If you decided to run Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex on your Dell Inspiron 1501 you came to the right place. This blog is a great starter guide for getting things to work.
Every piece of hardware on the Dell 1501 works in Ubuntu, wireless requires setup but it is much less work then a fresh install of Windows XP/Vista. It's not as hard as it looks and everything here is tested and confirmed to work.
Overview of Ubuntu 8.10 on the Dell Inspiron 1501
Using NDISwrapper for wireless
NDISwrapper uses a wireless devices' Windows driver in Linux.
Installing restricted media codecs
This guide will allowing you to play Flash, Java mp3, aac, DVDs ,mp4, avi, wmv and many more formats. It also installs the Microsoft true type fonts for better compatibility with Word documents.
Installing the Medibuntu repository
Medibuntu is a repository of packages that cannot be included into the Ubuntu distribution for legal reasons like copyright, license or patent restrictions. It also includes many popular .debs for ffmpeg encoding, w32codes, skype and google earth.
Installing Wine
Wine is a compatibility layer for running Windows applications on Linux.
Mandx that's the point, everyone should check out our new Blog about running Ubuntu on the Dell Inspiron Mini 9
Sunday, November 2, 2008
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29 comments:
So... I have to follow up your new blog... But, I can still make questions about the Inspiron 1501? :)
Anyway, great work!
hey redDEAD!
ive been using your blog to try to migrate to ubuntu 64 full time for more than a year... have been seeing ubuntu getting better and easier to use over this duration...
id like to point out that a previous post describing qsynaptics.... (i use gsynaptics though) needs a little modification for the new ubuntu ibex...
look at this post here...
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=6077309&postcount=121
this explains how to get it working in ibex...
keep up the great work! im planning on updating a blog as well, about my experiences with ubuntu x64, windows xp, and hack-osx-leopard... will send you a link when i have a decent amount of content...
Just wanted to drop a note that Under 8.10 everything works out of the box using the restricted drivers on bios 2.6.3.
Not a single problem I could find so far.
I've heard about some troubles about ATI x300 based cards. What about them?
Also I left on 8.04 cause of many "handmade" in system. 8.10 will erase them.
Igor,
I can only report about the x1150 card which is based on ATI Radeon Xpress 200M chipset.
Thanks again reddead for another awesome guide.
I will also like to chime in that Intrepid is great for the 1501. And both restricted drivers (Wl And B43 for wireless and ATI driver) work incredible. This is the best Ubuntu distro, EVER!
Also red, I'm also thinking of getting a netbook, can't beat that portability, and was wondering what made choose the Dell Mini over the others like Asus EEE PC or the Acer Aspire One, Lenovo's and Compaq/HP.
Thanks again for the guides and this site.
Ketch,
The biggest reason was the keyboard, the mini 9 keyboard is better than the eeepc and the aspire one. Second was the battery, the mini has a four cell battery, I'm getting over 4 hours of life with wifi and decent screen brightness.
Thanks RedDead... you guide is the best... Everything work great!
Just thought I'd let you guys know that there is a typo under the User Guide Navigation on the left side of the page. 8.10 is Intrepid not hardy! Otherwise thanks for the page and because of you I bought a mini myself.
Hallo people!
I try Xubuntu 8.10 x86 and i had some problems with video players (freezing image for 1-2 seconds),hdd blinking, everything works hard , now i try Xubuntu8.10 AMD 64-rocks my lap! all works fine!I think AMD64 is on right place!i have more speed, no problems when i play videos, no hdd blinking The Best Distro ever!
Peace&Love&Light
Thanks again red, didn't know about the 4 cell battery and it's "true" performance, definitly a plus, and the fact that you already have a Blog for it might push me towards that Dell Mini purchase in x-mass, I'm gonna be playing with one to get a feel for it sometime this week, that should help me decide, anyway many thanks.
Also I have been using my 1501 without a hitch in any area until this week:
I have a screen resolution of 1280x800 and the propietary driver, I was watching a video I downloaded of the net, and decided to watch it fullscreen and thats when the problems started, video was laggy and stuttering, Totem handled it horribly, VLC and Mplayer handled it better but still some lag was noticeable.
Also Compiz was off.
I read a few post with ATI proprietary driver behaving like that running at my resolution.
I will try tweaking a few of the settings in the Catalyst Control Center and also the lowering the resolution trick, and I'll let you know my findings.
Has anyone else experienced this?
Hi friends! Did anyone get the modem to work under intrepid? In fact, I only need it for faxing. But I need it very much for that. Unfortunately, the free linuxant driver doesn't support faxing anymore. Did anyone get the fax to work on the Dell?
By the way, got the same problem with AGP aperture size (not using the 4 GB).
And: Does anyone else have these terrible problems with the usb-connections? Most of them only accept 1.1 instead of 2.0 and every once in a while the system "looses" the devices...
Everything else works fine...
Hi guys Someone can write how I can use my webcam in Pidgin ?, in Skype work fine. the model is Logitech comunnicate, I have Ubuntu 8.10 in Dell 1501.
Thank you...
Gaucho...
