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#1 2008-08-01 07:37:00

sweiss
Member
Registered: 2004-02-16
Posts: 635

Arch on a Dell Inspiron 1525

Good morning.
This is not much of an issue as an attempt to avoid issues - I was wondering if anyone managed to install Arch properly on an Inspiron 1525, and may have some tips to give me in order for me to get it to work properly.

I've never installed Arch on a laptop before, so I'm trying to be careful.

Thanks in advance smile

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#2 2008-08-02 10:02:36

Allan
Pacman
From: Brisbane, AU
Registered: 2007-06-09
Posts: 11,365
Website

Re: Arch on a Dell Inspiron 1525

I have that as a second laptop and found no problems installing it.  Never got the sound and webcam working but I only spent a couple of minutes on each as they weren't important for me.

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#3 2008-08-02 13:16:54

Dheart
Member
From: Sofia, Bulgaria
Registered: 2006-10-26
Posts: 956

Re: Arch on a Dell Inspiron 1525

I have an Inspiron 1525n... and in fact everything works... here're the problems I encountered:
1) On my system the Wi Fi card is a Broadcom Corporation BCM4310 USB Controller and as such it has no native linux driver and I only managed to get it to work with ndiswrapper (details in this thread)
2) The home multimedia key and the FN key are not detected so if you want to get them working you need to install third party programs that make a model keyboard and so on.... I think details are described in the hotkeys wiki... As for the play/pause stop and volume keys - they have asigned keycodes so all you need to do is bind xf86 functions to them - here's a sample of my Xmodmap:

keycode 174 = XF86AudioLowerVolume
keycode 160 = XF86AudioMute
keycode 176 = XF86AudioRaiseVolume
keycode 162 = XF86AudioPlay
keycode 164 = XF86AudioStop
keycode 144 = XF86AudioPrev
keycode 153 = XF86AudioNext
keycode 222 = XF86PowerDown

(but you keycodes may be different so check them using xev)
3)I've goten my webcamera to work... partially... It is recognized after installing the package linux-uvc-svn and loading the uvcvideo module, and I've been able to take some good pictures using motion, however I'm yet to find a suitable application (note that the linux-uvc driver should be included in the 2.6.26 kernel)

The IEEE port is recognized, bluetooth and obex server work fine (the card reader also according to the information on the Web, but I haven't tested it yet)
I haven't tested the hdmi port, but that's for when I get a HD TV smile

EDIT: Ah, and BTW sound works beatifully with the OSS4 driver - everything was recognized by default (I didn't bother trying ALSA, since I use OSS4 on my other PC and it gets me better sound than ALSA)

EDIT2: The home key is detected, you just need to asign keycode for it...

Last edited by Dheart (2008-08-03 20:39:24)


My victim you are meant to be
No, you cannot hide nor flee
You know what I'm looking for
Pleasure your torture, I will endure...

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#4 2008-11-06 09:22:53

erythrocyte
Member
Registered: 2008-10-21
Posts: 25

Re: Arch on a Dell Inspiron 1525

hi ..i have an inspiron 1525 as well, but because of a pretty well known 'bug' that could potentially destroy hardware, i haven't yet installed linux on it. take a look here http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/15153/ (Canonical And Dell Should Issue Official Statement About Hard-Drive Killer Bug) .

another factor that has made me a little hesitant is the fragmented state of power management. the only comprehensive howtos around on the web are http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/How_to_re … onsumption and http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/power-management-guide.xml and to go to *that* extent just to make it all work is not my idea of productivity..but that's just me!

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#5 2008-11-06 09:34:06

wonder
Developer
From: Bucharest, Romania
Registered: 2006-07-05
Posts: 5,941
Website

Re: Arch on a Dell Inspiron 1525

"the pretty well known bug" isn't purely on linux. is on windows too smile. it was found by linux community and it has simple solution. just disable power management. see this for more details http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=39258


Give what you have. To someone, it may be better than you dare to think.

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#6 2008-11-06 10:10:29

erythrocyte
Member
Registered: 2008-10-21
Posts: 25

Re: Arch on a Dell Inspiron 1525

wonder wrote:

"the pretty well known bug" isn't purely on linux. is on windows too smile. it was found by linux community and it has simple solution. just disable power management. see this for more details http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=39258

yea i know it's been reported on other OS's too (including BSD!), but at least it's not an issue with the Windows Vista 32-bit OS that came on my laptop by default. On AC the cycle count is about ~2/hr. And on battery it always remains well under ~15/hr unless on heavy disk usage (the recommended value as per the launchpad bug description.. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/59695). what's the point switching off power management on a laptop.. i wonder!

btw workarounds to the problem suggested by Arch, Suse, Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, etc. are all so varied and different!

Last edited by erythrocyte (2008-11-06 10:13:27)

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#7 2008-11-06 16:41:57

thayer
Fellow
From: Vancouver, BC
Registered: 2007-05-20
Posts: 1,560
Website

Re: Arch on a Dell Inspiron 1525

Not sure what the 1525 specs are, but you might want to have a look at the Inspiron 6400/5150 wiki article.  I wrote it for my own notebook and with the help of others it has become pretty comprehensive.

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dell_Inspiron_6400


thayer williams ~ cinderwick.ca

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