Suse 11. 1 i586 on a Dell Latitude D830
Table of Contents
Installation
Installation of the OpenSUSE 11.1 Linux Distro, was for the most part, relatively easy. Setting up KDE 3.5.x was a little work ( I like it better than KDE 4.x), and the Log Out options were messed up by allowing only a single choice of Turn Off Computer/Restart Computer/etc. (updates seem to have fixed this problem).
Hardware Overview
| Hardware Device | Status | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Intel Core 2 Duo T8300 (2.4GHz), 3M L2 Cache, 800MHz bus/4GB R | works | |
| 15.4 in. WUXGA Wide Screen LCD Panel, 1920x1200 pixels | works | |
| 160GB 7200 RPM | works | Operating in AHCI mode (SATA/IDE works OK as well) |
| 8X DVD+/-RW optical drive | works | |
| Quadro NVS 135M nVidia video graphics | works | Get the nVidia drivers for full H/W acceleration and OpenGL support. |
| Firewire | Does not work well | |
| Microphone and Headset ports | not tested | |
| USB | works | |
| Broadcom NetXtreme BCM5755M Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express | works | |
| Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG | works | . |
| Conexant HDA D330 modem | works | Using Linuxant driver merged with an HDA engine from older free Dell Linux driver. Works at high speed. Have not tested FAX support. See note below. |
| Dell Bluetooth DW360 | not tested | OS recognizes bluetooth interface. No further testing done. |
| Bluetooth light | works | No further testing done. |
| Wireless switch | works | |
| WiFi light | works | . |
| Speaker volume buttons | works | |
| Touchpad | works | Touchpad cursor is very slow. |
| Trackpoint | works | |
| Mouse buttons | works | |
| Sound/loudspeakers | works | |
| Microphone | not tested | |
| Display brightness | works | |
| Display sleep | not tested | |
| Suspend | not tested | Don't use this feature.. |
| ExpressCard slot | not tested | . |
| PC Ccard (32-bit "PCMCIA") slot | not tested | . |
Peripherals
| Peripheral | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| HP LJ-1020 USB Printer | works | See note below on using the foo2zjs driver setup with CUPS. |
| Gear Heads USB Wired Optical Mouse | works | (Have had problems with some Targus USB Mice). |
| LaCie Little Disk 320 GB Firewire/USB 2.0 Drive | works | Drive works with Firewire interface on Linux with ext2 file system (single 320 GB partition). |
| Canon ZR850 Camcorder w/ Firewire interface | not working | Flakey - Gets gobs of isochronous and DMA errors.. Using the older IEEE1394 stack; experimental new stack does not work. Very frustrating. |
| Plustek OpticSlim M12 Plus USB Scanner | works | Using gscan2pdf 0.9.27 for scans. |
| Canon PowerShot A710 Camera | works | Initially had problems (device permissions issue). Works ok now. |
| SanDisk 16 GB USB Cruzer Flash Drive | works | Using native VFAT File System. Can't get rid of the Launch Pad partition...grrrrr. |
Software
| Program/Driver | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Tethering a USB GSM WM6 PDA/Cell Phone for Internet Access | works | Uses SynCE for USB connection: |
| VMWare Server | does not work | Had lots of problems with it. No support for 2.6.29.6-9-pae kernel I am using. Tried both v1.x and 2.x versions of server product - neither work. |
| VirtualBox | does not work | No driver support.. |
| Adobe Shockwave/Flash Player Plugin | works | Shockwave Flash 10.0 r22 |
1) Thanks to the Ubuntu forum for the Conexant Dialup Modem Howto
2) I used kino, a video editor for Linux, that supports Firewire/IEEE1394 to test the Firewire interface. Both the Canon ZR-850 Camcorder and kino worked well under OpenSUSE 10.3/i586 on an AMD desktop system, with the old Firewire stack in the Kernel.
Notes
If you found any errors above, or have found solutions for areas that
are still problematic, or have found better solutions to issues, please let
me know. Also, if you found this document useful, consider making a small
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