Tag: dell

Gentoo Linux on my DELL Inspiron 9400 – 1st part

Ok, I bought a new laptop. I choose a big one, a 17-inch widescreen DELL Inspiron 9400.

Some information:

Hardware

Main Features:

  • CPU: Intel CORE 2 DUO T7200 @ 2.0 GHz
  • Physical Memory: 2GByte
  • Hard Disk: 160GByte 5400 rpm
  • Video Card: nVidia GeForce Go 7900 with 256 MByte od dedicated VRAM
  • Monitor: 17” Wide-screen LDC with TrueLife 1920×1400
  • Optical Device: DVD+-RW Dual Layer drive

Connectivity

  • 6 USB 2.0 ports
  • 1 FireWire IEEE1394 port
  • 1 SD/MMC/MS/Pro/xD card reader port
  • 1 10/100 Ethernet RJ-45 port
  • 1 Analog Modem RJ-9 port
  • 1 Analog VGA Out port
  • 1 DVI Video Out port
  • 1 S-Video Out port
  • 1 Mic-In jack
  • 1 Line-Out audio port
  • 1 Wireless Adapter Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG
  • 1 SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad

Software

The notepad ships with Windows Vista. And a MediaDirect feature that (I suppose) is based on Windows XP.
When I switched on the computer, Vista started after few seconds asking me to accept a license, which I did not. I asked DELL to refund it, but I got just negative and quite evasive answers. I will probably post the details about it one day or another.

So, I did not accept the license and so I just decided to install Gentoo Linux. It was not easy task, as I have just a Wireless UMTS connection through my Motorola V3X mobile phone, which is not supported by Gentoo Boot CD. So I configured iptables on my old Acer 1314lc (which runs Gentoo as well) and the new DELL connected to internet through it.

At first I tried to use the new Gentoo graphical installation method, but I must admit I did not like it really. I used it to backup the original recovery partitions of my DELL (actually for no reason, as I will never need such backups) and then I repartitioned the whole disk.

As for now, I still have 2 NTFS partitions containg the original things put in by DELL because, even if I did not accept the Microsoft EULA, I still own it and I did not get an exaustive answer on how to get it refunded. So, before deleting it I need to get more feedback by DELL. But I am not really optimistic.

This is the original partition table:

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 10 80293+ de Dell Utility
/dev/sda2 11 1316 10485760 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3 * 1316 19197 143625216 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda4 19197 19458 2097152 f W95 Ext’d (LBA)
/dev/sda5 19197 19458 2096128 dd Unknown

I dumped sda1, sda2 and sda5. The last one is funny: the filesystem type was “Unknown” for the fdisk version of Gentoo LiveCD, but in fact it was a FAT32 volume.

The new partition table is:

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 19197 19458 2096128 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sda2 11 1316 10485760 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3 * 1316 5779 35852288+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda4 5780 19457 109868535 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 5780 5792 104391 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 5793 5857 522081 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda7 5858 9044 25599546 83 Linux
/dev/sda8 9045 12231 25599546 83 Linux
/dev/sda9 12232 15418 25599546 b W95 FAT32
/dev/sda10 15419 19457 32443236 83 Linux

Partition table entries are not in disk order

After doing the partitioning and resizing, I knew there would have been problems with MediaDirect (which I suppose got deleted in one of the lost partitions 🙂 but, who cares? I will try to install some Linux based media center using the MediaDirect fast start button) but I had no idea that Vista NTFS was sensitive to resizing: in fact, i tried to boot Vista (up to the license agreement, at least) but the boot process hanged somewhere before the license display, with the funny Vista loading bar going around forever. But it came to my mind that I saw an entry, on ziobudda.net about such a problem. I found it back and read it. the solution, after finishing installing Gentoo Linux, was to run on the broken partition ntfsfix from the sys-fs/ntfsprogs package, at least version 1.13.1 worked for me.

After resizing, I quit the graphical installation (I really can’t cope with it) and switched back to the good, old console installation. following the official Gentoo documentation on installing it, I went through it.

My kernel is, at this time, 2.6.20-gentoo-r6 (my .config).

Everything works fine.

Tomorrow i will write more about the X.org configuration and other things…