DellLatitudeL400
Ubuntu on Dell Latitude L400.
Tried installing latest Xubuntu (Gusty at time of writing) to my EBay-obtained Dell Latitude L400 laptop. Installation had to be done remotely as there is no internal CD-ROM/DVD drive, but it came pre-loaded with XP. So I just used Grub for NT and followed the instructions here http://marc.herbert.free.fr/linux/win2linstall.html. After an hour or so of package installation, system was up. I ended up going with Xubuntu in this case due to a maximum of 256mb RAM the machine could handle.
Overall it runs pretty smoothly. ACPI does not seem to recognize/read the state of the battery as the applet shows 0% full/AC regardless of actually running on AC or battery power. Using 'acpi=off' kernel option forces APM to load, which does detect basic battery info but still no support for cpu throttling or system temperature. Perhaps a BIOS upgrade would help?
Update: Read at least one, if not several reports of users running Ubuntu Feisty just fine with full ACPI support: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=506380&highlight=l400
Xubuntu Hardy and Intrepid on Dell Lattitude L400.
I do have the external CD-ROM drive and had no problem installing or running Xubuntu Hardy (8.04LTS - current at the time). As Network Manager seems to have issues with my router at home (but not other places) my habit is to remove Network Manager and install Wicd, everything else is stock out of box. This worked perfectly fine and my aim was to stay with the LTS version due to the legacy of the hardware. But I did get a wild hair and decide to try a dist-upgrade to Xubuntu Intrepid (8.10). As happy as I was with Hardy on this 700mhz processor with 256m ram (maxed) and 4g video card, I have found Intrepid to be slightly quicker and more responsive with no negative issues at all. Have not tested Network Manager for reasons listed above, but Wicd (both 1.5.4 and 1.5.9) work flawlessly.
I do not yet have a battery, so cannot test (yet) the cpu throttling, but fan control works for CPU temperature control.
LaptopTestingTeam/Old/DellLatitudeL400 (last edited 2010-02-24 14:44:41 by host58-172-dynamic)