Installing Ubuntu Edgy (6.10) on Dell Inspiron E1505 (6400)

I recently bought Dell Inspiron E1505 (it's Inspiron 6400 in small business section of dell website). Here goes my notes based on Ubuntu 6.10 (edgy) installation on it (as dual boot).

First, my configuration:

Most of the hardware was recognized automatically by the ubuntu installation. Audio was working great. Wireless and graphics required following steps. (I have yet to test bluetooth, so no notes on that yet)

Dell Wireless 1390 Card
Ubuntu edgy configures wireless card with bcm43xx driver, but I was not able to make it work with it. Your best option is to use windows driver on linux with the help of ndiswrapper .

Display Driver for ATI X1300

In order to use the full capabilities of this card, you will need to install ATI linux drivers. There are two versions of it - one is open source, and another binary only drivers from ATI. I went with binary only drivers from ATI, as they seem to be the best option. I used following steps:

sudo apt-get update 
sudo apt-get install xorg-driver-fglrx
sudo apt-get install linux-restricted-modules-2.6.17.10-generic
sudo depmod -a
sudo aticonfig --initial 
sudo aticonfig --overlay-type=Xv

Once it's done, add the following line /etc/modules:


fglrx

and reboot the system (or you can load the module yourself, and restart the gdm).


Using windows boot loader for dual boot ( Advanced Users Only )
One can either install grub into MBR (master boot record) for dual boot, or one can use windowsXP's boot loader itself for dual boot. I choose windowsXP boot loader in MBR instead of grub for following reasons:

Anyway here goes the steps :