Dell Inspiron

[mmills]

A few years back I was very heavy into linux, but i stopped using it when I got heavy into the game " guild wars" a friend of mine has been nudging me to get back into the unix/linux world, what im looking for is something that is going to be compatible with my laptop so i can use that as a learning tool before i merge my main machine. it is a standard laptop, windows boggs down the laptop so much, but i ran 2 live cd's and kde or flux runs smooth and super fast, i know the navigation etc, but last time i had wifi issues, what im looking for is a windows replacement, watching video's,music, web, email, and some networking tools, as i will be taking some advanced network classes in the fall or possibly next year, i have been running backtrack for learning purposes. My specs are a standard Dell Inspiron B130.
The 2 distro's i used for testing was Ubuntu and Backtrack, backtrack was super fast and light, felt like i was running a dual core with 3 gig and Ubuntu felt like a p3 on 128 ram, so suggestions would be great.

thanks in advance
I am looking for a light weight linux/unix

[deathadder]

Well, it's not the same model, but I'm running ArchLinux on my Dell Inspiron 6400 and it works great. The one small issue I've had is to do with WPA wireless networks, but thats more down to me not configuring stuff correctly than any problems with the distro.

One word of warning about Arch, its lightweight to the point of dropping you into a bash prompt after the base install. So if your not happy with installing packages from the command line, it might not be for you. Then again, its not difficult to install stuff using pacman as it is.

[Davno]

I have a Inspiron 6400 also and i ran Slackware 12.1 at one time and is running Mandriva 2008.1 now. Both OS ran very well, Slackware was running faster but Mandriva was easier to configure the nic card.

[mmills]

I am considering trying out Debian current stable, ive heard a lot of people talk about how it is lightweight and I looked on http://www.linux-laptop.net/ and my model is listed for the debian distro. I am hopping for a simple install with kde/fluxbox gui, using fluxbox for its lightweight and low resources, and to tick off my wife cause she doesn’t know how to use it..haha. Any helpful resources on debain and this model, for wifi would be great.

http://linux-laptop.net/hosted/inspironB130-Debian.html

[mmills]

Ok, So I loaded Debain, did the updates, not 2 issues, I loaded fluxbox from the package manager, but no applications merge from gnome, when I right click there is nothing there. and second, my wife can be seen, hardware shows its there but no activation or use.

need some help

[mmills]

Ok, Now I have installed Debain linux, runs very well and I am very impressed with the distro, I installed Blackbox when I read a howto from a KDE xterm terminal. Now the one application that has yet to show up is "xmms" and my other issue is no wifi, the hardware shows up but doesnt engage.

any words of wisdom?

[trilarian]

I sincerely hate to give you a RTFM response... but I'm about to cut out of work and don't have the time for a long winded response. There is a wiki here for wi-fi on Debian. If you get lost let me know and I'll try to be more informative the next go around.

[mmills]

trilarian,

that wiki info would have been awsome except my broadcom wireless isnt a 43xx series, I have found that I can run ndiswrapper to get it running, but now I run into the issue that I dont have the bcm9431.sys file..... UG!
I found a link from dell with some drivers and some linux drivers, but I didnt find my driver, http://ftp.us.dell.com/network/ so I dunno

and second issue is my touchpad has a mind of its own, any way to kill the tapping?

[teeitup]

Dell touchpads are terrible!

I have access to HP, Compaq, and IBM laptops and the touchpads on them are far superior.

My Dell Inspiron 6000 suffers from the same spastic touchpad condition. I always carry a small usb wireless mouse which works great.

There are a number of apps to help. It helped mine. Not great but better.
List of Touchpad configuration tools

Good Luck,

[trilarian]

I have found that I can run ndiswrapper to get it running, but now I run into the issue that I dont have the bcm9431.sys file..... UG!

You can download the bcm9431.sys here.

[Syngin]

Broadcom wireless nics in Dell laptops are the antichrist.... what a nightmare to get working with Cisco access points.

[mmills]

Broadcom wireless nics in Dell laptops are the antichrist.... what a nightmare to get working with Cisco access points.

all I can says is......"true that" broadcom is the devil...lol
I almost thought about replacing it if I cant get it fixed quickly with a cisco, something like http://cgi.ebay.com/Cisco-Aironet-MP...QQcmdZViewItem

thanks for the info, will try and work on it tonight and have some updates tomarrow

[pmrphs2002]

I have to say that ALL of my computers sported Broadcom chipsets.

I got ONE to work with wireless - that was a desktop PCI internal

The rest either got a fresh linux install (because I botched everything up so well trying to use ndiswrapper or any number of other packages) and a cat5e cable, or because "Kids Game Computers" ;-)

Mind you, I begin each install and spend the rest of the day at least trying to get Wireless working.

[mmills]

You can download the bcm9431.sys here.

well I made a login, nvr recieved it and I did the email the driver option, never recieved it....I call this a massive headache

[trilarian]

I call this a massive headache

I agree.

Broadcom is not a company I am fond of for many reasons. You can add Linksys to that list too.

I usually have 3Com NICs and use NetGear for standalone Routers, Switches, etc. I'm sorry it is turning out to be such a headache to get the .sys file. I really hate companies that don't archive their drivers on their OWN site. It really does not take up that much space with the large capacity drives available these days. A single 1 TB drive would suffice for just about any company out there and they can get it for around $140 USD.