Dell's Linux Compat

bithead bithead at adelphia.net
Mon Apr 14 23:07:01 EDT 2003


Here is another site I referenced when selecting a laptop for use with
Linux.

http://www.linux-laptop.net/
http://www.linux-on-laptops.com/dell.html

Pay special attention to issues like Power Management and your Sound / Modem
functionality.
Displays, Pointing, and NICs are pretty well supported.

I don't use the Modem, and my laptop only does ACPI, while I really was
hoping for APM.

Enough of my rambling... I just wanted to share that link.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Cyber Source" <peter at thecybersource.com>
To: <nflug at nflug.org>
Sent: Friday, February 14, 2003 10:57 AM
Subject: Re: Dell's Linux Compat


> Tons of ways around finding hardware info on a machine. I have gotten
> pretty good at finding just about any driver for any hardware. One quick
> trick is to boot the device with the linux cd and go to rescue mode. You
> should then be able to find some info on the hardware it has detected.
> Video is usually called out first thing as a system boots at the top of
> the screen. Then you can go to any number of sites for drivers, i like
> http://www.driverguide.com
> I realize you got it going now but just in case this may be useful for
> others in the future.
> On Thu, 2003-02-13 at 16:25, green_man wrote:
> > Justin Bennett wrote:
> >
> > >I had a PII Latitude 450mhz. I had linux on it ran great. Can you get
> > >specifics on the video, sound, ect? Then you can check Hardware
> > >compatability list from redhat or whatever dist you want. As long as
the
> > >hardware isn't too new it should be supported by the latest release of
> > >whatever distribution.
> > >
> > >Justin
> > >
> > Thanks for the input, all.
> >
> > The Inspiron is the top of the line - all the bells and whistles - I'd
> > love one !
> > The Latitude is a lower grade - bells, but no whistles.
> > A colleague at work just bought a used Latitude  with no OS for her
> > home-run business, and had me do a scratch install of windows from
MS-DOS.
> > The screen window was about the size of a 3x5 card. Once I got it in, I
> > couldn't change the res, or make sound work because the necessary
> > drivers were not found.
> > Apparently, once you register as the owner with Dell, you can go to the
> > support site and enter the machine serial number, and it will tell you
> > the the interface cards, chipsets and necessary drivers. Once she did
> > that, she was able to run upgrades all the way up to XP Office  Pro, and
> > get the res up to 1280x  from 640x, color from 16 colors to 16 million,
> > and sound working. But, you have to register to find out what hardware
> > you have.
> >
> > What passed for BIOS didn't allow much more than specifying where to
> > boot from, definitely not a BIOS as I recognize one.
> > I have discovered that as regards linux, older is better, because more
> > people have the device in question, so there is more demand for some one
> > to write the code to make it work in a linux environment.
> --
> Cyber Source <peter at thecybersource.com>
>
>




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