Ubuntu 10.04 on dell precision M6500

[Gargoulf]

Dear all,

I'm starting a new thread after that of http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1445821 which
concerned ubuntu 9.10 on the dell precision M6500.

I have recently fresh-installed ubuntu 10.04 32-bit on my laptop, so I would like to share some impression and report some problems, hoping other people will be able to solve.

First, installation was easily done. The only regret is that the mounting options were not automatically optimized for SSD drive. After googleing, I found that the best for SSD is to mount with option 'relatime', which seems to be like 'noatime' but without the problems it involves for mails.

After first boot, I am proposed to use proprietary drivers for wireless broadcom and NVIDIA card. There i not much help here and for each device, I have two options. I choose the most up-to-date. (STA for broadcom and "version current" for NVIDIA (instead of version 173).

Now, let's see what is NOT working:

- internal microphone: searched in different posts, bugs reports, etc. But I' still unable to make it work. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/alsa-driver/+bug/519066
The strange thing is that sometimes I have no sound at all. Then, I reinstall alsa-backport modules and output works back.
Also, it seems it worked on 9.10 after some updates (see http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1445821) but I heard about nobody having the internal microphone working on ubuntu 10.04. This is a very important bug since we cannot use widely-used softwares like skype, for example.

- logout/restart: sometimes (seems that after reinstalling alsa), the logout/restart does not work properly. Instead, I am just logged out. However, 'sudo shutdown -r now' in a terminal works.

- I had also some experience with freezing at boot / shutdown. I solved this by removing the ubuntu-provided graphic card driver, and keeping only the proprietary one.
Have a look at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Troubleshooting/Nouveau#Disabling%20nouveau
What I actually did, was to use synaptics (when hard re-booting), searched for nouveau, and removed it.

- fingerprint reader: ok, this is not that useful, but since my laptop came with this, why not using it.
It seems there are two drivers: thinkfinger and fprint. fprint is the most recent one. Anyway, none of them works and simply do not find device (swipe fingerprint broadcom USH).

- touchpad: under windows 7 (removed completely one hour after I got the laptop), I had lots of possibilities, including pinch zoom, etc. I even had some light in the touchpad when touching a particular zone. None of this is working under ubuntu. Touchpad is a very simple mouse without any "two fingers" options. I also experienced some problems with the touchpad getting crazy and the mouse always going to the left of my screen. It seems synaptics has developped something for this (http://www.synaptics.com/solutions/technology/gestures/touchpad-linux)...but it is not implemented on ubuntu 10.04 and I found no way to download/install these drivers.

All the rest seems working fine. Please report is you experienced similar problems and/or found a SOLUTION!

[tahu363]

Thanks, I'm glad that someone finaly paid attention to this. Unfortunately, the link you provided for the synaptics fix/explanation is dead. Is there another one? Im eager to try to fix the touchpad.

[Gargoulf]

http://www.synaptics.com/solutions/technology/gestures/touchpad-linux

[tahu363]

Thanks. Unfortunately, I fail to see any resources for binaries or source. I read that distros are beginning to incorperate this software and that it should be available in the later versions of some distros, Does that mean we'll have to wait till Ubuntu 10.10 for a fix? :(

[Gargoulf]

Concerning touchpad, yes, I guess we'll have to wait (at least) 10.10.

Did you manage to make the internal mic work? It seems this is a very common
problem with DELL laptops with ubuntu. I tried tons of solutions that worked for others
on other laptops / distributions but it seems that until now, no one has been able
to fix the microphone pb on M6500 under ubuntu 10.04.

[tahu363]

Unfortunately, I'm with you on that one. No working internal mic. I've tried pretty much everything, and I have no idea why it wouldnt work when I applied others workarounds. :( Concerning the hefty price I paid for this machine ($5,139) I'm a little dissappointed, I assumed that if everything was working on 9.10 that it would also apply to 10.04, I suppose that was my bad though. I'll keep snooping around for fixes to other common issues, and I'll post back if I get anything, I also hope you'll do the same. Sorry that i couldn't help with the Mic issues, oh well, I'll keep searching around... :\

[Gargoulf]

Yep. I'm continuing with searching for a solution. I'll post if I get solution.
At least the bug has been validated and people seem to work on it.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/519066

[atkaper]

Hi there,

My M6500 with 10.04 on it also gave me problems with reading a 4gb micro sdhc card. Inserting the card did not mount it, and no /dev/* entry appeared. dmesg showed "tifm_core: MMC/SD card detected in socket 0:1" and "mmc1: error -110 whilst initialising SD card". Some googling around gave me a fix:

sudo setpci -s `lspci | grep -i "card reader" | awk '{ print $1; }'` 4c.b=0x22
Might help someone else also hopefully :-)

Now still waiting for a fix for the internal mic... doesn't work, whatever I try...

