DellInspiron1100

  • Contact: AlexMandel, ChrisCrane

  • Make: Dell
  • Brand: Inspiron
  • Model: 1100 (BIOS A041 & A321)

  • Website: www.dell.com

Current Issues

Hardware details

in Hoary1?

in Breezy1?

in Edgy Final1?

in Feisty Final?

Installation works?

Yes(CD)

Yes(Upgrade)

Yes(CD)2

Yes(Upgrade)

Hardware Information

Screen & Monitors

Device

Works?

Bug #

in Hoary1?

in Breezy1?

in Edgy Final1?

in Feisty Final?

Screen

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Correct resolution?

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes, after manual edit of Xorg.conf

Correct refresh rate?

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

3D Acceleration

Yes

Untested

Untested

Yes (Beryl and Ubuntu Desktop Effects)

External monitor works?

Untested

Untested

Yes3

Untested

20311, 86266

External monitor - mirrors

Untested

Untested

Untested

Untested

External monitor - extend desktop

Untested

Untested

Untested

Untested

Power Management

Battery detected?

Yes4

Yes4

Yes4

Yes

Hibernates?

Untested

Untested

Unteseted

Untested

Sleep

Untested

Untested

Untested

Untested

Dim monitor on battery

Untested

Yes

Yes

Untested

Blank monitor on inactivity

Untested

Yes

Yes

Yes

Lid Close

Untested

Untested

Untested

Untested

Cpu frequency scaling

Untested

Untested

Untested

N/A to this model

Sound

Sound works?

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Correct volume?

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Hardware volume switch

No5

Yes

Yes5

Yes

Headphone jack

Yes

Untested

Yes

Yes

Mic jack

Untested

Untested

Untested

Untested

Networking

Wired NIC

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Wireless NIC

Yes6

Yes6

Untested6

N/A to this model

PCMCIA NIC

Yes6

Yes6

Untested6

Yes

Bluetooth

Untested7

Untested7

Untested7

Untested

Modem

Untested

Untested

Untested

Untested

Infrared

N/A

Untested8

Untested8

N/A to this model

Touchpad & Mice

Touchpad

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Touchpad - Doubletap = double click

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Touchpad - Scroll down side

Untested

N/A

N/A

N/A to this model

External mouse - USB

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

External mouse - Serial

Untested

Untested

Untested9

N/A to this model

Additional Hardware

CD/DVD drive

Yes(DVD untested)

Yes(DVD untested)

Yes10

Yes

PCMCIA cards

Yes

Yes

Untested

Yes

Function and other keys

Fn key

Operation

Keycode

Works?

Bug #

in Hoary1?

in Breezy1?

in Edgy Final1?

in Feisty Final?

Fn+Esc

Suspend

Untested

Untested

Untested

Untested

Fn+F1

Untested

Untested

Untested

Untested

Fn+F2

Untested

Untested

Untested

Untested

Fn+F3

Untested

Untested

Untested

Untested

Fn+F4

Untested

Untested

Untested

Untested

Fn+F5

Untested

Untested

Untested

Untested

Fn+F6

Untested

Untested

Untested

Untested

Fn+F7

Untested

Untested

Untested

Untested

Fn+F8

CRT/LCD

Untested

Untested

Yes

Untested

Fn+F9

Untested

Untested

Untested

Untested

Fn+F10

InfraRed, Open CD Drawer

Untested

Untested

Yes11

Untested

Fn+F11

Num Lock

Untested

Yes

No

No

Fn+F12

Scroll Lock

Untested

Untested

Untested

Untested

Fn+Pause

Break

Untested

Untested

Untested

Untested

Fn+PgUp

Volume Up

Untested

Untested

Yes5

Yes

Fn+PgDn

Volume Down

Untested

Untested

Yes5

Yes

Fn+End

Volume Mute

Untested

Untested

Yes5

Yes

Fn+UpArrow

Screen Brighter

Untested

Untested

Yes

Yes

Fn+UpArrow

Screen Dimmer

Untested

Untested

Yes

Yes

Fn+Insert

Print Screen

Untested

Untested

No

Untested

Fn+Delete

SysRq

Untested

Untested

Untested

Untested

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.

  1. 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.

  2. 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.

  3. 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).

SergioZanchetta/Old/DellInspiron1100 (last edited 2010-02-26 16:07:16 by host226-241-dynamic)