Regarding Dell Laptops...

I had originally asked these questions in the Dell forum, but couldn't get any sort of answer, so I thought I might have better luck here.

I am getting ready to buy a Dell Inspiron 1720, but I had a couple of questions prior to placing the order. I am planning on formatting the laptop as soon as I get it and triple booting XP (for games)/Vista (for development)/Ubuntu (for fun/learning) so my questions may be a little unique to that situation.

1) Does Dell include the Vista media, and if so, does it require activation? Previous Dell media CDs for XP did not require activation or a key, so I wasn't sure. If it does require activation, has anyone had problems doing so?

2) From what I've read the first partition on the hard drive should be left alone so that media direct will still work. As long as I leave that one alone does it matter where the Vista partition is located? I had planned on a configuration of the media direct partition, then xp, then vista, then ubuntu partitions, but wasn't sure if that would cause issues.

3) I understand that the Intel N cards don't have Linux drivers yet. Has anyone had any luck getting these working with ndiswrapper or some other way? Or should I just avoid the card and get the regular Intel BG card? I will rarely if ever be plugging in, so it's important to me that wireless works flawlessly.

4) I had some issues trying to install Ubuntu Feisty on my HP nx9420, it didn't want to load X (I believe it didn't like the native resolution of my widescreen 1440x900) so I had to download the alternate disk and install in textmode, then load the graphics driver and reconfigure xorg.conf. I didn't have this problem with Edgy. Will I run into similar issues with a Dell widescreen, or could this problem have been due to the ATI card in the HP?

Thanks for all your help!

 

I can only answer your first question.

1) If you select the "with media" option when you order from Dell, you will get the disk to match the stock OS. I don't think it requires any kind of activation, because it does some check with the BIOS in the Dell system and just goes with that (I'm not sure of the details; it's what I've heard).

Sorry I can't help with the rest. Good luck.

 

That was typically the case with XP, but there is no with/without media option on the Dell configurations anymore, so I don't know if they all come with media, or if they all don't... nobody seemed to have a firm answer in the Dell forum.

 

My first reaction: question 1 would be better answered by a Dell sales representative. Why not give them a call? Dell technicians should be able to deal with 2 and 3 too but a sales representative might not be able to answer those.

Here we go:

1. Ask Dell. My impression is unless they explicitly list OS media on your order, then you won't get media to install the OS. By the by, whether media comes or not is important but not the most important issue. You want to know whether you get an OEM or retail license with your copy of Windows. Only a retail license can be moved from computer to computer. It was possible in the past to fairly easily violate the terms of an OEM license and install the OS on a different machine. However, Microsoft has made it harder now to do that, especially with Vista.

AFAIK, Dell does not sell retail licenses of Windows with their laptops. It's all OEM.

2. I don't know. Ask Dell?

3. I've read on this very site that the drivers are available now. Search for it.

4. I don't know. I never had that kind of problem.

 

In regard to 3:

http://www.intellinuxwireless.org/

As far as 4, I'd be willing to bet it had more to do with the ATI card than anything else. ATI Linux support is terrible.

- Trip