HDMI audio out (actually, it does output from the hdmi for the start, then it diverts it to the notepad speakers)
- Jerky touchpad
- No way for extending the monitor (instead, you can just change which display it uses as primary with the function key)

Any ideas?

PS. As an answer to the OP, for me this is what did work:

- Wireless
- Bluetooth
- Full resolution (everything works)
- Brightness in 7 stages

Everything pretty much seems to be in order, except what was mentioned before.

 

For the touchpad, here's the solution:
1. Open terminal and type;

this should open your grub entries.

2. Scroll down to the ubuntu kernel boot entry and add the following;

3. Restart and your touchpad should be fine now.

Also if you want to control the speed of the touchpad, you can download gsynaptics from the package manager.

 

I use Twinview via the proprietary Nvidia drivers (NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-180.16-pkg2.run). I use the HDMI port, but I have not tried the HDMI auio. Since I still play Starcraft I had to add metamodes to support 640x480 resolution on the external monitor when in Twinview mode.

Did you try setting you mike to digital? (Double click on the volume control, select the options tab.)

In addition to adding i8042.nomux=1 to /boot/grub/menu.lst, create the following file in the listed path to customize the touchpad settings:

As of Ubuntu 8.10, touchpad setting land here:

My /etc/X11/xorg.conf file:

Code:

	
	Section "ServerLayout"
	    Identifier     "Default Layout"
	    Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
	EndSection

	Section "Module"
	    Load           "glx"
	EndSection

	Section "ServerFlags"
	    Option         "Xinerama" "0"
	EndSection

	Section "Monitor"
	    Identifier     "Configured Monitor"
	EndSection

	Section "Monitor"
	    Identifier     "Monitor0"
	    VendorName     "Unknown"
	    ModelName      "Seiko"
	    HorizSync       30.0 - 75.0
	    VertRefresh     60.0
	EndSection

	Section "Device"
	    Identifier     "Configured Video Device"
	    Driver         "nvidia"
	EndSection

	Section "Device"
	    Identifier     "Device0"
	    Driver         "nvidia"
	    VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
	    BoardName      "GeForce 8600M GT"
	    Option         "FlatPanelProperties" "Scaling = aspect-scaled"
	EndSection

	Section "Screen"
	    Identifier     "Default Screen"
	    Device         "Configured Video Device"
	    Monitor        "Configured Monitor"
	    DefaultDepth    24
	    Option         "NoLogo" "True"
	    SubSection     "Display"
		Depth       24
		Modes      "nvidia-auto-select"
	    EndSubSection
	EndSection

	Section "Screen"
	    Identifier     "Screen0"
	    Device         "Device0"
	    Monitor        "Monitor0"
	    DefaultDepth    24
	    Option         "TwinView" "1"
	    Option         "TwinViewXineramaInfoOrder" "DFP-1"
	    Option         "metamodes" "DFP-0: nvidia-auto-select +1920+0, DFP-1: nvidia-auto-select +0+0; DFP-1: 1600x1200 +0+0, DFP-0: null; DFP-1: 640x480 +0+0, DFP-0: null; DFP-1: 1920x1200 +0+0, DFP-0: null"
	    SubSection     "Display"
		Depth       24
	    EndSubSection
	EndSection

 

Thanks guys, I'll try these out next time I try to install ubuntu. Yes yes, I'm back in Vista now...a shame but the truth is I'm not leaving windows as long as I don't have my applications with me! Thanks again though!