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Fedora 3 on Dell Inspiron 8100

Hello,

I'm new here and also for the Linux world. I'm learning toward Linux and choosing Fedora 3 for my first Linux OS to start with. The question is I have a Dell Inspiron 8100 laptop and am not sure will work with FC3. I also have a Belkin wireless PCMCIA card F5D7011 which is the newest 125 Mhz card. It is going to install Linux OS only so no Windows OS. Any comments on the combination (FC3 and 8100), also Belink card? Would they work nicely? Any other problems that I need to concern beside that?

Here is spec. of my laptop ...
PIII Mobile 1.0
15" SXGA (1400x1020)
nVida 16mb Free2Go
30GB hd
256MB PC133 ram

Thank you!

Fedora 3 has better hardware support...

If you are a newbie suse will be better!

Anyway go ahead :Pengy:

A quick Google reveals that the F5D7011 card uses a Broadcom chipset. I think this means you are going to have to set up ndiswrapper (http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net) to use your wifi card, but don't worry because it's not that hard.

So, yes your card should work fine with Fedora, but it will take a little work to get it up and running.

As for for running Fedora on a Dell laptop, I do it and it works fine for me ;~). Fedora also comes with a nice GUI installation, great for newbies! The biggest problem you'll probably face is getting the sound/display working. Fedora does a very good job of setting up X for you during setup though, and since you don't have a 3d card you won't need to worry too much about that.

So my advice is: Go for it! If you end up running into problems you can't solve on your own, LQ is right here waiting for you.

I agree with the above - I've got FC3 installed on my Dell laptop and it works perfectly. My network card was in-built though so I'm not so sure about your Belkin card.

The only problem I've had is with sound - sometimes the sound card driver seems a little unreliable, but this is something I intend to bring up on a different thread shortly after I've done some more research.

I was a complete Linux noob on installation (and am still a noob!) and some things took some patience, but if you persist everything can be solved perfectly. FC3 rocks, but if you're new to Linux I'd really recommend you learn how to install apt and synaptic because installing software with RPMs is a real pain. There are plenty of articles available on Google for installing apt and synaptic on FC3.

Cheers,

Jamie.

I installed full package with FC3, took about 3+ hours, then another 3+ hours for all updates. The first thing I saw during installation was Free2Go nVidia was recognized, I also heard the sound testing during installation. and so did other hardwares EXCEPT monitor resolution, Belkin F5D7011 PCMCIA card, and well don't know yet ...

Now, I'm using built-in Mini NIC which works perfectly and am typing as now. My screen still stuck with 800x600 which isn't my default 1400x1020, so kinda small with 15" SXGA screen ... lol looks real funny.

What should I do for the next step?

I used "emacs /etc/X11/xorg.conf" to change monitor resolution but it said "buffer read-only". How can I change the file to write also? Something like "chmod u+rw /etc/X11/xorg/conf"? I did try it but it said "Operation not permmited." HELP HELP HELP What other edit can I use?

First of all, are you logged in as root? You won't be able to edit xorg.conf otherwise...

I wasn't log as a root. I have a question. When I installing FC3, it asked me for admin password only, so I don't know what the admin ID is. DO I just leave it blink or type "root"?

The admin ID is set to root by default, so you don't need to worry about that! Just type 'su' in a prompt, and then input the password you selected during the install.

Can I do like ID=root, pw=******** when login as a user? Oh I actually mean when on the splash screen!

Yes, you absolutely can. A lot of people consider it bad form to log in as root, especially with the GUI, because it's really easy to screw things up. The idea is you use a regular user to do the day-to-day stuff, then use the 'su' command when you need root to get something done.

But if you know exactly what you want to do, i.e. change xorg.conf, go right ahead.

Wow I got done with the screen resolution and it's cool. I now enjoying 1400x1050 which pretty nice looking. BUT HEY WTF? I switched back to user mode and it's the same sh!t as before. Do I need to change everything again in user mode? Oh lord ..........

Whoa there! First of all, isn't the new resolution the coolest thing ever? There's nothing like seeing an LCD monitor at it's natural resolution after a long time of seeing it at the wrong resolution.

Now, with regards to changing it all under user mode: No. It should be exactly the same. I have no idea what's up. Tell you what, post the contents of you xorg.conf file and I'll look it over in the morning.

