• Contact: aaron-whitehouse, tthorb (just supplemental)

• Make: Dell
• Brand: Inspiron
• Model: 510m
• Purchased from Dell direct: 12/02/2005

• Website: http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ins510m/

• Hardware Database link from Dapper: http://hwdb.ubuntu.com/?xml=835a2d0b2d075ce4051a553f1211537a

• Hardware Database link from Dapper: http://hwdb.ubuntu.com/?xml=63f94d2e58668708df619a80d2253a86 - tthorb

• Complete list of bugs that I have reported in Launchpad: https://launchpad.net/people/aaron-whitehouse/+reportedbugs

• NOTE: I installed an additional 512MB RAM (for a total of 768MB) during the testing of Gutsy

• Latest release tested: Karmic Final

• Looks like the LaptopTesting project is over and we should all be doing Testing/Laptop

Current Issues

• The graphics system seems far more "laggy" than previous versions - presumably because of the UXA and the Intel chipset. Even things like scrolling down a webpage seem far less responsive and it makes the whole system feel slow. If I have a full gedit window of text, for example, and hit return near the top to push everything down a line, it maxes the CPU and takes 0.5-1 second to move the text.

• The SVideo TV-Out does not work for me. If I have it plugged in to the TV and push the CRT/LCD button I get a flicker but nothing more. This is the case when I have my resolution set to 1400x1050 and 1280x1024 6270.

Hardware details

Notes

(1) The correct resolution for my screen is 1400x1050. Neither Breezy nor Dapper could detect and set this up correctly. I could install 855resolution/915resolution to make this work. In Gutsy onwards, the graphics driver changed to -intel and this was supported natively.

(2) Using Network-Manager.

(3) The modem is a winmodem and does not work in a default install. According to the previous maintainer, a proprietary modem driver can be obtained from linuxant.com site (hsf). A free version of driver limits DL speed to 14.4 kbps but you can pay $20 and get the driver for 56k and fax capabilities.

(4) $ cat /proc/net/irda/discovery gives: cat: /proc/net/irda/discovery: No such file or directory tthorb: It pops up fine for me:

• IrLMP: Discovery log: nickname: SIEMENS M65, hint: 0xb124, saddr: 0x36dd6cf7, daddr: 0x04578810

- But if I wan't to actually use the irda-port for communication, I have to manually load 'ircomm' and 'ircomm-tty'. LunaTick: tthorb, how did you get the Discovery log? Just by typing in that command without installing anything? In Edgy: $ cat /proc/net/irda/discovery gives IrLMP: Discovery log: Even when there is a palm or phone beaming at it. tthorb: Actually, I've not tried this in several months, because I've replaced my cellphone. I see now that the discovery log is totally empty. My first thought was that there maybe is a switch for it in BIOS that has been turned off, but I have not been playing there for ages, so it's probably something in dapper that has went wrong.

(5) The key does nothing in the default install. One has to manually enable the feature in Gnome Power Manager preferences.

(6) This works the first time (as of 9 May 06) but not subsequent presses. I understand that this is due to Dells sending a key event when they are pressed, but not when they are released (or something) Bug #44154.

(7) Dapper 6.06 Desktop CD: I need to use "Manually Edit Partition Tables" to install and this did not work at all - I got serious errors that stopped me going further. Dapper 6.06 Alternative CD: The screen blanks after all the packages are installed. I just pushed Enter twice and install finished (47082). According to Edu: "I got the same problem. As I mentioned in #48106, in grub menu (just when installation begins), I selected 1024x768 vga resolution and the problem was gone." It could be my 1400x1050 screen. Dapper 6.06.1 Desktop CD: This seemed to work perfectly. Dapper 6.06.1 Alternate CD: The screen-blanking still occurs at the same point.

(8) See Bug 60897. This is a bad look when the Desktop CD is the one that is recommended and this machine has the minimum requirements. There are a number of other issues (Bug 146583 and Bug 146506), which seem to be related to there just not being enough RAM. My guess is that 256MB is barely enough, and this laptop uses some for graphics. UPDATE: As of Ubuntu 7.10, the System Requirements have been clarified "The minimum memory requirement for Ubuntu 7.10 is 384MB of memory for desktop CDs, and 256MB for other installation methods. (Note that some of your system's memory may be unavailable due to being used for the graphics card.)". I suppose this means that I have to stop complaining that the Desktop CD doesn't work. I have submitted Bug #156039 to suggest that the lighter session of Ubuntu is automatically used for lower-memory machines. Gutsy Final does go through the installation process for me and it all works, but Bug 146506 still occurs. As of Hardy, a lighter install session is used by default and I have a lot more memory than I once did, so this issue is solved.

(9) The wireless does not work on Gobuntu because the Intel firmware is not free.

Touchpad

From http://web.telia.com/~u89404340/touchpad/

Benchmarks

• These figures were the average of five tests using a stopwatch. The results were close enough together that the average should be a fairly good estimate of the actual time. There is much more variation in the sleep/hibernate figures (up to 3 secs from the average), but the times should be accurate to a few seconds.
• The start-up figures do not tell the whole story; when Ubuntu has passed the login screen, it is a very short time until it is usable. Windows takes a much longer time between login and a usable desktop, but I decided not to measure it because a lot is due to virus scanners, automatic updates, firewalls etc.

• When trying for the five tests of hibernation on Dapper, I had four failed hibernates. Windows never failed. Edgy Knot 3 failed once with this error.

• Resume times are taken to the point where I regain mouse movement.

• It looks as though 5 secs of the boot time in Edgy RC is due to this bug. Until the bug is fixed, it may be worth using ext3 over Reiserfs.

• Note 1: I changed the sizes of my partitions for Feisty and changed the filesystem from Reiser to EXT3.

• Note 2: Using linux-image-2.6.22.1-9pf.3_2.6.22-9pf.3_i386 and prefetch_0.2.1_i386 from http://code.google.com/p/prefetch/wiki/TestingBootPrefetching - Note that wireless doesn't work and that I have more failures when Hibernating and Suspending, but the times look good.

- Contact me with any suggestions, corrections or questions lists att whitehouse d0tt org d0tt nz