Installing Kubuntu Dapper (now Debian Etch) on a Dell Inspiron E1505

Last updated: 30 April 2007

General Hardware Specifications of Inspiron E1505:

This laptop is operating under Kernel version 2.6.20.7

• I decided to try Kubuntu as I have been happy with Debian on another computer and have heard great things about Ubuntu. Kubuntu is just normal Ubuntu but with the the KDE packages included by default.
• Download the "Desktop CD" from Kubuntu.
• If you want to keep the original Windows install and dual boot then see Note 3. If you are going to wipe the drive and go Linux only then proceed to step 1. I suggest you consider keeping Windows on a small partition if for nothing more than flashing the BIOS. The updates Dell provides are .exe and a breeze to use if have Windows available. I'm not even sure you can flash the BIOS with out it ... wine perhaps?
  
  1. You will need to use the Ethernet connection for now. If you do not have Ethernet available then you can still install but will not be able to get the Wireless to work right away.
  2. Insert Kubuntu installation CD and boot from it by pressing "F12" while the option to to do is being displayed shortly after power-on. When prompted, select to do a fresh installation.
  3. Set up your partition as you desire. If you are dual booting then you probably want to set them up manually. You might also want to include a common FAT32 partition that all OSs can access. Since LILO is not available, you can not use XFS for /boot as Grub has issues with it. I opted to use ReiserFS.
  4. Do not select "ati" for the video card, it does not yet support the x1400. I chose "vesa" and it worked fine until I installed the drivers as detailed in Note 1. You'll also want to select desired resolutions including the native 1680x1050. Vesa will most likely only show 1024x768, but this way you don't have to add these resolutions manually later.
     
  5. The rest of the installation is straight forward if you have done other installations before.
• Following installation make sure to do a full update to get the latest packages. Then install the video card drivers per Note 1, the Wireless drivers per Note 4, and the Bluetooth drivers per Note 5.

• I have not yet spent much time on any hibernate or suspend features. This is my first laptop so I am not sure exactly how these work normally and am happy with the current functionality. I will post this information if I do any work on these features.
• The touch-pad seems to work fine except that the horizontal scroll does not work. I would like to disable it when the Bluetooth mouse is being used but have not investigated that yet.
• SpeedStep did not work with the default Kubuntu kernel. It works very well with a custom Vanilla kernel from kernel.org. This will also give you the chance to change CPU architecture (I am using Pentium M but am not 100% sure that it is correct for the Core Duo. Also, you can enable options for the Ricoh Memory Card reader if you would like.
• You can enable the extra buttons by mapping them to actions. There are many ways to do this but a quick and simple way is to insert the following lines into ~/.Xmodmap
  

  	keycode 160 = XF86AudioMute
  	keycode 174 = XF86AudioLowerVolume
  	keycode 176 = XF86AudioRaiseVolume
  	keycode 162 = XF86AudioPause
  	keycode 144 = XF86AudioPrev
  	keycode 153 = XF86AudioNext
  	keycode 164 = XF86AudioStop

  Next append the line below to your ~/.bash_profile
  

  	xmodmap ~/.Xmodmap

  The volume and mute keys work on the buttons and with the "Fn + End", "Fn + Page Up", and "Fn + Page Down" key combos. The play/pause and other keys don't seem to work in any of the programs but that is just a matter of binding the keycode shown above to the desired action.

• I have not tried ATI's proprietary drivers but they are supposed to work to a degree
• After about one week I got an error during POST that said "Real-time-clock Stopped". I read some posts that blame this on a bug in Dapper. Maybe so, but my error came right after a BIOS change so Kubuntu may not be to blame. Regardless, you must remove the coin cell battery for a minute. Read your manual before proceeding at your own risk.

