Linux on 700m

I was thinking of putting linux on my 700 m soon, probably gentoo. I've heard there's issues mainly with the strange resolution of the screen, so I'll be fiddling with X-windows modelines for that to work. I miss the carefree use of linux on my sager... Unlike in windows, where I'm squashing security issues more than I'm working...

is "Linspire" linux? I know that they are having some promotion, where you can download, and use it for free (regularly $50). I think you could probably partition your HDD, and have dual OS, allowing you to choose which one to boot from when you turn on your computer....or better yet, if you kept your HDD after upgrading, then you can put the Linux on there, and swap out the HDD's when you want to use the other. That would be pretty cool. You would proably want to buy a HDD cage, so you won't have to take that off and on each time.

Linspire used to be called Lindows, before their lawsuit. Yes, it is linux, but it's generally looked down upon in the community, because it's made intentionally to look like windows, which is what everyone tries to avoid. Also, having a free linux is no big deal, because even big distros like Mandrake provide free downloads for everyone.

Having two hard drives swap out like that sounds troublesome, also, I don't think dell provided any provisions for installing any sort of hard drive rack. One possibility is to buy an enclosure for the notebook drive, and have the dell boot off USB drives first.

Linspire

looks pretty instreresting. It's free if you put the coupon code "deviant9".

Here is a thread about it on bensbargains. They also list some other free linux distros that are pretty good. I'm gettin' the itch to try it out.

I didn't know that it was a bad thing to look like windows. I kind of like the interface. Not as much as OSX, but it's not bad. Can you provide links to other free linux programs, and possibly a screenshot of what they look like? Thanks.

Good luck, I hear there's big issues with getting speedstepping and ACPI (and just about everything that makes centrino special) working in linux... I'll be fiddling with it myself soon. Post results here!

Slackware for the slacker in me! :-)

The only problem I have is with the Intel wireless 2100 card. Driver support is at best - still beta. From what I have read, the Intel 2200 has better support with driver development.

Knoppix doesn't detect the 1280x800 resolution correctly, it defaults to 1024x768. Also, the acpi functions doesn't work in knoppix... But then again, it is a LiveCD... so i have to try with gentoo to see what will happen.

Some common distros:
Fedora Core: http://fedora.redhat.com
Suse: http://www.suse.org
Mandrake: http://www.mandrake.org
Slackware: http://www.slackware.org
Knoppix: http://www.knoppix.net
Gentoo: http://www.gentoo.org
Debian: http://www.debian.org

Sorry if I missed your favorite distro, this was typed in less than 30 seconds off the top of my head!

Most Linux Distro's that I have used are available for download free.

I prefer Slackware which is available for free download from their site at http://www.slackware.com

Then I installed dropline GNOME from http://www.dropline.net also free for download. There are screenshots on dropline's website.

This is a screenshot of my Sentia running Slackware 9 with dropline Gnome.

http://www.slacker.net/alienware/MyS...Screenshot.png

When I have the time, I will test the Linux drivers for Intel 2100 to make my Linux boot complete.

http://ipw2200.sourceforge.net/ - for Intel 2200 802.11G wireless found in your 700m.

http://ipw2100.sourceforge.net/ - for Intel 2100 802.11b wireless.

It is just a matter of time before Linux distro's will come with these drivers when they are out of evelopment stage.

I may just go ahead try it out.

I've been running Mandrake 10 on it for about three weeks now, I upgraded to the 60gb travelstar and have about 45/15 windows/linux. Runs fairly well, acpi is a no-go, its convinced its running on AC. This is only a problem if you run your battery down as it'll be running right up until it turns off the in middle of compiling your latest CS homework. =) However, I'm not sure about the power usage, but it doesn't seem to be draining it much faster than doing similar work under windows (coding/compiling).

Additional weirdness includes: closing the lid will cause a lockup, something to do with the display presumably as sometimes its distorted (i remember this happenin on my i8200 also, back in the day). Any ideas?

Despite my best tries, 1280x800 has still been elusive. 1280x768 however, can be obtained by using a patch called 855resolution (google it) which patches the VBIOS so that X will find a 1280x768 resolution (otherwise the best it can do is 1024x768). I messed around with that trying to get 1280x800 but not s'much. So i'm just going to live with it for now. (whats 32 pixels, meh)

Wireless: pain in my arse. Never got any oss solution to work. Linuxant's (again google it) driverloader works flawlessly however. In an aside, I still can't get a VPN set up and routed correctly (University of Nevadas wireless access uses one for security) if anyone has any experience... let me know.

Eww, without the full resolution, it will look strange, with two bars at the top and bottom of an already too wide screen... Is there any way to modify the patch and get it to do 1280x800? or perhaps a thing with modelines or something...

Some people have gotten it to work with 1280x800 (and other widescreen resolutions) on other laptops, but I haven't read anything about a 700m working, .1280x768 is liveable for me, as each bar of the pseudo letterboxing is only about a 1/4" at that resolution, a little bit annoying, but nowhere near as flagrant as 1024x768. I believe the patch is executed by giving it your own resolution, but i tried for about an hour to get 1280x800 and couldn't get it, no matter how i patched or what modelines i used - it just wouldn't take. And the kicker is, you have to have the patch in your init somewhere, as it must be applied every time the system is booted (and before you start X) (since the patch only affects the RAM copy of the VBIOS).

Nevertheless, much luck to ya'll, if it can be done, let me know.

Why would you need to patch anything? You should be able to just hand edit your X config and add support for the resolution. A few linkaroos

May not be right on the money

The rest of what google found

Well generally yeah, that's how it works, (and has worked for me also, with a coulple of other laptops with nvidia and ati chipsets) but not with widescreen on the i810/855/865 yadda yadda chipset (which the 700m uses), the problem is that the chipset (when queried by the X server) does include widescreen resolutions in its report of available modes. So if you have a modeline 1280x800, it won't work, as it doesn't match an available resolution supplied by the chipset, and X won't argue with the chipset. So the video bios must be patched (in RAM) so that it will report 1280x800 or whatever resolution to the X server when queried, and then X will accept that mode.

If you add i810 or 855 and such to that google search you'll find the mess I speak of. Basically it boils down to crap intel linux drivers.

Is there any way to hack the vesa drivers, X, the intel drivers, or even the patch to MAKE X argue with the chipset? :-D I'd really like to make sure that I can full screen resolution before I switch to linux...