Dell Inspiron 8100 Laptop
Installation
Creating "Suspend-To-Disk" Partition"
Dell provides a utility, mks2d.exe to create Suspend-To-Disk partition.
This partition should be /dev/hda1 (the first partition starting at cylinder 1).
 | Make sure LILO is configured to write to the First sector of boot partition (/boot), NOT THE Master Boot Record (MBR). |
Here is the instruction from the Dell web site:
Search Dell's web site for D5788807.exe file.
Transfer this file to Windows machine, unpack and make a bootable floppy out of it.
Boot from it and run mks2d.exe. Follow the instructions to create a OS/2 hidden C: drive partition.
The partition size on my I8K is 227 Mb.
Installing RedHat from CDs
Make following selections:
Select linux for graphical installation mode. If the initial window comes up too small, hit Fn+Font to enlarge it. You cannot use external monitor for installation.
After first screen comes up, hit Ctrl-Alt-F2 to get to the prompt. Run fdisk and partition the hard drive. Otherwise, druid sometimes gets confused when it comes to creating an extended partition.
Select server type.
Select druid to manually partition the table. Next section describes the partition table layout.
Select No firewall. It is easier to turn it on later (or adjust to your liking).
Partition Table
The last time (August 28, 2003) the harddrive in my Inspiron laptop crashed, the whole thing became unaccessable in an instant. I had separate partitions just for this and it didn't help me. However, I still think it is a good idea to have separate partitions.
Aside from S2D partition (see the Section called Creating "Suspend-To-Disk" Partition"), and 512 Mb /swap, I also have /boot, /usr/local, and /home partitions. This way backup and reinstalls are simple to arrange. My 30Gb hard drive's partition table looks like this:
PROVIDE REAL PARTITION TABLE HERE /dev/hda1 227 Mb S2D /dev/hda2 100 Mb /boot /dev/hda3 512 Mb /swap /dev/hda4 Extended: /dev/hda5 2 Gb /home /dev/hda6 570 Mb /usr/local /dev/hda7 15 Gb /opt /dev/hda8 10 Gb / |
Extra Packages and Little Things (TM)
I usually add the following packages that are not installed by default:
pdksh - public Korn Shell implementation (usually on Disk2)
Add missing /lib, /usr/lib, and /usr/local/lib entries to /etc/ld.so.conf
Disable Automount CD feature. It locks my machine rock solid with no hope for recovery. Click on RedHat->Preferences->CD Properties and disable "Mount CD when inserted" option.
Geforce2Go Nvidia Driver
Get latest source RPM driver from Nvidia. You have to rebuild the package with you current kernel like this:
# rpmbuild --rebuild NVIDIA_kernel-VERSION.src.rpm # rpmbuild --rebuild NVIDIA_GLX-VERSION.src.rpm # cd /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/i386 # rpm -ihv NVIDIA_kernel-VERSION.i386.rpm # rpm -ihv NVIDIA_GLX-VERSION.i386.rpm |
Alternatively, you can download a self-extracting shell script, NVIDIA-Linux-x86-VERSION-pkg2.run and it will install itself.
After driver installation, reboot and get the XF86Config-4 files from your /etc/ backup (or from Extra Resque Stuff floppy). Start X and verify that it works.
If you X server seems unstable (crashing, locking keyboard, etc.), try to pass following options to the kernel:
append="disableapic apm=off" |
If Suspend-On-Disk doesn't work, it might be AGP graphical card acceleration. You can try to disable in XF86Config-4:
Option "NvAGP" "0" |
Use Fn-ESC to suspend, rather then closing the lid.
Configuring DMA
Edit /etc/sysconfig/harddisks and uncomment the line with USE_DMA=1. This re-enables DMA which speeds up buffered disk reads by the factor of 5 (from 4 Mb/sec to 20 Mb/sec). Use # hdparm -T -t /dev/hda to check the performance of your disk I/O.
Sound Card
Audio controller is ESS Technology ES1983S Maestro-3i PCI Audio. In the kernel, turn the option if it is not already turned on:
[Sound] ESS Maestro 3 [M] |
Configure sound module in /etc/modules.conf as:
alias sound-slot-0 maestro3 |
Apparently, you don't have to rebuild ALSA drivers any more. They are included with RedHat distribution.
Boot Profiles With GRUB
I have set up a collection of different profiles, namely Home, Work, and Loner to select with boot prompt. The collection of files lives in /etc/Profiles directory. switch-profile shell script that does the dirty work of swapping files requires one of the profile names for an argument.
Modify GRUB's configuration file, /boot/grub/grub.conf in the following way:
# Disable timeout
# timeout=10
# RedHat linux 2.4.20-8
#
title Home
root (hd0,1)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.20-8 ro root=LABEL=/ boot_profile=Home
initrd /initrd-2.4.20-8.img
title Work
root (hd0,1)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.20-8 ro root=LABEL=/ boot_profile=Work
initrd /initrd-2.4.20-8.img
title Loner
root (hd0,1)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.20-8 ro root=LABEL=/ boot_profile=Loner
initrd /initrd-2.4.20-8.img
|
Note that timeout option is being commented out. This way GRUB hangs indefinitely at the prompt screen, waiting for your actions.
The kernel will ignore boot_profile parameter, but, nevertheless, write it to the /proc/cmdline file.
Unpack backup file /etc/Profiles/etc-Profiles.tar.gz and install switchprofile startup script:
# cp switchprofile /etc/rc.d/init.d # /sbin/chkconfig --add switchprofile |
chkconfig enables switchprofile to run at runlevels 3 and 5 before anything else. Here is the script itself:
#!/bin/sh # chkconfig: 35 09 90 # description: Set's up networking based on the boot option selected from \ # the Grub menu. FILE="/proc/cmdline" BOOTPROFILE=`(cat $FILE; echo) | /bin/cut -d" " -f3 | /bin/cut -d= -f2` /etc/Profiles/switch-profile "$BOOTPROFILE" |
Reboot and enjoy!
Useful links
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linux-dell-laptop Yahoo! Groups