[TriLUG] Debian on Dell

[karl thiele]

Crimsun seems to have a handle, but I will add mine.

I have run and supported linux on Dell for a number of years, including 
laptops. I mostly ran on Lattitude laptops. The linux on laptop site 
takes care of the Dell. I did have to download drives for the video, 
that provided the biggest problem and some of the battery saving 
features.  I also ran VMware for M$ under linux.

I run a Dimension 4550 for my desktop. At my last place of work we ran 
RH 6.2-8.0 and Precision upto eight CPU blades from Dell. Stay away from 
the cheapest Dells( those without a full size APG slot), there are just 
to many video problems (did not used to be like this, but lately(the 
last year or so)..).

-kdt

crimsun at fungus.sh.nu wrote:

>On Wed, Feb 25, 2004 at 11:44:27PM -0500, Faheem Mitha wrote:
>  
>
>>I've taken a look at Dell's Precision line of workstations, but it looks
>>less than ideal. For one things the descriptions are less than specific
>>about what hardware is included. I was hoping to somehow actually be able
>>to do a significant amount of customization without breaking the bank.
>>    
>>
>
>I oversee a lab of 16 Dell Precision 360s running Red Hat Linux 9. Here
>is some info (also customizable via the 360/n MiniTower option on Dell's
>webpage).
>
>Pentium4 2.4 GHz (HT-enabled)
>512 MB DDR400 SDRAM ECC
>36 GB U320 10k rpm SCSI HD
>LSI (mptfusion) U320 SCSI adapter, non-raid (no ext connector)
>Dell 1901fp
>Nvidia Quadro4 NVS 280 dual DVI/VGA
>on-board Intel8x0 sound chipset
>Intel e1000 on-board LAN
>16X DVD-ROM
>3.5" floppy diskette drive
>PS/2 keyboard (entry-level)
>no modem
>Dell USB 2-button optical scroll mouse (Logitech)
>no zip drive, USB memory key, or zip disk packs
>...
>
>Since Intel donated these machines as part of an educational grant, they
>initially had Windows XP installed. We hijacked that right off the bat,
>replacing them with Red Hat 9. Very smooth install.
>
>[One of the workstations is "mine"; I installed Debian Woody after
>creating a custom kernel and dumping that onto a diskette as part of the
>2-diskette rescue/root set. The kernel config is largely stolen from
>RH9's, but I threw out initrd and compiled in ("y") mptfusion, i2o, ext3
>and scsi support. Since I'm the sole user, I dist-upgraded to Sid, and
>I use GNOME 2.5.5 with Gtk+-2.3.4, Glib-2.3.3, and Pango-1.3.3.]
>
>They're kept up to date via yum (thanks, Kevin!), and they all run
>2.6.3-rc1-bk2 kernels (I just copy the necessary files over the net).
>The only tainted kernel modules they use are Nvidia's binary-only
>1.0-5336 drivers.
>
>HTH.
>
>  
>