Dell Inspiron 1521

[teledyn]

The laptop reviewers tell me the Dell Inspiron 1521 is a top-selling machine, and the 3-week backlog at Dell for delivering this unit would seem to support that; this thread will be my open public notebook on the installation as it progresses, and certainly I haven't solved all the problems yet -- if I had, it wouldn't be much fun! ;)

 

Before Beginning

You'll laugh, but I tried Windows. For the first time in nearly 10 years, I tried to use the Windows as it came straight out of the box, I set up the login and tried to play an AVI file off the dvd. It tanked, it crashed. That was the end of my Windows refresher.

Many friends and colleagues jumped up and down insisting I should install Ubuntu; 6.06 LTS couldn't get through the install process (although it did boot from CD) and the new 7.01 aborts unable to draw a fb screen. That was the end of my Ubuntu adventure :)

 

I inserted 2007.1, answered the initial questions, and only a few moments later the machine declared itself done and installed. I removed the CD, clicked for the reboot.

 

Troubles Begin

On booting, X.org fails saying there is no fb device; the error cycles through showing the log reports and then ends at the X configuration where the default is set to ATI Radeon Xpress (x1270), but none of the offered settings would work; the hardware specs in the manual give the max resolution as 1660x1050, which is not offered in the ATI option, so I took a gamble and set the video card to the Inspiron 1520's value of NVIDIA GeForce Go 8600M and the X.org test worked, even in the highest resolution mode.

 

Could Dell have shipped me a different card than the usual? I did ask for a medium option in the video choices, so maybe that is what makes the difference; bottom line, even if your install says you have the ATI, try the NVIDIA, and maybe vice versa too.

 

Presto! Mandriva!

Reboot, X.org comes up, the login screen comes up, so far so good. I have ethernet automagically coming up, an inserted CD or DVD shows up immediately.

 

Outstanding problems

• I click on a video AVI file, and I get the film, but I get no sound. The player behaves as if there is sound, the Volume control Ctrl-O (I use Gnome) shows we have an audio device on ALSA and on OSS, but there is no sound at all out the speakers. I went through the configuration wizards in the Computer Config app, and it all goes well, but still no sound. -- UPDATE: I do have sound, but only in the headphones! Same problem is reported on the Ubuntu forums.
   
  
• The Wifi configuration only offers using the ndiswrapper, and then asks for the original drivers. Oops -- perhaps I shouldn't have been so quick to unload windows; I'm currently reinstalling so I can snarf the needed bcmwl5.inf and bcmwl5.sys windows drivers, although there are rumours I could perhaps use the bcm43xx-fwcutter-006-1mdv2007.1.i586 -- UPDATE: I re-installed Windows Vista into a minimal partition (11G!) and cannot find any bcm* drivers at all!! The wireless is listed in the config pages, but it also doesn't work in the Windows side; the Windows reinstall also failed to detect the Synaptics pad. If I can get it going with the fwcutter files, maybe I won't need to lose that 11G of deadweight on my drive.
   
  
• Perhaps the biggest show-stopper, and hopefully someone has a quick fix, if I close the lid, nothing suspends, but when I reopen the lid, the keyboard is completely dead. Something appears to be amiss with the ACPI configuration or a misconfiguring of the laptop-mode settings?
  

That's the story so far; I'll keep you posted of my progress, and of course, any and all tips, hints and guesses are very welcome :)

Edited September 11, 2007 by teledyn

[teledyn]

Here are the extra Inspiron drivers which are added to the base windows by the second re-install CD:

 

Chip Set Drivers: Ricoh R5C833

 

Communications Drivers: Conexant D330 HDA MDC v.92 modem

 

Network Drivers:

Broadcom 440x 10/100 Integrated Controller

 

Dell Wireless WLAN (US and Japanese versions)

Dell Wireless 1390 WLAN minicard (windows says we have a Broadcom 802.11n Network)

Dell Wireless 355 Bluetooth Module (windows says a Dell Truemobile 355 with RFCOMM Protocol TDI and EDR)

 

Video Drivers: ATI Radeon Xpress 1250 (interesting, I wonder why I had to tell X it was NVIDIA?)

 

some relevent URLS:

https://mandrivausers.org/index.php?showtop...l=dell+inspiron

http://ubuntu1501.blogspot.com/

 

some possible tips on getting the WiFi to work: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/Driver/1390

also the http://support.dell.com has all the drivers you need (no need to reinstall Windows)

 

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/l...6.15/+bug/17695 suggests the APCI problems may be fixed in the newer apci packages; I'm going to upgrade to 2008 RC1 today and see if that does a better job.

Edited September 11, 2007 by teledyn

[teledyn]

the HDA detect problem appears to be an ALSA issue, and it is almost fixed in the current snapshot releases (Aug 2007) of the ALSA drivers; you get sound, but only through the headphone jack.

[ianw1974]

Edit your /etc/modprobe.conf and put this to get sound through the speakers:

 

options snd-hda-intel enable=1 index=0 model=basic

 

if part of this line exists already, modify it to look like above. My Toshiba laptop had this problem with an Intel HDA sound card, I put this and speakers started working on reboot.

[teledyn]

The wireless issue was 100% solved by carefully adapting the instructions on Ubuntu Forums; the gist of the advice is to grab the very latest ndiswrapper to replace the distro version, and to grab the very latest firmware EXE off the Dell website, then just put two and two together and hope its not "five" ;)

 

That now leaves the Suspend mode as the only outstanding showstopper!

[ianw1974]

Did my fix get your sound working through the speakers?

[teledyn]

Did my fix get your sound working through the speakers?

No need, installing from the new alsa packages worked just fine, headphones and speakers, using

options snd-hda-intel model=auto