• After 3 months of use my battery charging LED began to blink, once green followed by four red. The laptop could be powered from battery or AC adapter but the battery was not being charged. My searching revealed that I had been given a 65W AC adapter rather than the required 90W adapter. This can lead to battery failure and possibly main board damage. I contacted Dell support via a web submit form. You will need the service tag from the bottom of your laptop and your login information that you used to purchase the machine. I filled in the form with a description of all that I had done and what the symptoms were. Six hours later I got an email saying they would send me a new AC adapter and battery just as soon as I sent them the code off of the battery so that they could get the proper replacement for me. This was on a Saturday night no less. I hope to be able to report soon that the parts arrived and my laptop works normally again.
  As promised, Dell sent me a new battery and AC adapter via overnight DHL. Thanks to the fast shipping I had parts in hand 6 days after requesting support. I am also happy to say that the new battery did the trick and I was able to return the bad batter and unused AC adapter via prepaid DHL. While I was not able to get a 90 Watt adapter, I was able to find out that they really do send the 65W adapter with new systems and suggest you buy the 90W should you feel you need it. As a result, my battery only charges a few percent per hour if I am playing a resource intensive game. I give Dell two thumbs up for their response and support to this incident.

• Modify ~/.bash_profile as shown above if you choose to enable the extra media keys in the way that I did.
• To disable the very loud system bell in the console, uncomment "set bell-style none" in /etc/inputrc. The annoying noises in KDE can be disabled through its own tool.
• Change "vesa" to "fglrx" in /etc/X11/xorg.conf after installing the drivers per Note 1.
• Others as listed in Note 4 to enable Wireless and Note 5 for Bluetooth.

• Note 1 (ATI X1400 drivers)
  
  The vesa drivers that were installed during installation are limited and need you need to get some real drivers in place. The latest proprietary ATI drivers are said to work with the X1400 but I chose to use the open source fglrx drivers.
  1. Use Adept to install xorg-driver-fglrx
  2. Optionally you may want to install fglrx-control and the dev and source packages.
  3. Make a back up copy of /etc/X11/xorg.conf and then edit the original to change "vesa" to "fglrx"
  4. Restart X, the resolution of 1680x1050 should now be used assuming you selected it during install or manually added it later.


• Note 2 (Hard Drive)
  
  There is nothing wrong with the hard drive or SATA support. This note is for those that want to dual boot and/or retain the original Windows installation.
  1. If you want to keep the original Windows installation or would like to change the drive space allocated it non-destructively then you may want to use the GParted Live CD to make the changes. This tool can resize NTFS partitions without damaging the Windows installation that is on it. Just insert the CD and boot from it. This is also a good tool to use to delete all those extra partitions that Dell adds for tools and recovery, if you do then you do so at your own risk of losing Windows recovery options.
  2. Boot up Windows after messing with the partition table to make sure it works, and make a scan of the C: drive if it feels that it needs to.
  3. During the Kubuntu install select to manually edit the partition table so that you can be certain that the Windows partition is not disturbed. Grub had no trouble seeing Windows and automatically made it a boot option.


• Note 3 (CD/DVD Burner)
  
  The default CD burning application is K3b for Kubuntu (something else if you are using Gnome). Unfortunately there is a bug in K3b and we must manually tell cdrecord which device to use.
  
  In K3b go into Settings -> Configure K3b...
  This will open up a new window, in that window go into Programs -> User Parameters
  Next to "cdrecord" enter "dev=/dev/scd0:1,0,0" as the parameter.
  Click "Ok" and proceed to burn the CD
  
  Burning an ISO image of 699MB at 24x took 6.5 minutes (no verify).
  
  I have not tried to burn any DVDs but I will update this page when I have.


• Note 4 (ipw3945 Wireless)
  
  The Wireless driver must be compiled and loaded as a module. It was created by Intel and turned over to a SourceForge Project. Their directions needed a little modification to work for me so I will explain the steps below.
  1. Download the ipw3945 microcode, daemon, and driver code.
  2. If you are going to use the default Kubuntu kernel then also download the ieee80211 subsytem (more on this next).
  3. If you are using the default Kubuntu kernel then you will most likely need to use the ieee80211 subsystem from the previous step. The directions provided for this are:

     	% tar xzvf ieee80211-1.2.15.tgz
     	% cd ieee80211-1.2.15
     	% make 
     	# make install   (You may need to be root)
     	% cd ..
     	

