inspiron 8200 compatibility?

will karmic koala have all the drivers i need?

i did a google search, and most of the results seemed like the older versions of ubuntu wouldnt work on it. anyone have any experience with installing on this model?

cheers

 

Hey 'stingray...welcome ....basically if a laptop has intel for wireless and intel or nvidia for graphics, it's good to go in general. You would want to use Ubuntu 9.10. What's that puppy have in it?

 

that does not sound good.

it dosent have a wireless card built in (2002, wifi wasnt that widespread yet, cards were very expensive)

it has the antenna for wifi, i tried installing the intel prowireless 2100 but bios dosent recognise it, so i'm using a pcmcia dynex dx-wgnbc card, which dosent support vista, and which i dont think supports linux..

ATI Radeon 9000 graphics, 1.8ghz Pentium 4m, 60gb hitachi 7k60, 512mb ddr333 ram.

its an old laptop, but in excellent condition as my sister never moved it from her desk, so i figured i might as well try out linux on it.

 

Well, ATI does work in Linux, lot's of people have ATI cards....I would load up a LiveCD and check it out....you probably overcome any wireless problems in a number of ways.

 

ok i'm gonna burn the image and install it soon. i guess i'll hunt around for drivers after that

 

Let us know how it works....re wireless, linux does support an amazing number of oldish adapters. Drivers can be had somewhere usually if not OTB. Otherwise, there's always NDISWRAPPER to use the windows driver. Also, linux compatible usb sticks for wireless are pretty cheap.

 

ok installed it. its somewhat sluggish, sometimes right clicks dont work, and i cant get the wlan card to work. both of the cards i have (dynex and d-link) use an atheros chipset.

im not exactly sure what to do next? i want to get the wireless working so i can start downloading drivers etc?

 

ok i've got the wifi working, but why is the system so sluggish? is it cos i havent optimised it?

i cant figure out how to install the ati linux driver lol

 

download ENVY to install the ATI driver for you....are any ATI guys reading this to chime in if something has changed?

Also, turn on Xorg Edgers to gain a little performance after that: http://linuxchronicles.wordpress.com/2009/11/14/xorg-edgers-repository/

that's my own blog/notes site there.

PS: nice job...

 

i still feel like i dont understand the fundamentals of linux. i mean in windows you just download the driver, double click it, and it installs....what about in linux?

 

jas can chime in here, but there is more than one way to install drivers, for ex. as a .deb package, a shell script run from the console out of x, or whatever depending on how they are packaged. They basically end up as kernel modules that are loaded at boot time. Firmware and driver files are placed in certain directories where the kernel looks at boot time for the microcode or software, etc. It's basically the same as windows, however drivers come packaged differently and are executed differently even within the same distro. Anyone? jas?

 

You got wifi working? You have an Intel wifi 2100 card?

So, you enabled intel firmware in the repo then? Sounds like it.

As for ATI, as I stated in the other thread, you DON'T download the driver from ATI. The updated proprietary drivers don't support the older Radeon cards any more. You don't have to do anything according to some people. But, in Boobuntu, you probably need to edit xorg.conf so that there might be a chance to run desktop effects. If you don't need 3D, you just disable the desktop effects and 2D will run okay.

I wouldn't use Ubuntu with that machine, though. I recommend you install something else, Debian, Fedora, Mandriva, OpenSUSE.... one of those.

 

no, i managed to get it working with my pcmcia card. atheros chipset.

ok so how do i choose a distro? i picked ubuntu purely because people claimed it was a good distro for newbies.

is it safe to assume openSUSE is easy too? it comes pre-installed on the non-XP version of the MSI Wind netbook...

 

I'm using Ubuntu on my Vostro 1220, used it on my m4400 with great results. You won't find any better, that statement IMO was purely subjective. They all use the same drivers. If I were to try another distro, it would be Fedora. But like I said, Ubuntu is about as good as it gets for an all-rounder with others coming close. There are some hobbyist type distro's out there that can run faster because they are basically compiled from the ground up for your machine, but they are not practical for my purposes. I would try some other liveCD's and see how it goes.

 

well i think i'll just forget about it then. kubuntu is running crappily on it. way too slow.

if all the others are going to be like that i cant be bothered, my connection is too slow to keep downloading various distros

vostro 1220 and m4400 officially support linux. you can even get the m4400 shipped with it...so i suppose the experience woudl be much smoother

 

I didn't know you had Kubuntu....you can make whatever distro run faster than what you've got on that machine, don't misunderstand me. Kubuntu will probably be the slowest. You need to start out with a faster Desktop Environment like Xubuntu, and then people around here can help you speed it up.

 

ok i guess im prepared to take another shot at this, what distro would be recommended for my specs?

winXP runs really fast on it, and i dont want something too stripped down. from what i read xubuntu seems to be targetted at purpose-built workstations? suggestions would be really much appreciated

 

some others please chime in here....but, Xubuntu....Crunchbang (based on Ubuntu w/ OpenBox) and there's the usual suspects like Antix, Puppy....Antix is good to go for drivers, I don't know about Puppy....someone else needs to chime in here.... I've got an old Sony Laptop and doing the same thing....So I'm all ears too

 

I'm putting MacPup on this old Sony Vaio Laptop now....from Distrowatch.com. I'll let you know how it goes.

Xubuntu is the one for the Sony....I suspect the 8200 also.

 

Howdy. Just saw this.

I've been running Ubuntu 9.04 on my 8200 until recently. Everything worked pretty well though Linksys PCMCIA card required the B43 drivers. I've just cleared everything down and re-installed Win7RC and Kubuntu 9.10 and it's running a little slow. I don't know whether this is because of KDE or the 9.10 version.

In the past this machine has run several distros on Linux. I can't remember all of them; sometimes they were just installed and the main features tried out. I did run openSUSE for a time, but that was without the wireless card. Mint and Vector (not very successful) have been installed.

If I was going for an easy Linux install, I'd definitely go for Ubuntu, especially on an older machine, though Xubuntu might be a better bet if performance is a problem. I reckon the ultralight distros give more problems with older machines.

BTW Aero may not run on my Geforce card, but Compiz gives lots of eye candy; wobbly windows and all

 

If everything on it is stock you should be fine. What's connected to it? Any cards?

The only issue you'll have is with that stinky soft modem. But seriously, who uses those anymore?

I have used Fedora/Redhat for about a decade. Virtually all modules (ie drivers) are included in kernel releases. When a modern linux distro boots, it automatically detects which hardware is in there and loads the modules as necessary.

Let's see... Who's got the crappiest Linux support I've seen? LOGITECH. Hands down. Even fanagling with keyboards and mice are a pain. That's all I've ever found from them to work halfway decently.

What WiFi card are you using?