Mint Linux 8 (Helena) 32bit on Dell Inspiron 1520 Laptop
Date February 2010
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Hardware Components
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Status under Linux
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Notes
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| Intel Core 2 Duo T7250 2GHz | Works | No special procedure required during installation. |
| 15" Display | Works | Excellent rendition. No special procedure required during installation |
| Touchpad | Works | No special procedure required during installation. All normal options available |
| Keyboard (UK) | Works | No special procedure required during installation. Detected automatically at install. |
| On-board Video and Sound, Streaming, Codecs etc. | BBC iPlayer works, Plays DVD "Finding Nemo", all sound and vision. | No special procedure required (Try that on Ubuntu Standard!) |
| 2GB factory installed memory(system maximum) | Works | No special procedure required during installation |
| 160 GB Fujitsu MHY2160BH Hard Drive (replacement) | Works | Reported "Many bad sectors" even though WIN7 said it was fine. Switched off warning(!) |
| Intel Wireless-n 4965AGN Card | Not tested but detects nearby routers. | No special procedure required during installation |
| Integrated 10/100 Network Card | Not tested. | No special procedure required during installation |
| Onboard Sound Card | Works | No special procedure required during installation |
| NTFS File system (Windows 7) | Reads and writes NTFS files. OOO reads and writes .docx and .xlsx etc. | No special procedure required during installation, however drive needs mounting to access, or new line in fstab. |
| Dell 5510 wireless dongle (aka Novatel Merlin XU870) | Works out of box!! | Detected automatically (I installed Mint with this card plugged-in) |
| Huawei (Orange) E160E wireless dongle | Works out of box!! | Detected automatically when plugged-in |
| USB memory stick 2GB | Works | No special procedure required during installation |
| Logitech Marble Mouse | Works | Via Belkin 4-port powered USB hub. No special procedure required during installation |
| Keysonic wired keyboard ACK-595C+ | Works | Via Belkin 4-port powered USB hub. No special procedure required during installation |
| Epson D120 printer | Works | Didn't even have to set it up or install anything. It was simply available for print when required. |
| Canon 9950F multi-scanner | Does NOT work | Still not supported by SANE project. |
| Apple IPOD (30GB) | Connects with standard Rhythmbox app. | Needs IPOD set up first for manual file management (See below) |
| MS OFFICE 2007 | Works inder Wine 1.2 (XP Mode) | Needs "Wine 1.2" installing from Package Manager, also needs "riched20" added from the dropdown list in winecfg "Libraries" tab |
| Concise Oxford Dictionary for Windows | Will not install fully in Wine. Try as many installs as possible til you get 100% then... | Got it to work by copying launcher from user's .local/share/applications/wine/programs/COED11/ to user's desktop. |
| NETMETER 1.1.3 Windows Version | Works inder Wine 1.2 (XP Mode) | Install as normal in wine from installation .exe |
Kernel 2.6.31-14 (Generic) Gnome 2.28.1
Conclusion
WOW! As near perfect as I could have hoped for. So much has changed in the last two years to improve out-of-the-box compatibility. Installed in dual boot with Windows 7, it required Startup Manager to be installed from the software package manager to easily alter the Grub boot default if Windows is your main bag.Installation of Linux Mint 8 (32 bit)
Source: Single CD from The Linux Manwhom I thoroughly recommend. £3.99 and 48 hour delivery, superb.
First thing was to back up all my documents, music, pictures etc to a USB drive.
Having some prior knowledge, I used GParted partitioning tool (free download) to manually reformat all the space that was not the Windows C drive as follows:
First I shrank the Windows OS C: drive to 30GB (even Windows should cope with that!)
Next removed all other partitons (Having first kept copies of all my data!!)
One new partition was formatted Ext3 to contain all my data backed-up from my original D drive and this would be allocated to /home in the install.
I only had 1 partition left (Max of 4) so I made it an Extended partition.
I added logical partitions of 1GB for "/swap" (formatted as Linux Swap) and another logical partition of 20GB (formatted as Ext3) for the linux software to be allocated to "/" in the install.
The beauty of using /home for all your data is that all the linux and other tools, such as my Bluefish HTML editor and Rhythmbox that I use to feed my ipod, seem to have all the data where they expects it rather than constantly having to tell it to look in the D drive.
However if you are not really into partitioning there are alternatives described below.
Soon after switching on with the CD in the drive, I hit F12 several times to select boot device (DVD ROM) and booted on CD.
I'm pleased to say Mint 8 loaded first time on default settings. Once finally loaded fully through to the Gnome desktop, the install option icon appears. I double clicked this and the install started.
In the partition stage I opted to allocate /home, /swap and / to partitions I had already created as above.
Install took about 20 minutes and after a restart I was in. Last thing is to go to the USB drive and copy my pictures back into my new "home" Pictures folder, same for documents and music.
I installed Startup Manager from the Synaptic package manager so that I could change the boot priority to Windows 7, though subsequently have reverted to boot Mint first!