Pidgin does not currently support video and audio conferencing, nor any form of audio/video communication. Parallel development was planned with the uncompleted gaim-vv library but the project has been declared dead by the developers.
I found this by using Google search.
I've been using intrepid for a while and I've been happy. The other day I got a new Nokia and tried to put som mp3's on it using the USB cable, but it didn't work. The thing is it used to work on the 8.04. Then I tried using the microSD card with an SD cart adapter, and nothing happend. The card is recognized sort of, but no mounting is taking place. It was dead easy using the phone as a modem with the USB cable, but if I want som music on it I'll have to use bluetooth I guess...
Hi, I used your guide to install Gutsy, and it helped a lot! Sadly i had to revert back to windows =(
I'm trying to install Intrepid, but whenever I try to run it off the disc or install it, it checked a list of locations and said they had I/O errors:
[ 193.162972] end_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 1431776
[ 193.163015] Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 178792
I dont know if this is where i should ask for help, but if you could point me in the right direction, that would be very helpful =)
@neil
I have the same problem. I still can't get it to work, but I had a copy of Xubuntu laying around, and it worked, so I installed it and installed ubuntu-desktop from the Synaptic Package Manager
I have no idea at all why it worked...
oh, and just waiting worked for awhile too... but it stopped working...
Thanks for your guide!!! Great job! I have an Dell Inspiron 1501 (now also Dell Vostro), and i have been following your blog since ubuntu 8.04.
Great guides for the Dell Inspiron 1501 very helpful. I'm trying to setup an external monitor to extend the desktop on my 1501 but this doesn't seem to be working do you have any guides,info or suggestions?
Thanks!
I hope I'm not too late! Ready to scrap Vista and install Ubuntu on my Inspiron 1501. Just found the "Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex Starter Guide" and got inspired. However, when I went to Ubuntu.com to start downloading, I was faced with the choice of the latest, 9.04, or 8.04 LTS Desktop. Is newer better in this case, or is 8.10 the best fit for the Inspiron 1501?
Thanks for any tips...
You're not too late, but Ubuntu 9.04 has some issues with the graphic ATI chipset. I don't know if these have been addressed with updates.
I'd go with Ubuntu 8.10 and avoid any unnecessary complications with your first Ubuntu install on your 1501.
No one did solve the graphics card driver isssue with Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty?? I've read a lot about downgrading xserver, but it's not alongterm solution. You're a lot out there with this model, and i'd really like to say that i have 3D acceleration with open-source Radeon drivers... Please someone check this out. I'm not a specialist, so i can't say much about the hack, but there are some possibilities to increase performance of th open source drivers in Jaunty, namely by compiling the lastest version, and loding the kernel module, and there must be set something in xorg.conf, but as i said, i'm just a user, and don't knowe which settings a re appropiate. Please someone come with a solution :D
No one did solve the graphics card driver isssue with Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty?? I've read a lot about downgrading xserver, but it's not alongterm solution. You're a lot out there with this model, and i'd really like to say that i have 3D acceleration with open-source Radeon drivers... Please someone check this out. I'm not a specialist, so i can't say much about the hack, but there are some possibilities to increase performance of th open source drivers in Jaunty, namely by compiling the lastest version, and loding the kernel module, and there must be set something in xorg.conf, but as i said, i'm just a user, and don't knowe which settings a re appropiate. Please someone come with a solution :D
Ubuntu only works with XP! I have had Ubuntu 8.10 working on my Dell Inspiron 1501 for a year but after an upgrade the sound went and I was not able to get it back. So I rashly did a fresh install and used the entire disc and rid myself of XP - big mistake! Now I cannot get any wireless or Ethernet connections, Using pppoeconf it sees eth0, pan0 and wlan0 but it cannot get a response so I get the Network disconnected message. I tried 8.04 LTS but it crashes the install and askes to go online to get the Broadcom WiFI driver, catch 22 a nice gotcha! Any comments out there, I know this PC is getting a bit dated now!
altoaguila,
Clue sir, you might want to Google one.
You don't need Microsoft XP to get wireless working.
Ubuntu is not for everyone.
I just got a used 1501 and I've tried 9.10, 9.04, and now 8.10 but I just find them all too slow. Does anyone know how to boost the speed of any Ubuntu version?
What I had to do to get the Dell Inspiron 1501 to work, see my previous comment for the problems!! Maybe a help to others...
No Broadcom STA driver with 8.04LTS and 8.10 and 9.10 so cannot connect to get it without an ethernet connection !! available with 9.04 so installed that.
Plagued with MP-BIOS bug: 8254 timer not connected to IO-APIC, and soft reset failure and hangups.
Success when I x'd all the F6 boot options - this produces a very slow boot and the default low res screen but it did enable me do all the updates (250 odd files!). With this version (9.04 JJ kernel 2.6.28-17-generic GNOME 2.26.1). Then deleted all of the F6 boot options in /boot/grub/menu.lst.
Now I still get bug messages about APIC and soft reset but this does not hang the boot process as it does on the distro CD. Now I have a fully working PC, that now boots more quickly than ever!
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