24. February 2008 by Gene.

Ubuntu Linux on my Dell Inspiron 1501

Since I’ve retired from IT work, I don’t have much chance to keep my Unix skills fresh so when it came time for a new laptop, I decided I’d devote it primarily to Linux, with a dual-boot option to Windows. I didn’t want to spend a lot on one so I priced out various models for a few weeks and checked out reviews. Then I searched out newsgroup and forum experiences on their usability with Linux. One laptop I’d been looking at, an Acer, got a major thumbs down from Linux users who ran into serious problems with drivers.

Most of my computers in the past few years have been Dell, not because they’re necessarily better than anyone else’s but because they’re easy for me to buy and the extended warranty on them is worthwhile. They’ve come to my house a couple of times, one time swapping machines on a laptop that had developed a bad system board. That’s service!

One of Dell Canada’s least expensive laptops at the beginning of 2008 was the Inspiron 1501. It was spec’d at 2GB RAM, an AMD Sempron processor, and the usual CD/DVD burner. I upgraded to a 250GB HD on principle, and raised RAM to 3GB. That brought the price to around $700. A background check on Linux showed the 1501 to be a good Linux laptop, with a few caveats. More on this later.

On the 1501 I didn’t even purchase extended care. I figured I’d ship to depot if something comes up after the initial warranty period. The price was in my range and what sealed the deal was that the Inspiron 1501 was offered with a Windows XP option, rather than Vista. We had recently got Marion an upscale laptop that came with Vista and after both of us tried it for a few days, we ‘downgraded’ the machine to XP. Vista is rather like a bad dream turned into an OS.

Repartitioning and Re-installing XP

Of course when the laptop arrived, the entire disk was set up as a single C: drive for Windows XP. Even in a Windows-only setup, I don’t like this configuration. I prefer a smaller, 30GB, C: drive for the OS and programs, and a separate partition for user files. This makes things a lot easier if you need to later reinstall or upgrade the OS.

So after taking an inventory of the devices in the 1501 I rebooted the system from the Windows XP reinstall CD and repartitioned the disk into a 30GB drive for C: and left the rest unpartitioned. Then I reinstalled XP.

The base OS installed well enough, but the screen looked grotty, there was no sound, and the built-in wireless card didn’t work. That’s typical of a fresh install: the specialty device drivers need installing. I hooked up the laptop to an live Internet cable on my router and once on the Internet I visited the Dell site where they keep drivers for every machine they’ve ever sold. For the Inspiron 1501 I downloaded a bunch of drivers I needed, starting with video. Once that was installed, the screen looked excellent. Sound was next, then a bit of fumbling around trying to figure out which driver of the many available I needed for my wireless. Eventually I got it sorted out.

Installing Ubuntu 7.10

After I had Windows XP working — and it’s always best to install Windows first on a dual-boot Linux computer — I turned to Linux. I’ve grown to like Ubuntu Linux and downloaded the latest ISO file and burned a boot CD. I’ve installed Ubuntu onto a few machines now with no problem, but when I attempted to boot it on the 1501 the video disappeared and the system hung. I had to remove the battery before I could get control of the system back.

Next I tried “Safe Install” and that worked fine. I used the manual partitioner in Ubuntu to partition a swap drive, a 30GB EXT3 file system, and the rest of the disk as a shared FAT-32 file system. Everything seemed to go fine — the drives were formatted, the OS and programs installed fine and I was prompted to remove the CD to reboot. I rebooted, and lost the video again. Back to removing the battery to shut down the system.

I wasn’t too worried because before purchasing the Inspiron 1501 I’d discovered a fantastic Linux resource for it, in blog format, called Ubuntu on Dell Inspiron 1501: Ubuntu Guides, Tweaks, and Hacks. It turns out that the boot line in /boot/grub/menu.lst needs to have “splash” removed. I also removed the “quiet” attribute from the line because I like to watch the progress as my system boots.

With this fix, Ubuntu booted up quite well, but looked like crap. The open-source video drivers for the video didn’t do it justice. Perusing through the Ubuntu 1501 site indicated that it was possible to get a proprietary, non-open-source video driver. I’m no purist and I like a good video display, so I hooked my 1501 up to the router cable and got the driver and followed the instructions on getting it active. Bingo. Just like that I had a display that looked as good to my eyes as Windows XP provided.

I still didn’t have wireless working though, and these days a laptop without wireless doesn’t cut it. Even in my own home I like to use my laptop in an easy chair in our music room, one floor down from our wireless router. There were several entries on getting wireless to work on the 1501 but the one that sounded the cleanest was one involving ndiswrapper running the XP driver within Linux. I followed the instructions for getting it to work and on my next bootup it popped right into action, prompting me to join our home network. Once I entered the 128-bit encryption passphrase, it sailed out to the Internet. In contrast, I was unable to get Microsoft’s native wireless support to connect to my home network with either XP or Vista. I had to install Boingo to get proper connection. I don’t enjoy being a Microsoft basher, but why do they always have to be so clueless?

At this point Linux was ahead of Windows, because I could get all my desired software through apt-get. I use Firefox on both sides, synchronizing my bookmarks with Foxmarks. In contrast, it took hours to get all my necessary Windows programs installed, including all the little free or paid-for shareware programs I use.

To be honest, I haven’t explored Ubuntu very deeply yet. I don’t currently have any programming projects, and I’m not setting up any special services. Mainly I’m doing email, surfing the web, and writing. But since getting Linux installed I don’t think I’ve booted into Windows once in the last two months except to install software, just in case I need it.