Greetings,
Thijs.

[Gargoulf]

Hi!

Actually, I also have pb reading smart card (XD). I tried your fix (just copy paste since I don't really understand what it does) then dmesg gives:
tifm_core: SmartMedia/xD card detected in socket 0:0

but nothing happens. Is the card not mounted? How can I see where it is?
Thanks for your help!



Hi there,

My M6500 with 10.04 on it also gave me problems with reading a 4gb micro sdhc card. Inserting the card did not mount it, and no /dev/* entry appeared. dmesg showed "tifm_core: MMC/SD card detected in socket 0:1" and "mmc1: error -110 whilst initialising SD card". Some googling around gave me a fix:

sudo setpci -s `lspci | grep -i "card reader" | awk '{ print $1; }'` 4c.b=0x22Might help someone else also hopefully :-)

Now still waiting for a fix for the internal mic... doesn't work, whatever I try...

Greetings,
Thijs.

[nataraj88]

Can anyone running Ubuntu on an M6500 confirm which SATA driver is loaded? Is it AHCI? Does the driver or lspci tell you what the chipset is?

Thanks,
Nataraj

[atkaper]

Hi Gargoulf,



Actually, I also have pb reading smart card (XD). I tried your fix (just copy paste since I don't really understand what it does) then dmesg gives:
tifm_core: SmartMedia/xD card detected in socket 0:0
but nothing happens.

Hmmm... sorry, I don't understand the kernel actions resulting from the suggested code also ;-)
I have just googled around, and found many suggestions, from which for me I seemded only to need this specific one-liner (I did construct the one-liner from some separate actions). Perhaps your SD reader gives you another identification string, or perhaps you need some of the other tips about removing/reloading some modules.

Let's try some things:

If I type this (command after the dollar), it shows me my card reader:


$ lspci | grep -i "card reader"
03:01.2 Mass storage controller: Texas Instruments 5-in-1 Multimedia Card Reader (SD/MMC/MS/MS PRO/xD)


Does that work for you ? If not, try typing just "lspci" by itself, and look for your card reader. If you find it, change the "card reader" in the grep into something which identifies your card reader. In that case retry the one-liner with the new string ;-)

String OK, but no success ? Try it like this (use the grep string that works for you):


sudo rmmod tifm_sd
sudo rmmod mmc_block
sudo rmmod sdhci
sudo rmmod tifm_7xx1
sudo rmmod tifm_core
sudo modprobe tifm_sd
sudo modprobe tifm_7xx1
sudo modprobe tifm_core
sudo modprobe mmc_core
sudo modprobe mmc_block
sudo setpci -s `lspci | grep -i "card reader" | awk '{ print $1; }'` 4c.b=0x22
sudo modprobe -v sdhci


This is a combination of most tips I found, and if I execute this, it gives me these errors, but it functions OK:


ERROR: Module mmc_block does not exist in /proc/modules
ERROR: Module sdhci is in use by sdhci_pci


I also would make sure to try this when you just booted the machine, and without a card in the reader, and only stick in the card after executing this script.

Hope this works for you... For me it does, and just pops up an auto-mounted folder view of the inserted card.

Greetings,
Thijs.

[atkaper]

Hi Nataraj,


Can anyone running Ubuntu on an M6500 confirm which SATA driver is loaded? Is it AHCI? Does the driver or lspci tell you what the chipset is?

Thanks,
Nataraj

Sure, no problem, is this what you need?


$ lspci | grep -i sata
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset 4 port SATA IDE Controller (rev 05)
00:1f.5 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset 2 port SATA IDE Controller (rev 05)


Not sure where to find the used driver. Does this help ?


$ dmesg | grep "SATA"
[ 1.941176] ata1: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0x6e70 ctl 0x6e78 bmdma 0x6ea0 irq 19
[ 1.941186] ata2: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0x6e80 ctl 0x6e88 bmdma 0x6ea8 irq 19
[ 1.941494] ata3: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0x6eb0 ctl 0x6eb8 bmdma 0x6ee0 irq 19
[ 1.941498] ata4: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0x6ec0 ctl 0x6ec8 bmdma 0x6ee8 irq 19
[ 2.293101] ata4: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
[ 2.308337] ata3: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
[ 2.800929] ata2.00: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl 300)
[ 2.800948] ata2.01: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
[ 2.801162] ata1.00: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300)
[ 2.801179] ata1.01: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300)


Just let me know if you need my to type another check command ;-)

Greetings,
Thijs.

