Dell N5010 Configuration, Speed Up, and Power Management
Tweaks for Ubuntu and Ubuntu based distributions.
I recently got a new laptop after a hiatus of almost two years. It is a Dell Inspiron N5010. I bought it used at a pawn shop but am pleasantly pleased with what it has in it. The specifications are as follows:
Core i5 Arrandale 2.53 Gigahertz M460 processor
Intel HD graphics (Kinfocenter reports Intel Ironlake rasterizer)
8 Gigabyte of ram (I added new ram shortly after I bought the system. It came with 4 Gigabyte)
Dell 1501 Wireless Network Adapter (Broadcom BCM4313 chip)
Dell Wireless 365 Bluetooth Module (Broadcom BCM2046B1 chip)
Realtek RTL8101E/8102E Wired Network Adapter
Seagate ST9640320AS 640 Gigabyte Hard Drive
PLDS DVD+/- RW DS8A5SH DVD Writer
At first I wasn't terribly happy having a Broadcom wireless network adapter. I'd had rather harrowing experiences with them (b43-fwcutter and ndiswrapper, though ndiswrapper was better than b43-fwcutter). After reading online what Dell and Broadcom agreed to I was not as concerned as I once was. I was pleasantly surprised to see when I booted the Live DVD (I used a thumb drive) and was greeted to connecting up at a local open wifi network. Thus I installed Kubuntu 14.10. I wasn't finished once I got the system up, removing applications I didn't want, and installing those applications that I wanted. I had to tweak the system so I went hunting for information via the search engines. I found two of my old favorites and they are still somewhat applicable today. They are:
http://archive.news.softpedia.com/ne...gy-47261.shtml
This one though written for Ubuntu Edgy I found that most of the tweaks still work for Utopic Unicorn. My only comment to add here is DO NOT use these tweaks on a solid state drive. There is no telling what kind of damage you can do to them. NO MATTER WHAT YOUR DECISION IS STEP LIGHTLY WHEN DOING THIS AND OTHER TWEAKS!
http://ubuntuforums.org/printthread.php?t=89491&pp=10
This later one is well written and easy to follow as the previous. However, you must BE ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN OF WHAT YOU ARE DOING WITH THIS PARTICULAR HOW TO. If you are not careful here you may end up reloading any one of the Ubuntu distributions after locking yourself out of the system. One other warning here: DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES RENAME THE FILE /etc/rc0.d/K12halt. This will stop your system from shutting down completely.
Now the most interesting chase I've had in a long time of running Linux and Kubuntu. Power management has always been a field of many choices and Ubuntu has tried their best to have the best settings for both laptops and desktops with Ondemand. There are a few applications like TLP that govern the P-state of Intel Core processors (Arrandale and newer). My only warning to those that wish to use the P-state software like TLP is this: BEWARE! TLP AND OTHER P-STATE SOFTWARE MAY CAUSE MORE POWER USAGE AS WELL AS WEAR AND TEAR ON YOUR LAPTOP! In this particular instance, my laptop did NOT like TLP. It ran hotter while on A/C. It did however run longer on battery but at a cost to other hardware. Not good.
The good thing for those that use Ondemand strictly is you can manage your power even better using the following link (yes, I know it's a Manjaro wiki but it aptly applies to this situation):
https://wiki.manjaro.org/index.php/P...er_Consumption
Just remember where they talk about pacman (Manjaro's package tools) substitute sudo apt-get install powertop to install powertop. The rest of the wiki is easy step by step instructions. Just follow them to the letter if you are going to use Ondemand and powertop to curb your power consumption and keep your hardware cool (especially a laptop).
My only issue after all this is the Fn + Function key combinations. I've scanned as much as I can and still not seen a fix for this issue on this particular laptop. It's currently quite easy to turn the wireless off when typing. For now, I simply use Dell|Dell Latitude series laptop in System settings/Input devices/Keyboard. Still better than nothing. Perhaps one day Dell will fix this keyboard mapping issue in the future.
Hope these links situated in one logical place will help. For now I'm running Kubuntu 14.10 smoothly and without any large issues. I wonder what Kubuntu 15.04 will be like when they shift to KDE 5 Frameworks.
