Install on Dell Inspiron 1100 Laptop?

[lwrver]

I have installed Kubuntu 8.04 on an older Dell Inspiron 1100 laptop. All seems to be well except for the built in wireless. System data says it is a Broadcom "Polaris" mini-pci card, but I don't know the specific chipset. It does not even show up in Kubuntu, and the compatibilty charts don't say much about broadcom. Any idea what driver will most likely support this device?

[arochester]

Re: Install on Dell Inspiron 1100 Laptop?

In a Terminal, input the command:

lspci

That will list pci devices

What appears as Network Device?

[Guest]

Re: Install on Dell Inspiron 1100 Laptop?

I agree with lwrver











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[The Liquidator]

Re: Install on Dell Inspiron 1100 Laptop?


Googling for the card you refer to suggests it might be problematic, but can be made to work. There's an interesting thread about the dell 1100 here - the final post suggests it doesn't have built in wireless so I am a tad confused.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=819541

You have 3 options here (assuming the person who indicates that for wireless the machine needs a PCMCIA card is wrong) which are:

1. Use ndiswrapper in conjunction with the windows drivers
2. Install the "backports" kernel package as I am aware that that does contain support for a number of wireless chipsets that aren't in the default installation (the rt2500 being a good example)
3. Get hold of a live jaunty CD and see if that provides support for the card.

[lwrver]

Re: Install on Dell Inspiron 1100 Laptop?

I've downloaded a new xorg.conf file to maybe help with an x-window problem on this laptop, but i can't seem to find the correct procedure to replace the the original xorg.conf file. I've copied the original xorg.conf file to xorg.conf.old, and copied the new file to a USB drive and renamed it xorg.conf.new. Now I just need to be able to copy the file from the USB drive to the /etc/x11 directory so I can "sudo cp x11.conf.new x11.conf". I can't seem to find the right privileges or commands to do any of this. Can anyone please simplify this process for me?

Thanks!

Update: Never mind, I figured that one out, but it was a mistake, cause it really messed up my screen resolution. I was able to rebuild the xorg driver though and recover. There is apparently a problem with this particular laptop, in that the screen goes dark after a time and requires a xorg repair to reboot. Don't know what the solution is yet.

[The Liquidator]

Re: Install on Dell Inspiron 1100 Laptop?

Did you sort the wireless issue out?

So far as graphics are concerned, your best bet is to reboot and at the grub menu select the recovery option. You will arrive at a series of options, one of which is to fix xorg (can't remember what it's called at the mo 'cos I've moved on to Jaunty). In Hardy you will be given the opportunity to configure the xorg.conf file

[lwrver]

Re: Install on Dell Inspiron 1100 Laptop?

Did you sort the wireless issue out?

So far as graphics are concerned, your best bet is to reboot and at the grub menu select the recovery option. You will arrive at a series of options, one of which is to fix xorg (can't remember what it's called at the mo 'cos I've moved on to Jaunty). In Hardy you will be given the opportunity to configure the xorg.conf file

Oh yes! Concerning the wifi issue, I found out the mini card I thought was a Broadcom wireless card was a Broadcom based modem instead. I've added a USB external wireless adapter to resolve this issue. The xorg video problem continues to concern me though. I updated the BIOS to A32 as directed, and increased the video memory from 1mb to 8 mb. It seems to boot OK now, but still loses the video if left alone until it goes into hibernate mode. I can never bring it out of hibernate, so reboot is always required. I believe the battery management utility in "hardy" has a problem. I have all the battery management features turned off, but it still goes to sleep when left alone. There is nothing in the BIOS that can be set to disable that either. Any ideas on this?

[The Liquidator]

Re: Install on Dell Inspiron 1100 Laptop?

I've got a dell 630m (pretty much intel everything) and, yes, hibernation was a problem with that too in Hardy. Hibernation never seemed to work properly, so far as waking the thing up was concerned. If proper hibernation is important to you I would upgrade to Jaunty because it now works very well indeed. Everything, including wireless, comes back from hibernate for me. To get wireless to come back though you need to be connecting with wicd rather than the default network manager.

HTH

[lwrver]

Re: Install on Dell Inspiron 1100 Laptop?

Thanks for the info Liquidator. I'll try the KDE3-remix of "Jaunty" and see if it works any better. I was wanting to use "hardy" because I can't deal with KDE4 right now. KDE4 has too much "eye candy" and not enough functionality. I'll report back with the results of the upgrade.

[lwrver]

Re: Install on Dell Inspiron 1100 Laptop?

I have Jaunty-KDE3 Remix up and running stable on the Inspiron 1100 now. It only has a 5gB HDD, but there is 1.8gB in reserve. It does run better with 1gb of memory though. Had to use a D-Link WG111 USB wifi adapter, but it is supported out of the box by Jaunty. Just thought some folks might be interested.