[nataraj88]

The lspci identifies the chipset correctly. Thank you. For the driver, you could try "lsmod | grep -i ahci". If that doesn't produce anything, you could post the output from lsmod and I could figure out which driver is loaded.

For example on my older macbook, fedora 10 is using the ata_generic driver (as shown with lsmod). The generic driver won't give very good disk performance.

I'm referencing this page for info on the better performing SATA drivers: https://ata.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Hardware,_driver_status

Hopefully the M6500 uses the AHCI driver. But if it's not using it, there's still hope. I believe that the bios has to be set for AHCI instead of legacy.

Nataraj

[Gargoulf]

HI aktaper,

Here is what I get (the grep stuff on lspci gives exactly same message as yours)

sudo rmmod tifm_sd
ERROR: Module tifm_sd does not exist in /proc/modules

sudo rmmod mmc_block
ERROR: Module mmc_block does not exist in /proc/modules

sudo rmmod sdhci
ERROR: Module sdhci is in use by sdhci_pci

sudo rmmod tifm_7xx1
ERROR: Module tifm_7xx1 does not exist in /proc/modules

sudo rmmod tifm_core
ERROR: Module tifm_core does not exist in /proc/modules


sudo modprobe tifm_sd
FATAL: Error inserting tifm_sd (/lib/modules/2.6.32-24-generic-pae/kernel/drivers/mmc/host/tifm_sd.ko): Unknown symbol in module, or unknown parameter (see dmesg)


sudo modprobe tifm_7xx1
FATAL: Module tifm_7xx1 not found.

sudo modprobe tifm_core
FATAL: Module tifm_core not found.

For the last 4 commands, no error:
sudo modprobe mmc_core
sudo modprobe mmc_block
sudo setpci -s `lspci | grep -i "card reader" | awk '{ print $1; }'` 4c.b=0x22
sudo modprobe -v sdhci


The card reader still doesn't work. And now dmseg gives:
193.725209] tifm_sd: Unknown symbol tifm_eject
193.725300] tifm_sd: Unknown symbol tifm_register_driver
193.725570] tifm_sd: Unknown symbol tifm_unmap_sg
193.725665] tifm_sd: Unknown symbol tifm_map_sg
193.725770] tifm_sd: Unknown symbol tifm_unregister_driver


Any hint?
Thanks,

[tahu363]

Well, as promising as this looks : http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2010/08/multi-touch-comes-to-ubuntu-1010.html,
It DOES mean we will need to wait for 10.10 for a trackpad fix. :(

[Gargoulf]

Thanks tahu363 for the info about touchpad. It's two months from now only.
I hope internal mic and card reader pb will also be fixed in next release.

[atkaper]

Hi Nataraj,


If that doesn't produce anything, you could post the output from lsmod and I could figure out which driver is loaded.

Here are the modules loaded on my system, if there's any speed improvements possible, I'm of course interested to hear about them ;-)