I recently got a new laptop after a hiatus of almost two years. It is a Dell Inspiron N5010. I bought it used at a pawn shop but am pleasantly pleased with what it has in it. The specifications are as follows:
Core i5 Arrandale 2.53 Gigahertz M460 processor
Intel HD graphics (Kinfocenter reports Intel Ironlake rasterizer)
8 Gigabyte of ram (I added new ram shortly after I bought the system. It came with 4 Gigabyte)
Dell 1501 Wireless Network Adapter (Broadcom BCM4313 chip)
Dell Wireless 365 Bluetooth Module (Broadcom BCM2046B1 chip)
Realtek RTL8101E/8102E Wired Network Adapter
Seagate ST9640320AS 640 Gigabyte Hard Drive
PLDS DVD+/- RW DS8A5SH DVD Writer
At first I wasn't terribly happy having a Broadcom wireless network adapter. I'd had rather harrowing experiences with them (b43-fwcutter and ndiswrapper, though ndiswrapper was better than b43-fwcutter). After reading online what Dell and Broadcom agreed to I was not as concerned as I once was. I was pleasantly surprised to see when I booted the Live DVD (I used a thumb drive) and was greeted to connecting up at a local open wifi network. Thus I installed Kubuntu 14.10. I wasn't finished once I got the system up, removing applications I didn't want, and installing those applications that I wanted. I had to tweak the system so I went hunting for information via the search engines. I found two of my old favorites and they are still somewhat applicable today. They are:
http://archive.news.softpedia.com/ne...gy-47261.shtml
This one though written for Ubuntu Edgy I found that most of the tweaks still work for Utopic Unicorn. My only comment to add here is DO NOT use these tweaks on a solid state drive. There is no telling what kind of damage you can do to them. NO MATTER WHAT YOUR DECISION IS STEP LIGHTLY WHEN DOING THIS AND OTHER TWEAKS!
http://ubuntuforums.org/printthread.php?t=89491&pp=10
This later one is well written and easy to follow as the previous. However, you must BE ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN OF WHAT YOU ARE DOING WITH THIS PARTICULAR HOW TO. If you are not careful here you may end up reloading any one of the Ubuntu distributions after locking yourself out of the system. One other warning here: DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES RENAME THE FILE /etc/rc0.d/K12halt. This will stop your system from shutting down completely.
Now the most interesting chase I've had in a long time of running Linux and Kubuntu. Power management has always been a field of many choices and Ubuntu has tried their best to have the best settings for both laptops and desktops with Ondemand. There are a few applications like TLP that govern the P-state of Intel Core processors (Arrandale and newer). My only warning to those that wish to use the P-state software like TLP is this: BEWARE! TLP AND OTHER P-STATE SOFTWARE MAY CAUSE MORE POWER USAGE AS WELL AS WEAR AND TEAR ON YOUR LAPTOP! In this particular instance, my laptop did NOT like TLP. It ran hotter while on A/C. It did however run longer on battery but at a cost to other hardware. Not good.
The good thing for those that use Ondemand strictly is you can manage your power even better using the following link (yes, I know it's a Manjaro wiki but it aptly applies to this situation):
https://wiki.manjaro.org/index.php/P...er_Consumption
Just remember where they talk about pacman (Manjaro's package tools) substitute sudo apt-get install powertop to install powertop. The rest of the wiki is easy step by step instructions. Just follow them to the letter if you are going to use Ondemand and powertop to curb your power consumption and keep your hardware cool (especially a laptop).
My only issue after all this is the Fn + Function key combinations. I've scanned as much as I can and still not seen a fix for this issue on this particular laptop. It's currently quite easy to turn the wireless off when typing. For now, I simply use Dell|Dell Latitude series laptop in System settings/Input devices/Keyboard. Still better than nothing. Perhaps one day Dell will fix this keyboard mapping issue in the future.
Hope these links situated in one logical place will help. For now I'm running Kubuntu 14.10 smoothly and without any large issues. I wonder what Kubuntu 15.04 will be like when they shift to KDE 5 Frameworks.
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