Another Reader Question

Recently a reader, PurplE, asked if he could copy or modify some of my articles for his blog or the Ubuntu wiki. I encourage all of you to use my work to help others. If you think you can do something better or translate my articles into another language please do. Just give me credit and link back to my site. Share the love, don't steal my content and call it your own.

redDEAD

Remember you can find my contact info here if you have questions or comments

I am looking for help. I want to write a SAMBA guide that doesn't suck. Simple printer sharing, and read only access to shared folders. If you want to help send me an email. redDEADresolve [gmail.com]

edited by pHreaksYcle

Dual Booting Your Dell 1501

Lauren wrote:
this is great, I've been reading the posts and I haven't seen any about dual booting yet, I was just wondering if it's easy to get my laptop (dell 1501) to dual boot and if so how. I've read about the whole partitioning with gparted and all. is that all I need to do? just make the swaps and install feisty fawn or am I missing something? thanks alot


The reason you haven't read anything about dual booting is because I don't on my Dell Inspiron 1501. But it really is that simple. The only thing you have to do is place the disc in the drive and Ubuntu does the rest. Best way to do it is to do a complete reinstall of Windows Vista or XP. The 1501 ships with some weird partitions so reformatting your drive as one large partition at first is best. Plus it gets rid of all that trail software your PC comes with. Then Ubuntu will create another partition for itself. Install Windows first then Ubuntu.



Only one thing to worry about is if you dual boot with Vista, the operating selection screen will list it as Windows XP. It really is Vista. You can change it but I wouldn't bother. Maybe another reader can help out with instructions.

edited by pHreaksYcle

Fix Logout Problem

I've known about this problem for a while now but was hoping it was just my machine. The 1501 crashes upon logout in Feisty, the screen goes black and stays that way until you manually power it off. Thanks to PurplE we now have a fix. Where he found the fix

1. Go to System-->Administration-->Login Window
2. Check Restart the Xserver with each login
3. Apply the changes and restart your machine



Thanks PurplE!

edited by pHreaksYcle

Configure Synaptic Touchpad Settngs

This only works for Ubuntu 8.04 or earlier.

Typing on the Dell 1501 with big hands is a pain. The touchpad always gets in my way, I'll be typing and then lightly brush the surface of the touchpad and the mouse moves. For months I put up with it, knowing how to fix it. Today I finally took the 2 minutes to fix the problem. You add delay to the touchpad after a keystroke.



Download QSynaptics. This handy applications allows you to completely customize the synaptic touchpad on the 1501. In terminal type:
sudo apt-get install qsynaptics

Now you need to edit you xorg.conf file to allow QSynaptics to customize your touchpad settings. In terminal type:
sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf

This Brings up your xorg.conf file, you going to look for:
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Synaptics Touchpad"

Then your going to add this line to it:
Option "SHMConfig" "on"
Save File and Close

It should look very similar to this:
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Synaptics Touchpad"
Driver "synaptics"
Option "SendCoreEvents" "true"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "Protocol" "auto-dev"
Option "HorizScrollDelta" "0"
Option "SHMConfig" "on"
EndSection

Restart Your PC or Just Restart X

Now You can use QSynaptics. In a terminal type:
qsynaptics

Edit you mouse configuration any way you want!

If you want to be fancy and up a icon in your System>Preferences
1. Right click Systems
2. Select edit menus
3. Scroll down to Preferences and select it
4. Now look to the right of the window and select + New Item
5. You can put whatever you like here. Only command has to be the same.
Type: Application
Name: QSynaptics
Command: qsynaptics
Comment: Edit you Synaptic Settings
6. Select an Icon and hit OK



You can find the option for enabling delaying after a key press on the third tab.