For the /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Code:

# XFree86 4 configuration created by pyxf86config



Section "ServerLayout"

        Identifier    "Default Layout"

        Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0

        InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"

        InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"

        InputDevice    "Synaptics" "AlwaysCore"

EndSection



Section "Files"



# RgbPath is the location of the RGB database.  Note, this is the name of the 

# file minus the extension (like ".txt" or ".db").  There is normally

# no need to change the default.

# Multiple FontPath entries are allowed (they are concatenated together)

# By default, Red Hat 6.0 and later now use a font server independent of

# the X server to render fonts.

        RgbPath      "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb"

        FontPath    "unix/:7100"

EndSection



Section "Module"

        Load  "dbe"

        Load  "extmod"

        Load  "fbdevhw"

        Load  "glx"

        Load  "record"

        Load  "freetype"

        Load  "type1"

        Load  "synaptics"

#        Load  "dri"

EndSection



Section "InputDevice"



# Specify which keyboard LEDs can be user-controlled (eg, with xset(1))

#        Option        "Xleds"                "1 2 3"

# To disable the XKEYBOARD extension, uncomment XkbDisable.

#        Option        "XkbDisable"

# To customise the XKB settings to suit your keyboard, modify the

# lines below (which are the defaults).  For example, for a non-U.S.

# keyboard, you will probably want to use:

#        Option        "XkbModel"        "pc102"

# If you have a US Microsoft Natural keyboard, you can use:

#        Option        "XkbModel"        "microsoft"

#

# Then to change the language, change the Layout setting.

# For example, a german layout can be obtained with:

#        Option        "XkbLayout"        "de"

# or:

#        Option        "XkbLayout"        "de"

#        Option        "XkbVariant"        "nodeadkeys"

#

# If you'd like to switch the positions of your capslock and

# control keys, use:

#        Option        "XkbOptions"        "ctrl:swapcaps"

# Or if you just want both to be control, use:

#        Option        "XkbOptions"        "ctrl:nocaps"

#

        Identifier  "Keyboard0"

        Driver      "kbd"

        Option            "XkbModel" "pc105"

        Option            "XkbLayout" "us"

EndSection



Section "InputDevice"

        Identifier  "Mouse0"

        Driver      "mouse"

        Option            "Protocol" "IMPS/2"

        Option            "Device" "/dev/input/mice"

        Option            "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"

        Option            "Emulate3Buttons" "yes"

EndSection



Section "InputDevice"

        Identifier  "Synaptics"

        Driver      "synaptics"

        Option            "Device" "/dev/input/mice"

        Option            "Protocol" "auto-dev"

        Option            "Emulate3Buttons" "yes"

EndSection



Section "Monitor"

        Identifier  "Monitor0"

        VendorName  "Monitor Vendor"

        ModelName    "Unknown monitor"

        HorizSync    30-100

        VertRefresh  50.0 - 70.0

        Option            "dpms"

EndSection



Section "Device"

        Identifier  "Videocard0"

        Driver      "nvidia"

        VendorName  "Videocard vendor"

        BoardName  "nVidia GeForce 2 Go"

        Option                "backingstore"

        Option                "RenderAccel"        "1"

        Option                "NvAGP"                "3"

        Option                "UseEdidFreqs"        "1"

EndSection



Section "Screen"

        Identifier "Screen0"

        Device    "Videocard0"

        Monitor    "Monitor0"

        DefaultDepth    24

        SubSection "Display"

                Viewport  0 0

                Depth    16

                Modes    "1400x1050" "800x600" "640x480"

        EndSubSection

        SubSection "Display"

                Viewport  0 0

                Depth    24

                Modes    "1400x1050" "800x600" "640x480"

        EndSubSection

EndSection



Section "DRI"

        Group        0

        Mode        0666

EndSection

For the /etc/rc.local

Code:

add 'modprobe nvidia' under #comments

Okay, looking at this you should be booting fine into 1400x1050 so I'm not quite sure what the problem is. You say it works when you log in at the splash screen as root but not when you do as a user? Odd...

Okay, here's a little experiment we can try. After you're logged in (I don't care as who) press Ctrl+Alt+F1. Then log in at the text prompt as root. type telinit 3 and your Xserver will shut down. Then (you may have to hit Ctrl+c at this point), type startx as root and tell me what happens. So far so good? Now Ctrl+Alt+F2, only this time log in as a user. You may need to temporarily become root to run telinit 3, but switch back to your user right after by typing 'su "YOUR USER NAME"' Then try running startx as the user and see if it still gives you the crappy resolution.

Like I said though, this is very strange behavior.