New toy coming, got some questions

OneEyedPimp · 2008-07-24 04:47:34

Hello all,

Today I had ordered for me a Shiny new Dell Studio 15. I have been a long time user of Linux, and absolutely love Arch Linux and the ability I have to run exactly what I want. Anyway, I haven't even gotten the laptop and have already been reading up on dual booting Vista and Linux. I have a couple questions for my favorite Linux users;

1. Does anything here look unsupported?

My Components
Jet Black
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T5750 (2.00GHz/667Mhz FSB/2MB cache)
Glossy, widescreen 15.4 inch display (1280x800)
256MB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3450
3GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2
Size: 250GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)
8X Slot Load CD / DVD Burner (Dual Layer DVD+/-R Drive)
Dell 1510 Wireless-N Card
Integrated 2.0M Pixel Webcam
56 Whr Lithium Ion Battery (6 cell)
High Definition Audio 2.0
Integrated Finger Print Reader
Back-lit Keyboard

The only things that I am really worried about are the Wireless Card and the Video card...

2. How hard would it be to dual boot Vista and Arch? I have dual booted before but I really don't want to mess up the new vista install...

3. Everything that I have read about dual booting have dealt with Ubuntu, I really like arch Linux but everything I have read make Ubuntu seem like it can handle vista pretty well out of the box....

Any and all opinions are welcome!

Thank you,

Levi Lentz

Statix · 2008-07-24 05:18:13

1. The video card should work fine. No clue about the wireless though.

2. Dual booting (at least with XP) is relatively easy. Just partition your drive with something like Parted Magic (gparted), which allows you to make new partition(s) without affecting your Windows one. Then just install Arch normally on the new partition(s) and uncomment the Windows lines in your grub menu.lst (it comes with them commented by default.)

3. If Ubuntu can dual boot it, Arch can.

If you need more info on the dual booting feel free to ask me.

Last edited by Statix (2008-07-24 05:19:11)

INCSlayer · 2008-07-24 05:53:29

things that (probably) wont work OTB are:
the fingerprint reader
the webcam
the backlighting for the keyboard
Dell 1510 Wireless-N Card (if what i found on google is right it uses a broadcom chipset so you will most likely have to use ndiswrapper)

the graphics card while it might be tricky is probably not the hardest part of the laptop to get working.

OneEyedPimp · 2008-07-24 06:04:46

Statix wrote:

1. The video card should work fine. No clue about the wireless though.
2. Dual booting (at least with XP) is relatively easy. Just partition your drive with something like Parted Magic (gparted), which allows you to make new partition(s) without affecting your Windows one. Then just install Arch normally on the new partition(s) and uncomment the Windows lines in your grub menu.lst (it comes with them commented by default.)
3. If Ubuntu can dual boot it, Arch can.
If you need more info on the dual booting feel free to ask me.

I have actually dual and triple booted before with XP/Redhat/Slackware. However I have always used XP and never Vista. I found this guide to do it and it doesnt look hard at all.

INCSlayer wrote:

things that (probably) wont work OTB are:
the fingerprint reader
the webcam
the backlighting for the keyboard
Dell 1510 Wireless-N Card (if what i found on google is right it uses a broadcom chipset so you will most likely have to use ndiswrapper)
the graphics card while it might be tricky is probably not the hardest part of the laptop to get working.

Yeah I havent done too much searching for the chipset inside that wireless card. Do you think all those aforementioned things could work with a bit of tweaking, I know my way around linux pretty well. What I was thinking, if I cant find more information on it, I may install arch onto an external HD and do a test run for the Laptop first before dual booting. Do you guys think that would be advantageous? I might end up doing that in any eventuality as school is starting soon. Haha

Oh yeah: and do I need to download a different version of the Arch Linux installer for the 64 bit Core 2 Duo?

Last edited by OneEyedPimp (2008-07-24 06:06:27)

Statix · 2008-07-24 06:15:36

Oh yeah: and do I need to download a different version of the Arch Linux installer for the 64 bit Core 2 Duo?

Your processor can run normal 32 bit or 64 bit, so it's up to you which one you want. If you want 64 bit, then yes you'll need to download the 64 bit iso.

OneEyedPimp · 2008-07-24 06:18:32

Statix wrote:

Your processor can run normal 32 bit or 64 bit, so it's up to you which one you want. If you want 64 bit, then yes you'll need to download the 64 bit iso.

Rock on, it will still be a bit until I have the laptop in my hands. I will definitely have to download the 64 bit iso.

INCSlayer · 2008-07-24 07:07:11

getting the things working depends alot on what chips are in them but most likely you can get most or all of them working with some tweaking

OneEyedPimp · 2008-07-24 07:22:32

Yeah, I will probably do some testing on it before I do a full install. Hopefully theyre all nice supported chips. Haha.

skottish · 2008-07-24 14:53:31

INCSlayer wrote:

Dell 1510 Wireless-N Card (if what i found on google is right it uses a broadcom chipset so you will most likely have to use ndiswrapper)

Broadcom cards are fairly well supported now without ndiswrapper.

sidc · 2008-07-24 15:56:49

INCSlayer wrote:

things that (probably) wont work OTB are:
the fingerprint reader
the webcam
the backlighting for the keyboard
Dell 1510 Wireless-N Card (if what i found on google is right it uses a broadcom chipset so you will most likely have to use ndiswrapper)
the graphics card while it might be tricky is probably not the hardest part of the laptop to get working.