Colin found the answer to a question I should have answered a log time ago.
He writes: I've found that if you go to System > Preferences > Sessions, add a new command, call it whatever but run "qsynaptics -r", it loads the settings at login!

edited by pHreaksYcle

Getting Ubuntu 7.04 Fesity Fawn

Well I forgot to mention how to get Feisty. There are three main ways to get a copy:

1. Order them free, you fill out a mailing form and Canonical will send them to you in about 6-8 weeks. No hassles, junk mail, no mailing lists, no email, nothing to buy later. You just get the disks for free. Order a couple extra and give them away to friends. Order them here

2. Download directly from a mirror. This not the best way, it puts strain on the servers. Use it only if you can't wait or can't bittorrent. Depending on your connection it takes a couple of hours. Download Ubuntu here

3. Torrent it. If you don't know what or how to use bittorent, select option 1 or 2. If you want try to learn more about Bittorent and how to go here. The torrents to download Ubuntu can be found at the bottom of this page. Bittorrent is the fastest and best way to get Ubuntu. You help others download it as you download.

Once you downloaded Ubuntu you need to burn it onto a disc. So either use you favorite burning program or you can use WindowsXP's built in iso burning. You just insert a blank CD/DVD into your drive, right click the .iso file you downloaded and select Send To, send it to your CD/DVD writer (for most people it will be named CD-RW Drive or DVD-RW Drive) and the disc will begin to burn.

These CD/DVD are live discs. This mean that you can put them into your machine and try using Ubuntu before you install it. Still not sure what a LiveCD is? Look here.

edited by pHreaksYcle

Can't Get Feisty to Install?

Readers with 2.1 or 2.4 BIOS have been reporting that they are unable to get Ubuntu Feisty Fawn 7.04 to install on their 1501s. The simple solution is to downgrade your BIOS back to 1.7. When you start up your PC there is a giant Dell splash screen. Right under it you can find your bios version. Get older BIOS from Dell's support website HERE

I will caution that if you are not comfortable with possibly ruining your laptop and turning it into a useless brick do not attempt to flash your BIOS.

REMEMBER YOU HAVE TO HAVE YOUR LAPTOP PLUGGED IN WHEN FLASHING.

edited by pHreaksYcle

Your Dell 1501 is Ready

UPDATED!
The Dell Inspiron 1501 is ready for Ubuntu Feisty Fawn 7.04. Today the last remaining bugs were squashed. I highly recommend you count the days till Feisty is released or hop on the beta and start enjoying the ride.

Installation
It's a simple matter of placing the Feisty disk into your DVD drive and installing. Takes all of 30 minutes and doesn't need pci=nomsi to install.

Wi-Fi
The broadcom card shipped with the Dell 1501 still doesn't work out of box with Feisty. But ndiswrapper works and runs the card very fast. Installation is extremely easy, the guide can be found here. Feisty's avahi network manager is amazing, best I have ever used on any operating system. It's a must have for any mobile users.

Ethernet
Works out of the box, just plug the cable in.

Modem
Reported that it works with a little tweaking. Everyone who wants to run Feisty but is stuck in 1996 can breath easily.

Card Reader
There was a bug in the 2.60 Linux kernel that caused the Ricoh card Readers the Dell 1501 shipped with to not work although they worked in Edgy. This has been fixed, card reader works great and now it asks if you'd like to empty the trash upon dismounting. Very convenient and works out of box.

ATI Driver
ATI's 8.34.8 driver is working really well for me. Installation is a snap too. The restricted Driver Manager does all the work for you. You can install the driver with four mouse button clicks.

Media Codecs
Feisty makes codecs easy, no more Automatix or struggling with adding a repo. MP3, DVD, avi, mpeg, wmv, asf, mov, flv, flash codecs are installed with four mouse clicks. The only thing not enabled is reading encrypted DVDs. Some programs can do it for you but if you'd like to do it in Totem use this guide. Word is you can buy it from Linspire's CNR which is being introduced in Feisty. Remember kids, Linux is free as in Freedom not money. If you have to pay to play DVD, bite the bullet. You saved hundreds on the OS.

Beryl
It works and works pretty damn well. The trick is that you have to force bery-core to use 0.2.0~0beryl1 because later versions don't work with Xgl. It's not that hard of a hack. My guide can be found here.

Key Bindings
Work out of box, volume control, brightness, mute any function+commands. I have my keyboard set to Generic 101-key PC. After installing Xgl & Beryl I kept my key binding to Gnome's Settings.

Hibernation
Works out of box, never used hibernation before but I just tried it and think I like it.

edited by pHreaksYcle