After the initial boot of my shiny new Dell 1505n laptop, I started poking at it. The primary reason I got the machine was to look for issues that Ubuntu's users will face with it, so we can develop fixes quickly. Since I'd ordered this within hours of Dell first making their machines available, I probably got an early one right off the production line. I'll bet the few issues I mention below are already fixed in current production models.
The laptop has a widescreen monitor, but the resolution was set to 1024x768, giving it a stretched out look. This is a commonly reported issue for Ubuntu in general, but I was surprised to see it on the factory model. Another early purchaser told me he selected the Nvidia card option, and had no resolution issues.
Anyway, the fix for the intel card (well-reported on the forums) is to install 915resolution. You can do this through System : Administration : Synaptic Package Manager, or via the command line:
sudo apt-get install 915resolution.
(There is a specification entered for installing 915resolution by default with Intel graphics.)
Alan Pope reports an alternate fix, of installing the xserver-xorg-video-intel driver:
sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-intel
The -i810 driver is being obsoleted by the Xorg folks in favor of the -intel driver. The -intel driver is still relatively new, but is under very active development. Gutsy will be shipping both the -i810 driver and the -intel driver, but -i810 will probably be moved to legacy eventually.
After my first system update, an error occured on reboot: Error 17:
Unable to mount partition. Fortunately the issue was pretty
obvious to fix: Change the grub lines from [g]root (hd0,0) to
[g]root (hd0,2). This will be a tough issue for many people,
though, but fortunately it's a well
known issue. Dell is providing a script to do this as well.
[Update] Word is that this particular issue has already been fixed in the factory, so it's just us early, early adopters that have hit it. Sounds like Ubuntu may also be able to address it long term on their end.
[Update] "Debian uses commented information in the /boot/grub/menu.list to store configuration options to update the menu.list on kernel upgrades, make the change in the automagic kernel section and it will persist through kernel upgrades."
While this is a pretty serious problem, I'm quite impressed by Dell and Canonical's swift response to getting it fixed in production. I think this bodes well. :-)
I had some trouble initially getting Ubuntu's GUI network tools to let me log onto my girlfriend's wireless network. I didn't see any other reports of trouble here in the Dell forums, so it sounds like this is not a very common issue. Her laptop (a different model of Dell, also with Ubuntu Feisty on it) doesn't have this issue. The key was to get the mode set to Managed (which I did via the commandline).
I had a similar issue on my home network, but I was able to get this to work through the GUI after adding the following to the end of /etc/network/interfaces (Thanks to Josh Andler for the tip):
auto wlan1 iface wlan1 inet dhcp
Then I restarted the network via /etc/init.d/networking
restart, selected my network, picked 'WEP 128-bit Hex Key',
and entered my hex key. It prompted me to save the key in 'nm' and then
logged me right on.
I'd reported an issue (or at least, confusion) with suspend earlier. In playing with it more, I think my earlier issues were just user error. It resumes fine if you wait a second or two after opening the lid; I think I hit the hibernate button before it had a chance to finish resuming. So I think this "issue" can just be chalked up to user error! Actually I'm quite impressed with how suspend/hibernate works so far!
The system beep on the laptop (most noticeable if you're on the console), is exceptionally loud and distracting. Of course, it's easy to turn off if you only use the GUI (System : Preferences : Sound : System Beep).
For those of us who are heavy console users, it can be disabled by the following (thanks to Laudin Molina for the tip):
$ sudo su - # modprobe -r pcspkr #echo "pcspkr" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
Another, probably better, approach:
$ sudo -i
# echo "setterm -bfreq 0" >> /etc/bash.bashrc
I turned Compiz on and tinkered with it a bit. This was my first time using it on i810, so I was impressed it worked so easily. xrandr also worked really nicely, without issues I've encountered on other graphics hardware.
Wobbly windows worked perfectly, as did many of the other decorator
effects. I haven't gotten the cube working, yet. I also had some
trouble with annotate, in that the 'clear' shortcut wouldn't work, so I
could fill my screen with red scribbles but couldn't erase them. I
switched the shortcut to
Having sufficiently kicked tires on the default install, I then upgraded the system to the Gutsy development version. I ran into the aforementioned (hd0,0) problem (since the kernel upgraded), but I think that's because I hadn't corrected the groot entries. I also spoke with Ubuntu's kernel maintainer, who is looking at a fix from the Ubuntu side of things to prevent this from happening in the future.
Despite the handful of issues, I'm actually quite impressed with the laptop. It's much sturdier than my old laptop, runs cooler, and all the Fn keys work without any fiddling (which is rather astounding). The touchpad works great and is quite responsive. It is very quiet. Sound works without any issues (aside from the system beep, mentioned above). Like I mentioned at the start of the issue, this is a 0-day system, so some teething issues can be expected. I'm impressed by how quickly Dell and the community have figured out solutions to issues as they're raised. I'd love to see one of the laptops shipping right now!
With the ability to get just about any software you can think of through Add/Remove, getting going on a Dell/Ubuntu system is quicker than anything else I've used. Even on Windows, I remember spending days with new systems trying to get software and drivers installed and to try securing it from popups and viruses.
-- bryce at bryceharrington dot org