Trying Linux on your Vostro 1500: a miniguide

Since installing Linux on my Vostro has been a total no-brainer, maybe someone else out there might want to give it a try. Here's a barebone how-to for the brave laptop experimenter.
Despite its lenght the process will take you only a handful of minutes because there's almost nothing to do. You'll have to fill in the blanks, so to speak.

In order to fully install Linux (2.5 GB with lots of programs), create a swap partition (512 MB will suffice), and have at least one ext3 partition to play with and a FAT32 partition to move data from one OS to the other, I'd suggest you get at least some 5 GB out of your hard disk. 10 GB might be better, if you plan to rip dvds and the such.

Phase 0: save your a**
First thing first, since you will be tampering with the partition table: backup all your data. Better yet, create an image of your disk, so that you could go back in case something go wrong (nothing should go wrong, but Murphy's Law is a law of nature). If you have just received your system you won't be bothered too much.

Phase 1: Remove one primary partition (40 seconds)
Sadly, you have to say goodbye to one of your primary partitions if you want to create other partions (or at least use the last primary partition). You might find the recovery partition useless, for example. I found Media Direct partition useless and so I wiped it out. You will watch DVDs in Linux.
How to: Start > right click Computer > Manage >go to Disk Management. Identify the Media Direct partition (should be the last one), right click on it and select Remove (or Delete, or Destroy, whatever).
Click on the button to apply the change.
Media direct is gone and you are left with a few GB of unallocated space. Remember not to power on your system with the media direct button for the time being.

Phase II: Shrink Vista's partition (30 seconds)
From Disk mangement, select Vista's partition (it's easy: it's the big one), right click on it and choose Resize (or Shrink) and then apply the changes. Make it so that the room you free, plus the unallocated space from media direct partition adds up to at least 5 GB.
I halved it, because I could not make it smaller than that.
You will seee that the unallocated space will stick together.

Phase III: create the extended partition and the FAT partition (2 minutes)
Sound difficult, but it isn't.
In Disk Management (yes, you're still there), right click in the unallocated space and choose 'new simple volume'. Choose a size (let's say 2000 MB) and then click next. Instead of NTFS, choose FAT32. Next again and then apply changes. It will take a while to end the formatting, but then you now have an extended partition with a single FAT32 volume.
At this pont I'd reboot the machine.

Fine so far. It's now time for the tough to get going...

Phase IV: download and burn your Linux live CD (depends on your DSL speed, let's say 15 minutes)
Go here: www.kanotix.com , choose English if you don't speak german, and download the latest version of Kanotix it dubbed RC6 and it's a prerelease version. Here's the direct link.
Why an experimental version? Because it's hardware recognition will be better than the 2005 stable release. Hey, don't blame me if your laptop explodes: mine didn't.
Oh, by the way: from now on you could read this: http://linux.kopporama.de/en/km_kanotix.html

Once you've downloaded the iso, you have to burn it on a 700 MB CD. Use your favourite burning software and choose "burn image" or "burn iso image". You will end up with a bootable CD. Now guess what...


Phase V: boot the Live Linux CD (3 minutes)
when you turn your laptop on press F12 at the boot screen, then choose to boot from DVD. Place your Linux Live CD into the tray and press enter.
Kanotix boot screen will pop up. In the boot string, change the option

lang=de-utf8​

to

lang=us-utf8​

It's not stictly necessary but you might want to add the following to the boot string:

screen=1280x800​

(or whatever your screen resolution may be)
In a minute or so you will be in Linux, as run from CD.
First thing to do is to set the root password: Finding the right menu to do that is left to the student as an exercise.
Then you can customize tha appearance, the language, the timezone, the keyboard layout... You will find your customizations in the installed version on the hard disk.

Phase VI: create the linux partitions (5 minutes)
Go to the K taskbar button, move up in the menu till you find System, then choose "Partition Editor" from the menu. It's GParted and it will ask you for the root password you've just set up.
Once in there (remember: you must have backed up your data by now) you can righclick into the unallocated space and create:
a 2.5 - 3 GB ext3 partition for the linux system
a 512 MB swap partition
a xx GB ext3 partition (depending on how much space you are left with) to play with.

Phase VII: installing Kanotix on hard disk (15 minutes)
Now all you have to do is go in the K-menu and search for the Kanotix installer . It's easy to spot: it's called "Acritox Installer"
Launch it and follow the instructions.

Please note, since you have already the partions, choose "manual partitioning", and then choose "Already partitioned". Then install kanotix on the 3 GB ext3 partition (on my systems it was "sda5"). Place grub on the same disk.

It will take a while to copy all the files, but in the end you will be returned control of the Live Linux Cd.
Only to restart your system.

Now, lo and behold you are going to boot into...



...


...

Vista.
No sign of Linux.

Ok, it's time for the last phase:

Phase VIII: tuning Vista's boot manager. (5 minutes)
You can follow the advice given here: http://apcmag.com/5045/how_to_dual_boot_vista_with_linux
(You might as well have installed GRUB in the MBR when instructed to do so by the installer. This is another way to do the same thing but it would destroy DELL's boot code. This approach is the least invasive).
Once you've set Vista boot manager to point to Linux, you will be able to load Vista or the version of GRUB that's on the Linux disk. From there on you will be in your new Linux installation.

Phase IX: enjoy your Debian based linux (timeless)
This distro is also an insurance against data loss. When Windows will crash, you could use Linux to recovery your data. Moreover, Kanotix has a nice script that automatically choose, download, configure and install the latest nVidia drivers. My GT 8600M is now fully recognized: I can also rotate the screen layout.

Fine tuning and configuration will be treated when I'll find the time.

 

all i did was split my vista partition in 2...boot to the suse disk and let it automacially configure the 2nd partition. it did everything including boot loader itself.

 

This way it sounds simpler.
But how can you have four primary partitions (Dell Diag, Recovery, OS, Mediadirect) and an extended partition with the logical partition to host Linux?

What is your partition table like?

 

a lot easier. The first post had some good info also thanks