The fingerprint reader will work fine with thinkfinger and the webcam will work too. Regarding the backlighting, you might have to do some tweaking to get that to work and there's a good probability you might succeed. You're lucky that you got a broadcom chipset for the wireless as the intel 3945 chipset which is provided by Dell for most models has serious driver issues. And as far as the graphics card is concerned, it shouldn't be a problem.

OneEyedPimp · 2008-07-24 17:30:42

sidc wrote:

The fingerprint reader will work fine with thinkfinger and the webcam will work too. Regarding the backlighting, you might have to do some tweaking to get that to work and there's a good probability you might succeed. You're lucky that you got a broadcom chipset for the wireless as the intel 3945 chipset which is provided by Dell for most models has serious driver issues. And as far as the graphics card is concerned, it shouldn't be a problem.

Awesome that is great news. I didnt really do any research into this laptop before I ordered it. And it is by sheer chance that I didnt get that Intel chipset, I just picked the Wireless-N card when Customizing it...haha.

Are the fingerprint readers a gimmick?

Bapman · 2008-07-24 20:56:20

Statix wrote:

2. Dual booting (at least with XP) is relatively easy. Just partition your drive with something like Parted Magic (gparted), which allows you to make new partition(s) without affecting your Windows one. Then just install Arch normally on the new partition(s) and uncomment the Windows lines in your grub menu.lst (it comes with them commented by default.)

it SHOULD be. Unfortunately, due to Dell partitioning, it's often not the case ! So don't start tuning your Vista (even if you will be tempted to spend hours just to have it not sucking all your RAM and stop it from sending security alerts) !

Actually the way Dell partitioned the hdd on the Dell XPS M1330 is sometimes not compatible with cfdisk ! And it's maybe the same for your laptop (or maybe it's due to MediaDirect, a small XP based OS installed on XPS, I don't know if it is on your laptop model).

The only way I was able to get a dual boot was to erase the hdd, create partitions with cfdisk, install Vista FIRST on the FIRST partition (may be important for recovering) and then install Arch on other partitions.

We discussed here about this problem on XPS M1330.

Again you may not have the same issue but try first to install Arch (before you put important stuff on your hdd) to see if cfdisk is not complaining. If it is you will have to start from scratch.

OneEyedPimp · 2008-07-25 00:17:58

Bapman wrote:

it SHOULD be. Unfortunately, due to Dell partitioning, it's often not the case ! So don't start tuning your Vista (even if you will be tempted to spend hours just to have it not sucking all your RAM and stop it from sending security alerts) !
Actually the way Dell partitioned the hdd on the Dell XPS M1330 is sometimes not compatible with cfdisk ! And it's maybe the same for your laptop (or maybe it's due to MediaDirect, a small XP based OS installed on XPS, I don't know if it is on your laptop model).
The only way I was able to get a dual boot was to erase the hdd, create partitions with cfdisk, install Vista FIRST on the FIRST partition (may be important for recovering) and then install Arch on other partitions.
We discussed here about this problem on XPS M1330.
Again you may not have the same issue but try first to install Arch (before you put important stuff on your hdd) to see if cfdisk is not complaining. If it is you will have to start from scratch.

Yeah I am going to approach Dual booting very cautiously. I know that is one reason I never did it on the main hd on this laptop because Dell put two recovery partitions on either side of the NTFS partition. I know MediaDirect is not on my laptop that is coming, Just crappy Vista. haha.

thisllub · 2008-07-25 02:58:40

Download gparted or similar and backup all your partitions to an external drive first.

OneEyedPimp · 2008-07-25 03:02:08

Yeah I was going to use g4l to do it, but I am not sure if I have enough extra hds to back up the 250 gig SATA drive from the new lappy...

alcafar · 2008-07-25 14:26:45

Statix wrote:

2. Dual booting (at least with XP) is relatively easy. Just partition your drive with something like Parted Magic (gparted)which allows you to make new partition(s) without affecting your Windows one.

Noooo! Don't use gparted or partition magic, I went into a lot of troubles (with a sony vaio fz21e).
Vista has its own (quite limited) partition tool, that usually doesn't allow you to gain all the space you want, especially when some particular sectors of the disk are used by some particular files (maybe the ones roughly equivalent to linux's swap... I can't be more precise, I don't understand and care so much of windows).
So I'd suggest, as the very first operation when you run Vista for the first time, to find the partition tool and resize the windows partition.
If you are happy with the space you can subtract from windows, you are done, otherwise look for a fancier solution, but don't use gparted with too much confidence.

thisllub · 2008-07-26 01:29:42

You MUST run defrag in any version of Windows before resizing a partition.

