Mandrake Linux 9.1 on the Dell Inspiron 2650 laptop.
I recently installed Mandrake Linux 9.1 ("Download Edition") on my Dell Inspiron 2650 laptop . This was from a two CD set that came with the June 2003 issue 41 of Linux Format magazine. A third CD also came with the issue which included a new version of the GIMP with 400 plugins, a help section with Linux tutorials, Nvidia drivers for all models with an installer, etc.
The video works without the need to manually go through the process of installing video drivers (separate from the Linux installation). Apparently working Nvidia drivers were included with it. During installation at one point a list of Nvidia drivers were displayed with GeForce2 DDR highlighted, so I clicked next to accept it and go on to the next step. The laptop has a GeForce2 Go card which I think has DDR (double data rate) SDRAM from what I remember. I set it up to work with the KDE desktop by default. At first the desktop didn't fill the whole display. This apparently was because I chose 800 60Hz for the resolution during installation. After looking around I found out if I click the rectangular icon with the star in it on the desktop it takes me into the Mandrake Control Center. From there I can get into 'Hardware' and change the resolution. I changed it to 1024 X 768 Flat Panel and then logged out and logged back in (rebooted?). After that the desktop completely filled the display. The resolution can be set to 16 bit color, 24 bit color or lower resolutions. The sound works, too. I haven't tried connecting to the internet yet. All the hardware seems to be recognized. I looked in the Mandrake Control Center and was able to display the company name and model number of each piece of hardware, ie. hard drive, CDROM, video card, modem, ethernet card, etc. I looked at some pictures from a floppy disk that I took with my digital camera before and the resolution is definately there on the laptop. Very sharp pictures. One thing I don't like about the display is the glare from lights in the background (behind me), but adjusting the display angle can reduce or eliminate it. I noticed this using Windows XP, too, which was on the laptop when I got it. The display is very finely detailed, but you have to look straight at it to see the best picture. If the display is angled too much relative to your line of sight it tends to make the display look faded out. This effect seems to be worse compared to my Phillips LCD screen (flat panel) I'm using with my desktop. The pixels are a lot smaller on the laptop, though, which gives a sharper picture. Still not quite as good as some of the best CRT monitors I've seened.
Before I installed Mandrake 9.1 I tried Morphix (July 2003 issue of Linux Format magazine) and DemoLinux (see my DemoLinux thread in this forum) which install from CDROM without installing to the hard drive. Morphix froze during installation, so then I tried DemoLinux. DemoLinux worked and I tried KDE and Gnome, but for some reason the OS didn't recognize some things such as PCI controller, modem, sound card, etc. Mandrake 9.1 seems to be a lot better than the other two. I didn't do anything with the Linux command line. All of it involved the Mandrake installer system.
To make the laptop boot from CD, press F2 right after turning the computer on to get into setup. Use the right arrow key to highlight Boot, click enter then put CDROM at the top of the list (read directions on the right of the panel), exit and boot from the (first) CD. Some versions of Linux (including Mandrake 9.1) allow you to make a Linux boot disk (ie. in MS Windows using software on the CD) in case you can't set the computer to boot from CD.
Compare this to:
http://cragalaska.com/2650.htmlhttp://devel-home.kde.org/~howells/inspiron/index.phpYou can find more information on putting linux on an Inspiron 2650 by using
http://www.google.com with keywords like "Inspiron" and "2650".
[ August 06, 2003: Message edited by: Great_Satan ]
