has anyone tried linux on the new inspirons?

has anyone tried linux on the new inspirons?
Any problems with drivers?
I got a 1920 x 1200 inspiron 1720.
The dell tech support guy asked me to delete all my partitions and now the vista CD doesn't work.
it takes them over 20 days to send me an HD with an image.

So I have a big brick with no OS.

There is no limit to dell support's stupidity and incompetence. They must be used to this level of 'support' because they didn't even blink when I told them that this was unacceptable, they just repeat the options available to solve the problem.

Anyway, anyone having any luck installing linux (any distro)?

Thanks

 

I would also like to know this as i will most likely dual boot win xp for games and ubuntu for web browsing/playing music on my new vostro.

 

yep..me too. I'm going to dual boot ubuntu along with XP. If you need the Ubuntu CD, you can request it here: https://shipit.ubuntu.com/

I don't know much about installing Linux (I'm going to install it when my laptop arives) so I can't help you much. Maybe you should try posting in the Linux section of the forum. I'm sure the people can help you there.

 

I just tried installed Kubuntu a couple of days ago, wasn't that big of a problem, I deleted my recovery partition in Vista, and then ran the alternate installer off the DVD I burned. The default drivers do not work with the Geforce 8600, so I had to alter the xorg.conf to use vesa drivers, then I installed the nvidia drivers with envy. The only issue I've had is I can't get it to boot as 1680*1050 it boots at 1024*768 and I have to change it every time.

If you plan to install Ubuntu, I hope you are comfortable using the command line some, and editing xorg.conf

For detailed info on how to:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=501195

For future reference I would suggest you ask anything regarding Linux on the Linux forums.

 

Yup i burnt a copy of Ubuntu when i ordered my computer. So it is sitting on my desk waiting This is also my first time useing Ubuntu.

May i ask what the dif. is between Ubuntu and Kubuntu

 

Kubuntu uses KDE as a desktop environment.
Ubuntu uses Gnome.

 

I don't know 100% with Vista, but when I was experimenting back and forth with Linux on my old XP desktop you had to reformat the MBR (Master Boot Record) on the drive before you could put XP back after you had removed Linux.
I just used old FDISK from a DOS Boot CD I had made and just typed in "FDISK /MBR to get it fixed, but not too many people has old 98 Boot floppys (or in your case even a floppy drive).
I assume there are modern programs that can fix it too, but I don't know any.

/Stefan

 

You can get into DOS Mode using some boot cd like Hiren's Boot CD or many other free dos bootable cds and then do fdisk/mbr

Alternatively you can create a small (max 100 MB) boot partition for linux and boot Linux using that.... By this way there will be nothing written on the MBR.... But I think only a few linux distros support this option like Suse, Fedora and a few others....

 

Whether to use Gnome or KDE is a bit of a flamefest, but there are two things I would take into account in your choice (of Ubuntu/Gnome vs. Kubuntu/KDE):

1. Ubuntu is the original. New features on it come first. For example, if you try to play a movie that requires a codec, Ubuntu will offer to install it for you. Kubuntu will not because it hasn't implemented this feature yet.

2. Kubuntu/KDE has an interface that is more familiar to windows users (one bar across the bottom with a start menu style button). There's actually an option you can set to make the interface be more Windows-ish (by default single click opens things, it will change to double click, etc.)

I personally think Kubuntu is better if you know what you're doing, but Ubuntu has some features that aren't in Kubuntu yet that I think make it friendlier. Also, if your hardware is supported by one, it will be supported by the other, and vice versa -- if you can't get it working on your HW, switching from one to the other is unlikely to help. But you can go to www.ubuntuforums.org and lots of friendly people will help you if you're stuck

 

so should I take it that all hardware is supported? even the graphic card (I have the 128mb one)?

Thanks

Has anyone tried linux 64 bits addressing 4 gb of ram? (not my case, but a possibly nonetheless).

 

Just to elaborate on my previous post, you have to use the alternate installer to install, so a normal Ubuntu CD will not work.

As for all hardware being supported, everything will not be supported on first boot, you have to download the nvidia graphics drivers and install those. I also cannot get my wireless card to work (I have the Dell wireless G card), the Intel one works I believe. The link I posted earlier should answer any questions.

 

Isn't there a Linux OS that will run straight from a burned disk? I don't want to install anything, just to try it out before I do an install.

 

Ubuntu is like this. The boot-cd drops you in an environment where you can try different stuff, and when you're happy you launch the installer shortcut.

Actually you press F6 on the boot menu, add break=top, then boot ... when it drops to shell you type "modprobe piix" then exit. Then when X bombs, edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf as root and change the nv driver to vesa, then startx.

 

For a distro that will run straight from the CD properly, I suggest Slax, a live CD distro based on Slackware, with the KDE window manager. I tried an old disk I had lying around (about a year old) and it worked perfectly except the max resolution was 1024*768, which is a limitation of the VESA driver. I don't know if the newest versions work, but you can run it off a USB flashdrive, so there is no harm in trying.

 

My dell inspiron 640m is not exactly the latest model although it is only 4 months old. I dual boot vista and ubuntu feisty and I have no problems so far.
Dell support even has the Conexant modem driver available for download. Linux And it is almost 100% virus immune!

 

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=509408

 

knoppix is another live cd that works like it supposed to lol

 

Well, reading this, it looks like you have to actually sacrifice a goat to get ubuntu to recognize all hardware. It was like this when I last tried linux a couple of years ago, people keep telling me that that has changed and installation is painless. But in the new dells case it looks like it actually requires some leg work.

I was planning to install suse, which has less active forums than ubuntu.

I value my time way too much to start playing sysadmin. I think I'll skip linux.

 

No kidding....

The new Inspirons are using standard hardware, but the distributions have not really caught up yet with the appropriate drivers.

Once this has been done, it is simply back to the usual mbr games ....

Like you, I think I will wait it out a little longer for Linux. For now I'll just live with my XP/Vista dual boot.

-LQ

 

Just download the Alternate CD, because the normal one doens't work on th enew Inspirons for some reason, then pick up at "Hints on setting up your hardware while installing Ubuntu" on this guide:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=501195

If you have the Intel 4965 AGN card, that links they listed won't work. Go here: http://intellinuxwireless.org/?p=iwlwifi&n=HOWTO-iwlwifi for instructions on that. I'm not sure if Ubuntu comes with mac80211, but if it doesn't, follow that guide first.