Linux(Ubunto 7.04) onto my Dell Inspiron 1501

ncwdavid

Hey, I got a laptop from Dell recently. IT came with Vista Home Premium(my choice) and I kind of like vista but some stuff like games and cam don't work on Vista. So I created a 25GB partition on the laptop and installed XP Home SP2.

Harddrive structure:(hardrive = 120GB)

| Name | Size(GB) | Drive |

| Vista | 77.2 | C |

| Rec | 10 | D |

| XP | 25 | F |

I want to create another partition maybe 15-20GB for Linux Ubunto. Right now When I turn on the laptop I get a dual boot menu where I can pick XP, Vista or Recovery. Vista is the default.

I am currently downloading the Ubunto 7.04 and then burning it onto a blank CD.

Once I have the partiton made I will insert the CD once it is burned into the CD - Rom drive and boot from it. I don't have a clue how to install it but im sure there is instructions like Windows.

When I installed XP first I got the drivers from the Dell site for my laptop for the sound, network etc and I was wondering will they work on the Linux? and if not what do i do?

Also how will I add Linux to the boot dual boot menu? Thanks.

myrevolt

Well you AFAIK can't use NTDLR to boot into Linux (you might be able to UBCD but I can't verify that), you will instead need a bootloader such as Grub or Lilo. The Ubuntu forums are very helpful if you experience any problems. No, the Windows drivers will not work in Linux, the only driver that may be of any use is your wireless card (if supported by ndiswrapper; hopefully it's supported natively by Linux but probably not). I looked up your specs, your laptop has an ATI card which aren't greatly supported, so difficulties may occur. I am not sure on your familiarity with Linux, and as such I recommend you download the latest version of Knoppix (though on my computer ver 3.7 works best -_-) and boot the live-cd. You mentioned hardware not being recognized, Ubuntu might not recognize it either, XP in that respect would be your best bet. However, you may enjoy the ease of use (apt-get) and security that Ubuntu has by default. They have "screencasts" aka video tutorials this one being useful to you: http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-2369893842637434537. Oh one more thing, I recommend using the stand-alone GParted Live-CD available here instead of the one included with the Ubuntu installer simply because it's newer and uses less resources in memory. Good luck. Backup your data before doing this!

When you are ready for Gentoo Linux let me know (;

TheGeek

Ubuntu Forums has a great Dell Support section.

However, you are running an ATI card, so you WILL HAVE BIG PROBLEMS RIGHT AT THE START. It's not a big problem as it is easy to fix, there is a tutorial here that you must use to install. In order to do that you must have the Ubuntu Alternate install CD, not the normal one because there is a problem with 7.04 and ATI cards...not sure what the deal is but there are rumors floating that it is an issue with the new version of Xorg that they put into the final release that wasn't there during the beta versions.

Anyway, If you follow that tutorial (modifying the partitions for your needs) you shouldn't have any problems. It's the tutorial I used to get around the problem with my laptop and it worked fine for me.

Good luck, if you need any more help either search in ubuntu forums or you are more then welcome to ask me directly as any problem you will have I have problem already had an have figured out how to fix.

johanfh

It's wise to first test if ubuntu is working on your laptop anyhow, because there are driverproblems with Dell and Linux. Download a livecd and try it out first, without changing your computer. The livecd can be slow, but at least you know whether your hardware is supported or not. If it's not, that shouldn't be too much of a problem, because you can alter the settings etc., but this is a little complicated if this is your first Linuxexperience.

JohanFH

mehulved

If you have not so well supported hardware like graphics cards and wireless devices, try out sabayon linux. It has a lot of proprietory drivers out of the box, which ubuntu and most other distributions can't have due to legal problems.
Though package management won't be so easy with sabayon as with ubuntu, for new users.
Also, with ubuntu, check the live installer. So, first you get a live cd, you needn't install it on your system, just run it from your cd drive and give it a spin. Check if everything works. If it does, go ahead and install it. If it doesn't you can list here what problems you had. We can try to solve it. After they're solved you can go ahead and install ubuntu.

BTW, myrevolt ntldr can be used as boot loader when linux is present. How easy or difficult it is, I am not aware, as I haven't actually tried to use it.
It's always better to use grub or some third party boot manager.

lastelement0

as others have mentioned before, your ati card will be an issue when u try to boot up to linux for the first time as x-server may not work due to the graphics driver not being there. but the tutorial you were directed to works as i have had to do the same with my inspiron e1505 laptop. it is a little annoying but very much worth it to get ubuntu on my system (i chose the studio flavor).

if you have any other questions a great place to look is the ubuntu community as chances are someone has experienced your problem. also they have a section just for dells and ubuntu. probably for two reasons: 1) dell is shipping with ubuntu on it so theres the people who dunno what to do but wanna try and 2) dell's have some minor tweaks u may have to run to get things going properly.

all in all it is VERY worthwhile to have linux on your system. i would choose it over the MemoryHog any day. hope all goes well

emem

It will maybe work from the beginning, but maybe you'll have to download some drivers in order to enable the device.

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