Computer Systems

Vegeta

Linux kernel information provided is for (*cough*) slightly older versions.

Specs:

Pentium Mobile 1.4 GHz

15.4" WXGA

ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 Pro, 128 MB

1.25 GB RAM

100 GB HD

        Name        Flags      Part Type  FS Type                Size (MB)
        -----------------------------------------------------------------
        hda1        Boot        Primary   W95 FAT32               20481.3
        hda2                    Primary   W95 FAT32               58000.3
        hda3                    Primary   Linux ext2                102.0
        hda4                    Primary   Extended                16180.2
        hda5                    Logical   Linux swap               1004.0
        hda6                    Logical   Linux ext3              15806.1

4x DVD+RW

Integrated NIC

Intel PRO/Wireless 2100 WLAN

Note: no floppy

One quick Windows XP note:
Running some apps - Unreal Tournament, Starcraft - which change the resolution of the screen caused an error message to pop up:

For the search engines - the message says "You have selected a non-optimal Screen Area setting for your LCD panel. Unlike external computer monitors, LCD panels have one particular Screen Area setting that looks best. It is recommended you set your Screen Area to 1280x800."

Of course, the message appears and then disappears so fast that I never had time to click the "Don't display this message again" checkbox. I did, however, find the cause of, and solution to, the problem. This is a message generated by the ATI graphics driver. Go to Control Panel | Display | Settings | Advanced | Options. I checked the box by "Disable quick resolution feature" and the message hasn't appeared since.

Working with Linux:
I have information on both the Debian and Gentoo distros. Knoppix also works well.

Compiling Linux kernel (v2.6.12):

Audio
Select the option "Intel ICH (i8xx), SiS 7012, NVidia nForce Audio or AMD 768/811x", which compiles i810_audio.c. Worked as expected upon first compilation.

Ethernet
Compiling in the b44 module prevented the need for any external driver.

Mice
I have three mice: touchpad, stick, and USB-connected Logitech optical, and all 3 to coincide on the console with gpm! gpm.conf

CD burning
CD recording works out of box with cdrecord. Need to append "hdc=ide-cd" to kernel boot parameters, and "cdrecord dev=/dev/hdc".

Video

Console:

Framebuffer works fine with "VESA VGA console graphics" enabled. Does not work in "ATI Radeon display support." Lilo knows my VGA to be 791.

The Knoppix install sets up XF86Config to use the VESA driver. It works, but everything is distorted, as the resolution is the standard 1024x768 amd other derivatives. To take advantage of the wide-screen, the ATI driver seems to be necessary.

Installed module from ATI's website. Converted the RPM to DEB using alien. Upon dpkg -i, a problem was encountered. The driver wants to overwrite /lib/X11R6/lib/libGL.so.1.2. I forced the overwrite (dpkg --force-overwrite) and the package installed. Travelled into /lib/modules/fglrx and did some making and make-installing.

I was getting really pitiful frame rates for OpenGL apps (4-7 fps). I recompiled the kernel, with agpgart turned into a module. That module gets loaded before fglrx, and now my frame rates are much, much better (45-53 fps for the same app).

Modified XF86Config-4 to add the special widescreen mode lines in there. Searching on Google provided this handy link containig mode lines and other XF86Config settings. Here is my working XF86Config-4.

Special keyboard buttons

With Gnome 2.6, the special keys (volume, play/pause, etc) can be set via the keyboard shortcut setup dialog.

Outside of Gnome, these can be set and with acme. There are other utils out there which work, and in time I may try them, but the first solution I tried (and succeeded with) was acme.

DVD playback

DVD playback works out of the box with ogle, xine and mplayer. Although with mplayer, I did have to set the video out to x11 (-vo x11). I have recently found that ogle is the only player with Gentoo that will correctly do fullscreen playback.

DVD writing

Works out of the box with dvdrecord. Be sure to use DVD+R/RW media, not DVD-R/RW.

Wireless Network

Using the Intel IPW2100 driver. With Gentoo, emerge the ipw2100 and the ipw2100-fw modules.

USB

Compile in UHCI and EHCI. Plugging in a mouse, or flash drive worked seamlessly. Devices immediately accessible. For USB flash drives, you need SCSI support enabled in kernel.

LILO boot screen

bmp-colors=139,,0,255,,0
bmp-table=32p,178p,1,15,17
bmp-timer=32p,383p,255,0,0

Here is my working:
Gentoo: [Kernel 2.6.16-gentoo-r9 .config (minus PS/2 support)] [xorg.conf]
Debian: [Kernel 2.6.13.3 .config] [XF86Config-4] [xorg.conf]

Links to other Linux on Inspiron 8600 pages:
http://folk.uio.no/staalep/i8600/
http://www.koeniglich.de/dell_8600.html
http://www.musall.de/techdocs/linux/dell/i8600linux.html