On Friday 03 November 2006 01:31, "Daniel Bush" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi Folks, > Anyone here who can offer advice on dual booting a modern dell laptop > (inspiron 9400) whilst preserving at least some of the dell > functionality? > > I've done some research on this [1], and it looks like I have > 1) a dell-based MBR > 2) a dell utility partition at the front of the disk > 3) winXP in the 2nd parition > 4) a dell system recovery (symantec-based image) partition (DSR) at > the end of the disk > 5) a hidden partition that won't be detected by the bios (a process > called 'hpa') which is right at the end of the disk which allows you > to use dell media direct (play dvd's without loading a full os). > A diagram of this setup is on the mediadirect link below ([1]). > > I'm interested to know if people are putting grub in the MBR or trying > to preserve the dell MBR, because if you use grub, you are probably > going to lose the functionality for both the utility and rescue > partitions. > I can see a method for how to use the windows bootloader - instead of > grub in the mbr - to boot linux (in linuxdevcenter article [1]), but > is this going to work on top of the dell mbr? Is it chainloading or > something? > > The utility partition looks replaceable; also the dell resouce cd may > do a similar job to this utility so it seems superfluous. > > The dsr partition looks irreplaceable. > However I have a dell winxp disc and a dell resource cd which suggests > that, if I really wanted to, I could re-install windows and the > drivers without using the rescue partition or any of the dell stuff > that was originally on my disk. It would be less convenient, but good > enough. And there are alternatives. > > Then there's the hidden mediadirect hpa partition which might be a gig > or two. Has anyone done anything with this on their modified systems? > > Whilst I'm trawling for advice: I can't seem to get a consensus on the > size of the swap partition. I have 2gb of ram. How much of an issue > is swap? > > Some thoughts from anyone who has been or currently is in the trenches ? > Thanks, > Daniel. > > ------------ > [1] > http://www.goodells.net/dellrestore/ > http://www.goodells.net/dellutility/index.htm > http://www.goodells.net/dellrestore/mediadirect.htm > http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/lpt/a/6554
I received my Inspiron 9400 last week. So far it has been a brilliant machine. 32-bit Ubuntu Edgy 'just works' on it, even to the extent of configuring the volume keys at the front of the machine. I haven't tried the bluetooth, memory card reader, TV out and dial-up modem, but aside from that the machine is excellent. I have been contributing my findings to the Ubuntu Laptop Testing Team[1]. There are a few bugs. The PC Speaker is hideously loud, and AFAICT the only way to fix this is to mute it[2] or unload the pcspkr kernel module. Sleep and hibernation work, but upon resume one of the cores is perpetually stuck at full speed (CPU scaling stops working on it). 64-bit Ubuntu Edgy works great, except that the keyboard and touchpad become flaky and eventually stop responding after a few minutes. I was not aware of the MediaDirect partition, assuming that it was just a Windows application like on older Dells. I just installed Ubuntu, and in the process overwriting the Dell bootloader with GRUB. I did find instructions to make them both play together nicely [3], but to be honest I just couldn't be bothered. The HPA partition at the end of the disc is designed not to be visible by operating systems. I would like to find a way for it to be permanently visible so that I may make use of its space. I kept the 50MB diagnostics partition at the beginning of the drive, which can be invoked through the F12 boot menu at start up. The recovery partition looked redundant, so I just backed it up before deleting it. Both of those partitions contain FAT filesystems, but Windows can't read them, probably because they are marked with a different partition type. [1] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LaptopTestingTeam/DellInspiron9400 [2] http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=1137455&postcount=3 [3] http://www.notebookforums.com/thread164182.html -- Sridhar Dhanapalan {GnuPG/OpenPGP: http://www.dhanapalan.com/yama.asc 0x049D38B4 : A7A9 8A02 78CB AB1B FCE4 EEC6 2DD9 249B 049D 38B4} "... if you're a basic PC user thinking about buying XP, don't. It's basically malware. It harangues you with nagging, fake-friendly reminders to obtain a Passport and submit to product activation, and treats you like a child when you try to do anything heretical, like install a device driver of which it disapproves." - Thomas C. Greene, "Win-XP vs Red Hat 7.2", The Register (http://www.theregister.co.uk), 2001-10-30
pgpZmSEuyF1DD.pgp
Description: PGP signature
-- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
