Fedora Core 3 on a Dell Inspiron 600m

 

Introduction

This document provides a very brief overview of my experiences and notes from installing Fedora Core 3 on a Dell Inspiron 600m. It is targeted at the reader who has an above average understanding of PCs and laptops in general, and also has Linux administration experience. In other words, if you do not comprehend these notes, this document might not be for you!

 

Most of the information you’ll need can be found on other pages that contain information on installing previous Fedora Core relases (1 and 2) on the 600m. You can find them at Linux-Laptops. This page contains only additional information not available on those pages.

 

Before-you-start Notes:

Essentially, if you have reasonable previous experienced Linux , you can expect to install Fedora Core 3 on this laptop smoothly, without major problems. Install on the laptop out of the box, and do not connect peripherals (including USB mice/ other devices) until you finish installation.

 

If you want to keep Windows XP on this laptop and dual-boot, you need to setup partitions appropriately. Mine came partitioned with 3.5gig of free unpartitioned space (don’t ask me why). You can either use this to install Linux  and use one of the two Linux NTFS readers/writers to read/write the Windows XP NTFS partition, or you can use something like parted (qt_parted on SysrecueCD works well, or look here for more options) to shrink the NTFS partition to obtain more space for Linux.

 

Hardware support Notes:

 

CPU

                 Intel Pentium M (Centrino)                Supported 

                 Variable processor speed supported

Modular

                 CD-RW/DVD                                          Supported

                 Fedora Core 3 recognizes the drive and uses ide-scsi to allow the device to show up as /dev/hdc.

                 Put in a CD or DVD, and the volume is automounted in /media/cd-recorder or similar path. Gnome or KDE

                 should also automatically display an icon for the drive when media is inserted.

 

Ethernet Networking                            

                 Ethernet 10/100/1000 Mb, RJ45        Supported

                 Supported out of the box.

 

Wireless Networking          

                 Dell  Wireless 1350                               Supported

                 Works great with ndiswrapper. Ndiswrapper installation worked flawlessly.

                 Look at their installation page for more details.

 

                 I’ll post the script that I use to start up wireless on my laptop. This should also show you how to install and setup

                 the Dell Wireless 1350 on your laptop.

 

                 Note that you can find the two driver files required by ndiswrapper (SYS and INF files) under C:\(I’ll fill this up

                 shortly) on your laptop  when it arrives. If you plan to overwrite your Windows partition with Linux, make a copy

                 of this directory before you do the format.

                

Power Management

                 Not tested. Look at other 600m pages for notes on using apm/acpi with this laptop

 

LCD Display

                 14.1” SXGA+ 1400x1050                    Supported

                 Supported out of the box. Make sure you choose your display as Generic LCD panel 1400x1050 either

                 during the install, or later from XF86config.

 

Other                       

                 Touchpad mouse, 2 buttons                Supported

                 Works out of the box.

 

 

Installation Notes:

USB mouse: Connecting an external USB mouse before booting with the Fedora boot CD crashes the installation process. More notes as I investigate this further.

 

 

Contact

Created: Dec 22 2004

Last updated: Dec 22 2004.

If you’d like, email me (the creator and maintainer of this page) if this page helped or did not help.