Ubuntu 6.06 "Dapper Drake" on a Dell Inspiron 6000

From Julian Yap

This is an overview of what I've found running Ubuntu 6.06 LTS "Dapper Drake" on my Dell Inspiron 6000 notebook. This is not a review per se of the Ubuntu 6.06 Linux Operating System release. If you want a strict review of the Operating System, I would recommend the links in the entry on DistroWatch.

I switched over from using Ubuntu 5.10 to Ubuntu 6.06 around the time Beta 2 was released (mid-April or so I recall). Since July 1st I have been running Fedora Core 5 on my laptop. This is mostly since I am doing Red Hat related courses but I have since grown to prefer Fedora over Ubuntu. In the end, it's all Linux :P

1 Hardware
2 Other things of note
3 Issues
4 Additional notes

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Hardware

I bought a Dell Inspiron 6000 around December 2005. The only hardware upgrade I have performed since that time was to put in additional RAM. Right now my current configuration is:

CPU: Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 1.73GHz
- Issues with running 686 kernel. See below.
Disk /dev/sda: 60.0 GB
- Works fine.
DVD burner (dual-layer)
- Works fine and correct speed is detected when burning.
RAM: 1.25Gb RAM (1GB + 256Mb)
Video: Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/GMS/910GML Express Graphics Controller
- Works fine. Detected nicely with the correct 1280x800 resolution.
Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) AC'97 Audio Controller
- Works fine.
Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4401-B0 100Base-TX
- Works fine.
Wireless: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 2200BG
- Works fine. Includes ipw2200 binary firmware so works out of the box.
SD Card Reader: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Host Adapter
- Does not work. Unlike Ubuntu 5.10, this device is now detected and in the hardware database.
FireWire (IEEE 1394): Ricoh Co Ltd R5C552 IEEE 1394 Controller
- Untested.
Mouse input: AlpsPS/2 ALPS GlidePoint
- Words great out of the box.
Set to triple-boot Windows, Ubuntu Linux and Fedora Linux.

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Other things of note

Multimedia keys (the extra buttons at the front of the laptop) are set up and work out of the box which is a nice addition.

Hibernation and Suspend work out of the box. There's no real on-screen feedback when a machine is going into or coming out of hibernation. This could be improved.

Start up speed of the system getting to GDM and then starting Gnome has noticeably improved.

Here's a more in-depth page regarding my Ubuntu Dapper Beta issues. Some of which may have been resolved.

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Issues

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686 kernel does not work

Ubuntu tried to merge the 686 and 686-SMP kernels.

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A possible fix

Add this to /etc/rc.local:

echo 1 > /sys/module/processor/parameters/max_cstate

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A further update

Bug 30557 follows the issue and a possible fix has been committed. It may work for the next 2.6.15-27-686 update of the kernel.

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Screen stayed blank when lid was put down

As I recall, putting the lid down occasionally had a bad habit of not turning on the screen once it was lifted again. This would leave the screen blank. I recall myself editing a file in /etc/acpi so that the screen would not blank itself.

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The SD/MMC card slot does not work

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A possible fix

From: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/laptop-testing-team/2006-September/000951.html

For solving the SD/MMC card reader issue, I've built a 2.6.17 kernel (2.6.17.11 from kernel.org). I included the SD/MMC code into the kernel (not as a module) after reading a post that mentioned that this was the only way of making it work (YMMV):

#
# MMC/SD Card support
#
CONFIG_MMC=y
# CONFIG_MMC_DEBUG is not set
CONFIG_MMC_BLOCK=y
CONFIG_MMC_SDHCI=y
CONFIG_MMC_WBSD=y

After rebooting with the 2.6.17 kernel, inserting a SD card into the built-in reader resulted in the card being automatically mounted, with a nice icon shown in the desktop. Nice.

Now, the rest of my tests were done under this new kernel. I have yet to try to apply them to the stock 2.6.15 that came with Dapper.

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