Ubuntu 11.04 on Alienware m15x

I'm thinking of making my Alienware m15x a Ubuntu only laptop. Planning on downloading it tomorrow and imaging my computer as is, just in case anything goes wrong. One thing I would like to know though, is if anyone has had any problems with running their m15x with Ubuntu 11.04? The major things for me that need to work is my video card, sound card, camera and mic. The type of video card that I have is:

ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5850 1GB GDDR5

I know that the video card requires proprietary drivers, but no idea where I would go to get those.

It's not the first time I have used Ubuntu, but the last time I had it on my older desktop was when 8.04 was out.

Appreciate any help or advice that you guys can provide. I've been hearing these horrors stories about the X server not starting. Dell has almost always been great when it comes down to linux. I just haven't tried it on this laptop yet.

 

If your M15x uses ATI's switching technology to go back and forth between GPU and IGP, then look up the hybrid graphics mailing list for linux. Basically you should be able to at least turn off the ATI for power savings. If you just want to always use the 5850 then you should be able to switch to just that in the BIOS and install ubuntu and be done for the most part.

 

As far as I know, it's just the one ATI card, doesn't have the switching feature, or I have at least never saw it in Windows. I've looked in both Advanced Display settings and the ATI Catalyst Control Center and it only shows one card. How can you tell if it has the switching feature? The Alienware website is no help Especially now that they don't sell my model of laptop on there anymore.

Here's the specs that were shown on the receipt, I don't know how to tell if it is one of those types of cards. The only reason that I don't know how to find this out is because I have never had a laptop before that had the switching feature in it.

 

You'd know if it had switching as you'd have run into it by now. Not having switching should make it "just work" really. I say install your favorite distro and see what happens.

 

I have had 10.04 installed on my M15x, for months now and I love it. I haven't felt the need to switch from the LTS version yet, so no 11.04 for me. The only driver I had to install myself was the video card's proprietary driver.

I don't have your graphics card. I've got the older and weaker nvidia card, as you can see in my sig, but I don't think you should run into too many problems, if any. Our model definitely doesn't have switchable graphics, btw. Otherwise, we'd get way better battery life.