     I seem to have best results with the ieee80211 subsystem that comes with the kernel so I skipped to the next step. Ever since 2.6.18 this has changed a bit and requires a new Makefile with lines added on 94 and 95 to allow the ipw3945 code to compile. Credit to Tom London via the ipw3945 mailing list for this fix. Once you have a copy of the Makefile proceed as follows.
  4. Unpack and install the ipw3945 driver

     	tar -xvzf ipw3945-1.1.2.tgz
     	cd ipw3945-1.1.2/
     	cp path/to/new/Makefile ./
     	make
     	

     If you are are using the downloaded ieee80211 subsystem then just use "make" without the pointer to the include files location. Use the appropriate kernel version are shown by `uname -r` if you are using the built-in subsystem.
  5. Unpack and install the firmware

     	cd ..
     	tar -xvzf ipw3945-ucode-1.13.tgz
     	cd ipw3945-ucode-1.13/
     	sudo cp ipw3945.ucode /lib/firmware
     	

  6. Unpack and install the regulatory daemon

     	cd ..
     	tar -xvzf ipw3945d-1.7.22.tgz
     	cd ipw3945d-1.7.22/
     	sudo cp x86/ipw3945d /sbin/
     	

  7. Load and test the driver

     	cd ../ipw3945-1.1.2/
     	sudo ./load debug=0
     	
     	iwconfig eth1
     	iwlist eth1 scan
     	

     If ./load produced a large block of errors that begins with "WARNING: Error inserting ieee80211_crypt" then you have a problem with the ieee80211 subsystem. You may want to try the one included with the kernel or vice versa.
  8. Automate loading the driver
     Copy the driver into the modules folder

     	sudo cp ipw3945.ko /lib/modules/2.6.18.2/

     Create /etc/modprobe.d/ipw3945 and inserting the following:

     	install ipw3945 /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install ipw3945 ; sleep 0.5 ; /sbin/ipw3945d --quiet
     	remove ipw3945 /sbin/ipw3945d --kill ; /sbin/modprobe -r --ignore-remove ipw3945
                 

     Link the driver

     	sudo depmod -a

  To use WEP and/or allow you to automatically switch between WAPs, install and run wpa_supplicant. A very good resource describing how to do this can be found at The Ubuntu Forums.


• Note 5 (Bluetooth)
  The details of how I got Bluetooth to work are a little fuzzy as I tired several different methods of connecting to my mouse before it connected. Once it connected it worked better than in Windows and reconnects whenever I turn on the mouse. Start by editing /etc/default/bluez-utils to have the following options:

  	HID_ENABLED=1
  	HIDD_OPTIONS="--connect AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF --server"
    

  Where AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF is the address of the mouse (bd_addr). On my mouse this is printed on the bottom of the unit. Then pair the Bluetooth devices as follows:

  	sudo hcitool cc AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF
  	sudo hcitool auth AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF
    

  Sometimes I find I need to use the following command:

  	sudo hidd --connect AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF
    

  You may get prompted to enter a pin, in most cases it is probably "0000". If not, you will need to check the documentation that came with your device. After the above steps were complete the mouse connected after I cycled its power and it has worked wonderfully ever since.

• You may contact me via email if you have questions or corrections regarding this page.

• How To Compile A Kernel - The Ubuntu Way, The best Ubuntu based guide I have found to date, by far.
• Ubuntu Breezy on an Inspiron 6400, not identical to the E1505 but provides additional resources and was my main guide.
• Bluetooth mouse in Dapper
• SourceForge ipw3945 Project
• Linux on Laptops