SuSE 9.1 on Dell Inspiron 5150?

glsen_az · 09-27-2004, 01:24 AM

Hi all. Sorry for the lengthy post...
A new Dell Inspiron 5150 laptop (Mobile P4 3.06, 512 RAM, 60 Gb drive, CD-R/DVD). I have SuSE 8.2 Pro box set, but want to go with newer to support newer hardware and make this a dual-boot with Win XP. I have SuSE 9.1 Personal and might look into upgrading with SuSE to the 9.1 Pro version.
The biggest questions I have are:
1. Will SuSE 9.1 support the NVidia GeForce FX Go5200 display adapter out of the box, or will I have to get non-GPL NVidia drivers from NVidia? XFree86 support or X.org support?
2. The laptop has a Broadcom 440X 10/100 integrated NIC -- I would think SuSE 9.1 should pick that up -- anyone have any experience with this NIC and a new Linux distro?
3. The laptop also has builtin wireless with the Dell Wireless WLAN 1350 -- the 802.11g model - works very nicely under WinXP -- anyone have any luck with this under Linux? Google turned the following up which might be answering my question #3:

Quote:

I have tried everything to get my wireless lan to work in SuSe 9.1, but I cannot. I tried both NDISWRAPPER en DRIVERLOADER. With the first program, I succeeded in installing the Windows drivers that came with my Dell Inspiron 5150. However, although the drivers were installed succesfully and the "modprobe ndiswrapper" command were executed succesful, the device did not show up in IWCONFIG.

and the response in the SuSE forum was:

Quote:

There is actually a really good tutorial on the ndiswrapper under the Wireless section. Check that out and see if it helps.

I understand about new hardware and having to do quite a bit of piecing things together, just looking for a handle upfront on the work ahead and trying to get the necessary pieces. Thanks in advance for any and all help.

-*-Bill[

JaseP · 09-27-2004, 11:45 AM

Let me address your concerns as you ask them...

Quote:

Originally posted by glsen_az
Hi all. Sorry for the lengthy post...
A new Dell Inspiron 5150 laptop (Mobile P4 3.06, 512 RAM, 60 Gb drive, CD-R/DVD). I have SuSE 8.2 Pro box set, but want to go with newer to support newer hardware and make this a dual-boot with Win XP. I have SuSE 9.1 Personal and might look into upgrading with SuSE to the 9.1 Pro version.
The biggest questions I have are:
1. Will SuSE 9.1 support the NVidia GeForce FX Go5200 display adapter out of the box, or will I have to get non-GPL NVidia drivers from NVidia? XFree86 support or X.org support?

The open source NV drivers should work well enough to get you graphics good enough to do office work. If you want fully supported 3D, then I'd highly recommend upgrading to the nVidia proprietary drivers. Stick to XFree86 4.3.x.

Quote:

2. The laptop has a Broadcom 440X 10/100 integrated NIC -- I would think SuSE 9.1 should pick that up -- anyone have any experience with this NIC and a new Linux distro?

All I know is that SuSE 9.1 detected and configured the built-in Ethernet port on my Dell C640 (which I am using to write this). There is a good chance it will work as long as it is a standard protocol device.

Quote:

3. The laptop also has builtin wireless with the Dell Wireless WLAN 1350 -- the 802.11g model - works very nicely under WinXP -- anyone have any luck with this under Linux? Google turned the following up which might be answering my question #3:

See my answer to #2 above...

Quote:

and the response in the SuSE forum was:

I understand about new hardware and having to do quite a bit of piecing things together, just looking for a handle upfront on the work ahead and trying to get the necessary pieces. Thanks in advance for any and all help.

-*-Bill[

SuSE 9.1 Pro is a great distro, out of box, and I'd recommend it highly. The graphics should be no problem... The only problems I've had with my Dell are that my laptop's Radeon 7500 Mobility is not supported by ATI's proprietary drivers and that certain USB devices will hard-lock the graphical interface... Mostly certain key drives. It doesn't happen all the time though and is definitely better than SuSE 8.2, on those and other issues.

glsen_az · 09-27-2004, 10:09 PM

JaseP,
Thanks so much for sharing your experiences and insights. I guess I just need to bite the bullet and just remind myself that SuSE is a quality distro and they will have done a good job of dealing with hardware. They have in the past! Once again, thanks for the response.

-*-Bill