RedHat 7.2/7.3 on a Dell Inspiron 4100
Updates
- 16th September 2002 - changed details of downloading the clicking hard drive fix, as it moved
- 15th September 2002 - fixed a couple of typos and put some more details into the section on setting up the infrared port
- 15th September 2002 - included RedHat version 7.3 as I did a reinstall recently and nothing seems to have changed
- 10th April 2002 - added section on fixing the 'clicking hard drive' problem
Overview
I recently purchased a Dell Inspiron 4100 laptop and set about putting
Linux on it. Here is the information that I have gathered that should
help you to install it on your system.
| Make |
Dell |
| Model |
Insipron 4100 |
| CPU |
1GHz (Pentium III) |
| Memory |
384MB (256MB + 128MB) |
| Hard disk |
30GB () |
| Screen |
14.1" UXGA (1600x1200) |
| Video card |
ATI (Radeon mobility) |
| Ethernet |
Onboard 10/100Mbps () |
| Modem |
Onboard 56Kbps (PCTel 2340WT V.92 MDC Modem) |
| Infrared |
Onboard FIR (SMC Ultra IrCC) |
| Audio |
Onboard (Crystal 4205) |
| Wireless |
PCMCIA 11Mbp/s (Lucent Orinoco Silver) |
Pre-Installation
First things first, shrink the Windows ME partition. I used fips to do
this, others have used Partition Magic. FIPS worked fine for me, although
I did get a warning early on about a mismatch between the logical and
physical layout of the drive. FIPS said ignore it, I did, and everything
was fine.
I cut me Windows ME partitoin down to 6GB, which was about twice what it
needed and left me more than enough space to use for Linux.
I also had to change some settings in the BIOS to be able to boot from my
CD-ROM drive to start installing Linux. To get to the BIOS I pressed 'F2'
when the computer showed it's Dell splashscreen. Page 2 of the BIOS deals
with boot order. It was in the order of:
- > Diskette Drive
- > Internal HDD
- > CD/DVD/CD-RW Drive
- Modular Bay HDD
- Cardbus NIC
- APR NIC
- Onboard NIC
which I changed to:
- > Diskette Drive
- > CD/DVD/CD-RW Drive
- > Internal HDD
- Modular Bay HDD
- Cardbus NIC
- APR NIC
- Onboard NIC
Installation
Installation was very easy. I put the RedHat CD in and rebooted. RedHat
install went smoothly, the one problem that I did have was that when
choosing my X display size the test screens did not show up. I choose
1600x1200 regardless, and after final boot it came up without problems.
After initial install, ost things were working okay. Multibooting with
GRUB worked without problems and I could get to either WinME or Linux.
Things that were not working were the modem and the infrared.
Post-Installation
Modem
I spent some time trying to get the modem to work, without any luck. I
suspect that the PCTel driver that is currently available does not handle
the current chipset. I'm watching out for news on this, and if I see any
I'll post it here.
Infrared
I did manage to get the infrared working correctly. It required a bit of
work, but here are the edited highlights:
- Go into your computer's BIOS setup (F2 at the Dell splashscreen) and
on page 4 of the setup set 'Infrared Data Port' to 'COM3' and 'Infrared
Mode' to 'Slow IR' (this might work with 'Fast IR' but I haven't tried
it)
- Boot into Linux
- Edit /etc/modules.conf and add in the following lines:
- # IRDA
- alias tty-ldisc-11 irtty
- alias char-major-161 ircomm-tty
- alias irda0 ircomm-tty
- below ircom-tty ircomm
- below ircomm irda
- below ircomm irtty
- Run 'dempod -a'
- Run '/etc/init.d/irda start'
and your infrared port should be active. To confirm that it is running put
an IR-Modem next to the IRDA port (I used an Ericsson T39m to test it) and
run 'minicom -s /dev/ircomm0'. Go in to 'Serial port setup' and change the
serial device to '/dev/ircomm0' and the BPS/Par/Bits to something suitable
for your hardware (go for 9600 8N1 if you aren't sure). Save your settings
and exit minicom, then run 'minicom /dev/ircomm0' again. You should be
able to type 'AT' and get a response back.
Note that if you want to have your IrDA start up every time that you boot
the laptop you will have to run 'ntsysv' and ensure that 'IrDA' is
selected.
Clicking Hard Drive
After some time with the laptop I noticed that the hard drive made a rather
alarming clicking noise every few seconds, probably parking its heads or
similar. The Dell support site mentions this problem and provided a
firmware update that fixes it. To obtain and install the patch do the
following:
- Either
- Use this link to obtain a direct download of the relevant file (quicker, but not guaranteed to work)
- Or
- go to the Dell Support Site
- click on Home and Home Office
- enter the service tag or model of your laptop
- select Downloads
- select Windows 2000, English, and IDE and EIDE in the selection boxes (note that although this is a firmware update, it doesn't show up if you choose Linux as your operating system)
- select Hitachi DK23CA 10/20/30GB Notebook Hard Drive
- select Hitachi DK23CA 10/20/30GB Notebook Hard Drive, v. A0G3, A01
- select D4E08401.exe
- select Download now to download the firmware update
- double-click on the file once it has downloaded
- follow the instructions given to create the floppy disks and install the patch
Once the patch was installed the noise from the hard drive decreased
noticably.
Current Problems
Here is a list of the current issues that I have with the laptop
- I still can't get the modem working properly
- The X server isn't the fastest in the world. Apparently XFree86 4.2
will have support for hardware acceleration of the Radeon mobility, when
it's available I will test it out and report my findings here.
- I don't have a decent X configuration file, I can't get hold of the
vertical and horizontal sync rates for my screen.
If you have any information on fixing the above problems let me know and
I'll add it to the information here.