Installing Debian Testing Lenny (stable) in DELL notebook - Inspiron 1720
 

Hi. I'm about to try to install Debian Testing again in my Inspiron 1720 Dell laptop again. I want to make a full installation this time, and get every piece of hardware working. So, I'd like to receive info from people who tried this installation (successfully) before.. Things like, how to install drivers for the laptop's webcam, wireless N card, and anything elsethat will not be correctly detected after the normal installation process. The main problems that I think might happen again are with the following hardwares: webcam, wireless N, bluetooth, integrated microfone, mouse touch pad, and of course the media bottoms like play, pause, mute...

That's it.. From here 24 hours my installation will begin. Any help before and after are welcome. I'll post some problems I'm going to find after the installation here.

Thanks.

Hi. I have just started the installation and It failed...

Steps I did:
1) Boot DVD 1 Debian-Lenny-Beta2
2) Graphical INstallation option
3) MEssages on screen: :1.0: hub_port_status failed (err = -71)

after that I got the screen flashing the terminal with some text, flashing a Debian logo image, and flashing a blank screen.
I have video recorded the installation so I was capable of reading some of the warning messages that appeared while the screen
was flashing.. ONe of them was:
So, As I don't intend to do a cracked installation that will give me much headache later, I aborted it..

This didn't happen in my older installations.. I'll try to update my DVD to Lenny testing weekly build..

Anyway, If any of you have any clue of what was going on here... Fell free to post something here.

I was thinking try doing a minimum(netinst) install but I see you're having problems with the wireless N card. Can you hook it up to a wired internet and try the netinst and adding what you need. Are there any drivers for the wireless card available? If so, maybe you can download it to a thumb drive, cd disc or external drive to install it.

I wonder if it would be worthwhile to install using a daily build of Debian. It would use the 2.6.26 kernel during the install.
It would be interesting to give it a shot. Read the Preparing the USB Flash Drive section.
Could also be that I just liked this method of install.. :)


Other links of interest.

http://www.linux-on-laptops.com/dell.html
http://www.linlap.com/wiki/Dell+Inspiron+1720
http://sdteffen.de/linux/inspiron1720_en.html


Make sure you post the output of lspci when you are asking about specific devices you are trying to get working.



Use a Wired connection for your netinstall... get the wireless working after.

Hi.
I have started using the Lenny I installed. I'm amazed the webcam was automatically installed and is working! Even the laptop's volume keys are working.

So far, What is not installed and I have detected is my build in microfone. So, I'd like to know if you guys know how I should procedure to install it. Maybe I should post the output for lspci... don't know. If any of you can help, thanks..

if sound is working the mic probably is too.. did you check to see if it was muted in the mixer settings ?

alsamixer

or

Aplications -> sound and video -> Volume Control

In the recording tab, the CAPTURE is not muted and it has its volume at the maximum. I even added everything else I could in the preferences like capture 1, digital, mux, mux1, etc, but it didn't solve the problem. I really believe the mic is not installed. In AMSN audio and video configuration, there is an option to choose the input source, but when I try to select a device no device appears, as if there isn't any input device installed in my computer...

I'm pasting the output for my lspci:

My mic is still not working. If anyone knows how to fix it please post something.

The wireless network seems to be working, but I can only connect direct to the wireless network with its name. I haven`t seen any option to show available networks.. If anyone knows how I can see that in Gnome`s GUI please tell me too.
Thanks.

Either network manager http://projects.gnome.org/NetworkManager/ or wicd http://wicd.sourceforge.net/ should be able to show you available networks.

wicd is available for the testing and unstable branch of Debian at this time. I do have it installed on my netbnook and it works well

What's the name of wicd's PACKAGE?

I tried to find it with synaptics searching for wicd, but I found nothing. My repositories are for testing Debian:

Click the link in my post for wicd, once you get there, click the download link for wicd.
Their site explains what to add to your sources list to access wicd from their repository.

And btw, you should comment out that line in your sources list for the Install CD..

Hi. Thanks for the info.
CAn you explain why I should comment the line for my DVD?

Leaving that line uncommented sometimes causes dependency issues when you install new or updated packages. It seems to want to give the CD/DVD priority over the web repositories then complains that it can't meet the dependency requirements. comment it out and the problem goes away.

at least that's what I have run into in the past.