Alternative partitioning methods
You can choose to install in the "unallocated space" which may require you to remove unwanted partitions, and shrink partitions, again using either Windows partitioner or GParted.It does allow you however to keep your data on C: or D: drives and you can mount them as per "NTFS Files" below.
If you use that method you will not see any option to Import Windows Docs and Settings, but it will set up empty mount points for My Music, My Documents etc in your home folder, which you can leave empty if all your documents and media are on the Windows NTFS partition.
Another alternative to partitioning for Linux in advance, which is the simplest if you have limited knowledge, is to simply load the CD, double-click the install icon, then when asked select to install alongside Windows. Linux will choose its own size and shrink Windows automatically.
Finally the "Nuclear Option" is by selecting "Use entire disk". This will will wipe the entire Windows and all your data off the disk FOR EVER. A great option if you really have had it with Windows. Remember to save all your data to a USB drive first!!
Bug!
You may get a message that your hard disk has billions of errors and is about to die. Ignore it and disable the warning in Menu/ Control Centre / Disk Utility.Mobile Broadband
I have Orange Internet Anywhere and have two "Dongles". One is the standard Huawei E160E that came with the contract, plus I have an Unlocked Dell 5510 (Novatel Merlin XU870).BOTH adapters worked, they were automatically detected with no special action required. The drivers for both devices are already in this kernel.
To connect, the action was the same:
1. Insert the SIM card in the device (With PIN number de-activated first)
2. Plug the device into the laptop. The Dell device is a 34mm PCI Express card.
3. Right-click on the network icon in the System Tray
4. Select Edit Connections.
5. Click on the Mobile Broadband tab.
6. Click on Add.
7. Select the device from the drop-down and click Forward - it will appear there if the device has been recognised.
8. Select country (Britain UK in my case)
9. In the Select your provider, I selected "I can't find my provider...." and typed in "Orange USB" and hit forward.
10. I typed "consumerbroadband" for domestic UK Orange service (yours may be different and if not Orange WILL be different. Google for it)
11. Confirmed next 2 pages. The dial number was correct so I made no changes.
To connect Left click on the Network icon and select the connection you just added.
Wifi
I have no wireless router, but it detects the neighbouring routers and detects WEP and WPA+WPA2 encryption on them which is a good sign.Printer
My Epson D120 was detected automatically and did not even need setting up. I just went to print a document and there it was! Better than Windows, and none of that CUPS nonsense.IPOD
You should best clear out the Ipod and set it up for manual file management, using Itunes in Windows. Then forget about "Sync'ing" the ipod and think about drag-and-drop instead.Connect the ipod to the USB and open Rhythmbox when prompted. After a few seconds the ipod will appear as a device entry in the left panel. Highlight (or Ctrl+A) the files in Rhythmbox that you want on the Ipod, then simply drag them with the mouse to the ipod entry in the left panel. Simples.
NTFS Windows files
My first install was a dual boot with my very expensive Windows 7, and all of my media and data files were on my Windows D: drive. (Subsequent install I reformatted it to ext3 and installed with the partition mapped to /home)To find where this is go to Menu - Control Centre - Disk Utility
Clicking on the correctly sized partition on the drive's tree showed my D Drive "device" name as being /dev/sda3/ Yours may be another number.
Next step is a bit more tricky for the beginner, and take care with the typing and remember Linux is case sensitive!.
In the Menu click on Terminal to give the terminal session.
First create a file folder to mount the NTFS to
Type in sudo mkdir /media/Win7Disk and hit enter.
and when asked type in your login password. You now have the folder created
Type in sudo gedit /etc/fstab and hit enter.
This takes you into editing the fstab (file system table) file.
To the end of the file add the following line:
/dev/sda3 /media/Win7Disk ntfs-3g user,auto,noexec,rw 0 0
or whatever device name you found for your drive if not sda3.
Then click on Save and exit. Next time you start up Mint the drive will be shown as an icon on the screen
Wine vs Wine 1.2
You will need to load Wine from the package manager if you want to run (some) Windows apps like Office or your favourite SIM card gadget. Wine 1.2 is needed for Office 2007 but is not so stable as the original Wine. Either will need you to Google a good method of purging out all traces of Wine when you mess it up!Purging Wine (!)
I stole the following from an excellent web article I can't find again...Uninstalling Wine...
Please note that in the following TERMINAL commands there should be no spaces in the path, particularly between $HOME/ and .whatever. As you own the .wine directory sudo is not required.
rm -rf $HOME/.wine
Also the uninstaller does not remove menu and desktop entries. To remove all Wine-created menu entries run the following commands
rm -f $HOME/.config/menus/applications-merged/wine*
rm -rf $HOME/.local/share/applications/wine
rm -f $HOME/.local/share/desktop-directories/wine*
rm -f $HOME/.local/share/icons/????_*.xpm
Tip - to see .wine directory in your home user directory, select View then Show Hidden Files.