Dell D610 & LinuxMint 4.0

[HappyFace]

Hi.

Monday the most tragic thing happened. With an accident, I spilled beer on my IBM Thinkpad R40's keyboard. The result was that it started to die. Slowly it faded away. So in my panic, I talked to a friend, and he had a Dell Latitude D610 laying around with some XP on. He gave me the Dell and I started to install LinuxMint. The same way I did on the IBM. But it's way too slow. So I figured out that there must be something wrong. I used google and altavista, but neither of them could give me what I wanted. Has anyone the same experience, or does not LinuxMint and Dell play along?

Now I'm writing on my desktop computer, and installing Ubuntu 7.10 on the Dell...

[proxima_centauri]

The D610 is probably an older computer, i'm guessing 128/256MB RAM for memory? Thats probably the problem. Regardless, no one can help you without the specifics of the laptop.

[HappyFace]

Yeah Right, my specs.

Intel® Pentium® M Processor 770 (2.13GHz, 2MB L2)
2048MB using 533MHz DDR22 SDRAM
Mobile Intel® 915PM Express Chipset w/ ATI MOBILITYTM RADEON® X300 with 64MB DDR video memory
SXGA+ maximum resolution of 1400x1050 pixels, 16.7 million colors (The D610 graphics chipset supports up to 1600x1200 pixels with external monitor, 16.7 million colors)
8X DVD+/-RW45 rewritable DVD drive (8X-2X-8X DVD+/-RW/ 24X-16X-24X CD-RW)

http://www.dell.com/content/products/pr ... l=en&s=dfb

Thanx in advance.

[proxima_centauri]

I take that last comment back, it should have no problems running Mint. Not sure why it was so slow.

[HappyFace]

I know. That's so weird.

It shouldn't be any problem at all...

[Slocker]

I don't know if it would help, but I have a Dell D505 running LinuxMint since Bea (now Daryna) just fine, no slowdowns or something. It is true both do not share the same specs, but it seems very 'normal' components. Besides, Dell now offer support to GNU/Linux.

[HappyFace]

I've nearly used 2 days, and here's where it's at:

I made one of my USB-pens bootable, and copied Ubuntu 7.10 onto it. Then I booted the D 610, and it slowly loaded the OS. Why I used a USB-stick, is because I thought maybe the dvd-drive was defect or something. Half way into the boot-process, I got bored, and turned it of. Yes I know that may cause problems but... I took another USB-stick, with ultimate boot cd on, an fired up the computer. Now the speed and everything was ok. I used one of the wiping tools on the stick to wipe/clean everything from the harddrive. In the PC's BIOS I loaded the default failsafe settings, trying to modify the amount of RAM the graphic card should have. When the wiping process was finished, I inserted the Ubuntu-stick and started again. Now everything was completely different. The computer seemed faster. After installing Ubuntu 7.10, I made another stick with LinuxMint on, and repeated the installation. With a bit of success. I think it may have been some old crap on the harddrive. When I install a new linux system, I always use Guided, use the hole disk choice. Using that I thought the disk was completely erased. Anyone had the same experience?

When Linux Mint was installed, and the login screen appears, it's not loaded at once. It looks like its loaded step-by-step. Then I started to think:"Hmmm. Maybe theres something with the graphic card?" Onto Google and I find this:

http://www.kcore.org/?menumain=4&menusub=2

I've tried to edit the xorg.conf file, replacing intel with i810, but it doesn't seem to have any effect. How do I change the driver?

[Slocker]

Note you don't have an intel graphic board! You have an ATI

Mobile Intel® 915PM Express Chipset w/ ATI MOBILITYTM RADEON® X300 with 64MB DDR video memory

The Intel chipset are from the mother board, the ATI RADEON X300 it's the graphic board. So you have to set you xorg graphic driver configuration to "radeon" or "ati" I can't remember now which one of both is. Anyone remember / now?

[HappyFace]

OK, this have been tried:

ctrl+alt+f1
ps -ax | grep gdm
kill (gdm processes)
nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf
change intel with ati
gdm
the screen goes black, and stays black...
again: ctrl+alt+f1
...
...
...

change ati with radeon
...
...
...

same thing happens

replace radeon with intel
...
...
...
It slowly, like in mud, loads X...

Now I'm going outside to shuffle snow, because it's been snowing since yesterday, approximately 40 cm. Lucky Me.

Thanks for replies!

[HappyFace]

Well, now it seems like the speed is up... What happened?

I opened my dear beloved IBM Thinkpad and removed the harddrive. This drive, I cleaned with a wet towel, and inserted it in the Dell D 610. I was quite excited when it booted. But when gdm and gnome should be loaded, it complained and ended with the textbased onlogging screen. I logged in and edited the xorg.conf-file. Replacing ati with intel and PCI 1:0:0 to PCI 0:2:0.

Surprisingly everything seems to work just fine!

So now I have 40 GB insted of 60 GB. And so...?

[timmyflight]

I have a D610 dual booting Linuxmint 4.0 and Windows Vista Ultimate, had absolutely no problems
installing or running them, except that Vista sometimes freezes up while booting, big surprise.
The D610 runs really hot with Vista and with Mint it is really cool, the fan barely runs at all.
Oh, I have the 1.6 ghz proc with 1 gb ram and 40 gb hdd.