Ubuntu Wiki

• Contact: AlexMandel, ChrisCrane

• Make: Dell
• Brand: Inspiron

• Model: 1100 (BIOS A04¹ & A32¹)

• Website: www.dell.com

Current Issues

Hardware details

Notes

1. Two (2) separate test machines were used, let's call them TM1 & TM2:

   • TM1 tested Hoary & Breezy with BIOS A04, tester unknown

   • TM2 tested Edgy Final with BIOS A04 initially then upgraded to A32 (via A22) to get around some power issues (see ⁵³ under Other Issues below), tester ChrisCrane. The BIOS upgrade was done by using A22 as an interim step as per HardwareSupportMachinesLaptopsDell. Ubuntu is the only O/S on this box so the ISO files were used to create boot CDs.

2. Installation:

   • TM2¹ Initial installs of Edgy Final didn't go so well, it kept crashing on the reboot at the end. The workaround was simple: at the end of the install simply choosing to continue and reboot later rather than reboot immediately was enough. Once the subsequent round of HDD / CD activity had stopped the machine was rebooted and it all worked. See bug 104011.

3. External Monitor, TM2¹ worked well under A04, however, has issues under A32:

   • Forgets that it's on external monitor when shut down so has to be manually swapped (Fn+F8) on every startup OR a manual workaround applied as per the hint in bug 86266 (tested & works).

   • When swapping between laptop & external the display shifts down about 100 pixels with the top 100 px being garbage, problem is exacerbated by mouse position being shown correctly and on-screen items (eg buttons, links) being in original position. This means clicking on something about 100 px above what is shown on the screen. The workaround is that any instance of this is fixed (each time it happens) by logging in or out so it's mainly nuisance value. Having said that, this appears to be related to bug 20311.

4. Tells if on AC or Battery:

   • TM1¹ No meter, been unable to updgrade BIOS on this model past A04, although A06 is also said to have the same ACPI flaw and A29+ is not for the same graphics chip so not recommended for upgrade.

   • TM2¹ Metering works fine on A04 & A32. Although the hardware power light behaviour changed completely once it moved off A04 to A22 & A32 (haven't quite figured out what it's trying to indicate now).

5. These are Fn key based and worked differently on the 2 machines:

   • TM1¹ Do not work by default, key reconfig untried.

   • TM2¹ Works fine, however, it only affects the on-board speakers. External speakers used the earphone socket and were not affected by this control.

6. No built-in WiFi:

   • TM1¹ PCMCIA WiFi card tested and works (Prism1)

   • TM2¹ No WiFi card available

7. No built-in Bluetooth

8. No built-in InfraRed

9. No serial mouse port, only USB.
10. CD works fine.

    • TM2¹ tested CD play, CD/RW burn & DVD play. CD play worked well. CD burn worked well (re-writable CD used). DVD plays using gxine ("on-screen" menu controls via mouse are a bit iffy); Totem didn't have the necessary plug-in to play a commercial DVD.

11. TM2¹ Fn+F10 is labelled as InfraRed, but no on-board InfraRed. However, Fn+F10 opens CD/DVD drawer (go figure ...).

Other Issues

These other issues were found by ChrisCrane on the TM2¹ install.

51. Applications took a long time to start (up to 30 seconds), showing an "app_name is starting" item on the task bar while you wait. This is well documented in the forums and was fixed by editing /etc/hosts, commenting out all the IPv6 stuff. See also bug 93447.

52. Host name resolution was also slow, taking up to 5 seconds every time a link was clicked or email was checked. Again, a simple fix, edited /etc/resolv.conf and removed the line that pointed to the local windows domain (added by the install script as a result of one of the install questions) which then left only the line for nameserver which pointed to the modem (this in turn has the settings for the external DNS as supplied by the ISP). Another aspect to this again implicates the setup for IPv6: edit /etc/modprobe.d/aliases, changing the line alias net-pf-10 ipv6 to alias net-pf-10 off, see bug 92040.

53. Under A04¹ every time the machine booted from cold it would lockup so that nothing worked, including:

    • Ctrl+Alt+Fn which switches between the tty, graphical & console screens and where Fn = F1 to F8

    • ssh server (no response)
    • ping (no response)

    Upgrading the BIOS¹ fixed this, although the result is not without issues, see ³ & ⁴ in Notes (above).