Posted in Linux | 5 Comments »

1. January 2008 by starbuckguy.

To the tune of Howdy Doody, “It’s res-o-LU-tion time, it’s resolution time …”

1. Shoot more film, especially medium-format B&W. My first photoshoot of the year is first thing New Year’s Day and I have my Minolta Autocord TLR ready to go, if the weather’s not inclement. If it is, I’ll switch to my Nikon FM10 with ‘E’ lenses.

2. Write more. During PicoWriMo in November I averaged nearly 1000 words a day in my journal and I wrote one short story and started another. The pace fell off in December and I want to increase it.

3. Explore more Linux programs. I have a new entry-level Dell laptop on order specifically to turn into a Linux portable so I can further explore open-source software while sitting in a comfortable chair or couch.

4. Trim the waistline. During December I shed ten pounds. I grew up as a thin, skinny guy and for cardio reasons, if for no other, I need to return to being that guy. Marion and I are following a Weight Watcher’s regimen of calorie counting. It works.

5. Laugh more. 2007 was a hard, serious year. Too hard, too serious. Life’s a dance.

Posted in Linux, Writing, Photography | 2 Comments »

23. December 2007 by starbuckguy.

The more I think about it, the less I would need to have a beefed up computer these days as long as I used the resources on the Internet for most of my work. For me, the exception to this would be Photoshop CS3 which I use frequently, but even that could be dispensed with in a pinch.

Already I use Google Docs & Spreadsheets to store my text files and spreadsheets. I update them online, or squirt them up from one of my tiny electronic writing devices. I keep a cardio exercise log there that I update and use to fill out for the sheets I hand in at class for my cardio rehab program.

Blog entries, such as this one, are written directly into WordPress from the keyboard. The online editor is fine for this kind of writing and it offers interactive spell check to help me catch typos and misspelled words.

Most of my good photos go up on Flickr, which now offers an online photo editor for making corrections to colour, sharpness, contrast, sizing. A casual hobbyist could take shots with a digicam, look at them on the LCD, and select the best ones to load up to Flickr, fixing them up once they’re online.

With this in mind, those sub-compact notebook computers, or Internet devices if you prefer, such as the Asus eeePC, could be all the computer you’d need. It runs a variant of Linux that is invisible to the casual user. It offers wireless connectivity and a few basic programs, including a browser.

I’m even tempted to say you could almost do without owning a computer at all. Just book time on an Internet computer at the local library or rent some connection time at an Internet café. Talk about travelling light!

Of course, most of us would be unable to live without checking email several times a day or, if you use IRC or IM, being in constant contact with friends.

But a time is coming, and it could be soon, when the only computing device you might need is an iPhone-like cellular phone with embedded camera, MP3 and video player, browser, and an accessory Blue-Tooth folding keyboard to use for any serious typing.

Forget hard-disk failures and nasty Microsoft upgrades. Soon we’ll be nomadic, Internet-centric computerists doing our hunting and gathering via wireless hotspots.

Posted in Linux, Technology, Writing, Photography | 2 Comments »

25. November 2007 by starbuckguy.

When it comes to computing, I’ve become lazy. I call myself lazy because, like many of you, I do many things unrelated to computing, I have a family, and I am not interested in having to wrestle my OS or programs to the ground every time I want to do something with my computer. Of course if I were totally lazy, I’d simply use Windows or OS X and be done with it.

The reason I keep returning to Linux is that I sympathize with the goals and philosophy of open-source software. I’m also impressed by the talented programmers and writers the world over who have given so much of their time and talent to creating and documenting open-source projects.

Furthermore, I’ve always liked Unix. My first computer experience was with a dialup shared account on the University of Toronto’s Zoology Dept DEC PDP-11. Sitting at a 110 BAUD dumb terminal, I learned ed, nroff, and a handful of command-line utilities to manage files and directories. It was a heady experience I’ve never forgotten.

I’m an ex-IT professional, now retired. During my 20+ years working in IT I worked in all kinds of environments including CP/M, TRS-80, AppleDOS, early Mac OS, MS-DOS, Windows, OS/2, VAX VMS, AOS/VS, a tiny bit of MVS, and a number of Unix or Unix-like systems, including Solaris, SCO Unix, AT&T Unix, BSD, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, plus too many flavours of Linux to remember. My early favourites in Linux were Slackware, Red Hat, and Debian. I now use Ubuntu Linux.

I mention this mainly as background to remind myself that over the years I’ve done a lot of technical work and support, including programming, system administration, database design, user support, Internet infrastructure building, and even a bit of computerized typesetting. I don’t want to do these things any more. Instead I prefer to read fiction, take photographs with the cameras in my collection, enjoy my family, cook, go for walks, and do some writing. I don’t have time to hack at systems to make things work. I’ve become that dreaded thing: a User.

So this time around I freed up some space on my Windows XP workstation so I could install Ubuntu Linux and dual book my system. I tried Ubuntu once before and liked the ease of use it was acquiring. I hit it really lucky by installing right after the Gutsy Gibbon release (Ubuntu Linux 7.10). From what I’ve seen so far, this is a fine release for the lazy. Most things work correctly after installation without a lot of tweaking and reading. Exactly what I was looking for.

My Linux server in the basement, which I use mainly as an Internet server test bed for when I’m not feeling totally lazy, is a Debian system and I’m a fan of Debian-style packages. To me, Ubuntu is a slicked-up version of Debian for the masses.

Despite enjoying Linux, I’m not a zealot. In fact I’m pretty agnostic about operating systems and when I need Windows, I’ll be there. I use Windows extensively for digital photography and although I can accomplish some of what I do with photography in Linux, there’s nothing there that matches Photoshop CS2, Downloader Pro, or Irfanview.

Nonetheless, I’ll use The GIMP fairly regularly for casual work. It’s come a long way and I rather like it.

So, once again I step into the Linux world. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Linux, Technology | No Comments »