I shrunk the Vista partition on my daughter's laptop and installed Ubuntu for her with a week of her getting the computer.
After a year of Linux she couldn't stand having to use Vista and begged me to "fix" her computer.
Vista is still there but it hasn't been used for months.

Last edited by thisllub (2008-07-26 01:29:56)

sidc · 2008-07-26 04:35:20

Actually, what I would suggest first would be to delete everything thats on your hard-drive first, since the OEM Vista sucks very badly(You will prolly get a BSOD in like a week, I got it in 2 hrs ). You can do this with the arch-linux cd which has cf-disk. After you clean up your hard-drive( I deleted the recovery partitions too, since I dont use Vista too much), then you can install anything, Vista or Arch-linux first, since the Vista CD given by Dell has an option on whether or not to install a boot-loader. Just select no and use the GRUB provided with arch-linux.

OneEyedPimp wrote:

Are the fingerprint readers a gimmick?

What do you mean? Oo

Last edited by sidc (2008-07-26 04:38:03)

OneEyedPimp · 2008-07-26 05:32:36

sidc wrote:

Actually, what I would suggest first would be to delete everything thats on your hard-drive first, since the OEM Vista sucks very badly(You will prolly get a BSOD in like a week, I got it in 2 hrs ). You can do this with the arch-linux cd which has cf-disk. After you clean up your hard-drive( I deleted the recovery partitions too, since I dont use Vista too much), then you can install anything, Vista or Arch-linux first, since the Vista CD given by Dell has an option on whether or not to install a boot-loader. Just select no and use the GRUB provided with arch-linux.
OneEyedPimp wrote:
Are the fingerprint readers a gimmick?
What do you mean? Oo

Well the thing I HATE doing is windows installs, maily because of the driver issues. Do you think the Vista CD that Will come with all the needed drivers for everything, and have the same functionality as when it comes preinstalled?

Do you think it would be a better to install arch on an external hd, which I have, and play around to make sure that all the hardware on it works?

Oh and I have never had a fingerprint reader, and I was hoping for some opinions on them, are they useful or useless?

Thank you guys again for all of your opinions!

Last edited by OneEyedPimp (2008-07-26 05:35:31)

sidc · 2008-07-26 06:12:29

OneEyedPimp wrote:

Well the thing I HATE doing is windows installs, maily because of the driver issues. Do you think the Vista CD that Will come with all the needed drivers for everything, and have the same functionality as when it comes preinstalled?
Do you think it would be a better to install arch on an external hd, which I have, and play around to make sure that all the hardware on it works?
Oh and I have never had a fingerprint reader, and I was hoping for some opinions on them, are they useful or useless?
Thank you guys again for all of your opinions!

Well, you will get a seperate driver cd along with your system, so you can reinstall all the drivers later or you can just dl them from the website. As far as functionality is concerned, it should be the same , though I really dont know, cuz after I reinstalled it, I've used it only twice(been 2 months ) . Well, it doesnt matter if you install arch on a seperate hard-drive or not, cuz you will install it on a seperate partition anyway and it wont affect your windows partition. AFAIK, all of the hardware ( the useful ones atleast ) should work. Regarding the fingerprint reader, I used it for a month for login and for su and sudo verification, but I found a hassle to move my finger to the reader all the time instead of just typing in the password (Just my opinion). Also, there is a slight lag when verification is done through the reader compared to the password based authentication.

OneEyedPimp · 2008-07-26 21:44:24

Cool. So I gots another question for you guys...if i run the 64 bit version, will I have to worry about software incompatability? Like is there 64-bit versions of xfce, avant, compiz...etc etc? Sorry if this is a stupid question, but i have never had a 64 bit computer...

sidc · 2008-07-27 04:40:25

I use a 64-bit system and yes, you will have problems with some applications, but if you spend enough time on it, you can resolve it. 64-bit is the future, so why run away from it?

OneEyedPimp · 2008-07-27 07:19:46

Any applications that you know of that have problems? Is it hard to work around? I am already getting ready for 128 bit. haha.

sidc · 2008-07-27 08:05:53

Well, flash is somewhat of a problem, but it can be easily resolved with the wiki. Apart from that, javascript and wine(got it to work though) may be a problem. Also, compiling a few programs can cause some problems, but nothing which cant be resolved with a little common sense

skottish · 2008-07-27 15:16:16

OneEyedPimp wrote:

Cool. So I gots another question for you guys...if i run the 64 bit version, will I have to worry about software incompatability? Like is there 64-bit versions of xfce, avant, compiz...etc etc? Sorry if this is a stupid question, but i have never had a 64 bit computer...

I have everything I need running on 64 bit with only Arch packages, including 32 bit Flash, Skype, and Lightscribe. I've had Wine up and running before too. It's really not a big deal to do, it just takes a few extra steps.

Arch Linux

#1 2008-07-24 04:47:34

New toy coming, got some questions

#2 2008-07-24 05:18:13

Re: New toy coming, got some questions

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Re: New toy coming, got some questions

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