On Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 09:52:48PM +0100, Preben Randhol wrote: Hi > > I have read about the problems of installing Debian on Inspiron 2500 and > solved that. Now before installing I wonder about some things I > haven't found answers to on the net: > > 1. I see that the hard disk has a 32Mb partition called Dell Utility > Can I safely delete this? What is it?
I don't seem to have one of these on my i2500, so I'd say it's
probably safe to delete.
>
> 2. How do I make sure that suspend-to-disk will work after installing
> Linux and then Windows (unfortunately I need to use this too) on the
> machine. I will repartinate the disc in Linux.
>
> 3. Any other things one should make sure to do before starting the
> installation?
>
Dell has broken the BIOS of the i2500, so APM doesn't work. This
means no suspend of any kind in Linux, or even battery status. Power
management works fine in Windows without worrying about it, since Windows
suspends-to-disk in a file in its own filesystem. (I'm assuming
Windows PM works because they have a working ACPI implementation.)
Under Linux ACPI isn't very useful either -- it can't suspend or
hibernate, and can't even read the battery status of the i2500
either. If you have the built in mini-pci ethernet, you'll have to
build a kernel with the intel ACPI patch
(http://developer.intel.com/technology/iapc/acpi/downloads.htm) or
build the non-free e100 driver, since the eepro100 driver and stock
ACPI don't get along, at least for me. If you'd like a re-diff'ed
version of the patch for a recent kernel, let me know.
There is a framebuffer available for the console:
http://i810fb.sf.net -- but it still has a few issues when used
alongside with X. I use it. The VESAfb won't work.
For sound, you'll want to use the ALSA 810 sound driver, since the
OSS sound driver isn't very good.
The i2500 has an i810-type hardware watchdog timer, which isn't
terribly useful on a laptop, but hey, it's there.
There is nothing useful on the SMBus, so don't bother with
lm_sensors. The Dell laptop driver in the kernel can't do anything
useful with this model either.
I had to use the -idepci disks to install, because the i2500 hung
when the md driver was loaded from the vanilla install disks.
Don't forget to look at the linux for laptops pages for this model
either -- there's some stuff there I'm not going to repeat here. I
hope to have a i2500 page up there soon myself -- it'll be at
http://www.rivenstone.net/linux/i2500/ when it's ready.
--
Joseph Fannin
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"Bull in pure form is rare; there is usually some contamination by data."
-- William Graves Perry Jr.
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