$ lsmod
Module Size Used by
ipt_REDIRECT 1269 3
xt_tcpudp 2667 7
iptable_nat 5219 1
nf_nat 19501 2 ipt_REDIRECT,iptable_nat
nf_conntrack_ipv4 12980 3 iptable_nat,nf_nat
nf_conntrack 73966 3 iptable_nat,nf_nat,nf_conntrack_ipv4
nf_defrag_ipv4 1481 1 nf_conntrack_ipv4
ip_tables 18358 1 iptable_nat
x_tables 22461 4 ipt_REDIRECT,xt_tcpudp,iptable_nat,ip_tables
binfmt_misc 7960 1
ppdev 6375 0
rfcomm 40214 4
sco 9473 2
bridge 53184 0
stp 2171 1 bridge
bnep 11852 2
l2cap 34596 16 rfcomm,bnep
vboxnetadp 5235 0
vboxnetflt 12242 1
vboxdrv 1768311 4 vboxnetadp,vboxnetflt
deflate 2181 0
zlib_deflate 21834 1 deflate
ctr 4029 0
camellia 19220 0
cast5 15208 0
rmd160 8120 0
sha1_generic 2231 0
crypto_null 2950 0
ccm 8670 0
serpent 18453 0
blowfish 7882 0
twofish 5899 0
twofish_common 14631 1 twofish
xcbc 2847 0
sha256_generic 10327 0
sha512_generic 4972 0
des_generic 16599 0
cryptd 8116 0
aes_x86_64 7912 0
aes_generic 27607 1 aes_x86_64
xfrm_user 21932 0
ah6 5035 0
ah4 4548 0
esp6 5376 0
esp4 5589 0
xfrm4_mode_beet 2131 0
xfrm4_tunnel 1979 0
tunnel4 2909 1 xfrm4_tunnel
xfrm4_mode_tunnel 2000 0
xfrm4_mode_transport 1511 0
xfrm6_mode_transport 1575 0
xfrm6_mode_ro 1380 0
xfrm6_mode_beet 2082 0
xfrm6_mode_tunnel 1904 0
ipcomp 2212 0
ipcomp6 2214 0
xfrm_ipcomp 5148 2 ipcomp,ipcomp6
xfrm6_tunnel 7935 1 ipcomp6
tunnel6 2712 1 xfrm6_tunnel
af_key 27834 0
joydev 10976 0
btusb 12969 2
bluetooth 58557 9 rfcomm,sco,bnep,l2cap,btusb
snd_hda_codec_atihdmi 3055 1
pcmcia 35548 0
snd_hda_codec_idt 63628 1
dell_wmi 2177 0
snd_hda_intel 23832 4
arc4 1473 2
snd_hda_codec 99515 3 snd_hda_codec_atihdmi,snd_hda_codec_idt,snd_hda_in tel
snd_hwdep 6938 1 snd_hda_codec
snd_pcm_oss 40377 0
snd_mixer_oss 16314 1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_pcm 87757 4 snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_pcm_oss
snd_seq_dummy 1910 0
snd_seq_oss 31714 0
snd_seq_midi 5797 0
snd_rawmidi 23161 1 snd_seq_midi
snd_seq_midi_event 7267 2 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi
fbcon 39270 71
snd_seq 57972 6 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_mid i_event
tileblit 2487 1 fbcon
iwlagn 121641 0
font 8053 1 fbcon
iwlcore 124955 1 iwlagn
snd_timer 23085 2 snd_pcm,snd_seq
tifm_sd 9628 0
fglrx 2353166 44
uvcvideo 62467 0
videodev 40518 1 uvcvideo
yenta_socket 22901 1
dell_laptop 7941 0
v4l1_compat 15495 2 uvcvideo,videodev
tifm_7xx1 4674 0
v4l2_compat_ioctl32 10811 1 videodev
tifm_core 7654 2 tifm_sd,tifm_7xx1
bitblit 5811 1 fbcon
snd_seq_device 7176 5 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_rawmidi ,snd_seq
psmouse 64576 0
softcursor 1565 1 bitblit
mac80211 238416 2 iwlagn,iwlcore
rsrc_nonstatic 9830 1 yenta_socket
sdhci_pci 6700 0
dcdbas 6886 1 dell_laptop
sdhci 17928 1 sdhci_pci
led_class 3764 2 iwlcore,sdhci
snd 72455 21 snd_hda_codec_idt,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_ hwdep,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_seq_du mmy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq,s nd_timer,snd_seq_device
vga16fb 12757 1
serio_raw 4950 0
vgastate 9857 1 vga16fb
pcmcia_core 38176 3 pcmcia,yenta_socket,rsrc_nonstatic
soundcore 8052 1 snd
cfg80211 148546 3 iwlagn,iwlcore,mac80211
snd_page_alloc 8692 2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm
video 20623 0
output 2503 1 video
lp 9336 0
parport 37160 2 ppdev,lp
usbhid 41084 0
hid 83408 1 usbhid
ohci1394 30260 0
ieee1394 94771 1 ohci1394
tg3 122382 0


Greetings,
Thijs

[atkaper]

Hi Gargoulf,



The card reader still doesn't work.
Any hint?


Hmmm, no, sorry... Perhaps there's more info for you in this thread ( but of course you probably already found that one... :-) ):

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=420721&page=3

Hope it helps. By the way, did you try an SD card in there (with/without the tricks) ? It's possible that an XD card needs a different hack, some readers actually have two different reader devices in them...

Greetings,
Thijs.

[Gargoulf]

Hi guys,

Good news: Internal mic pb is SOLVED!

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/alsa-driver/+bug/519066

[atkaper]

@Gargoulf; any luck with fixing your XD card?
Greetings, Thijs.

[Gargoulf]

No, no progress about XD card.
Finally, I feel that 10.04 has many bugs and is not able to deal with the latest hardwares (fingerprint, touchpad, card reader, etc...). Hope this will be corrected in next release.

Cheers,
G.

[Gargoulf]

Dear all,

I copy-paste here the description of a pb on boot that also affects me somethimes. Do you get same kind of freezing and has one of you find any solution? Seems its not only on M6500 but all PC under ubuntu 10.04.

"Occasionally my Ubuntu 10.04 PC won't boot properly. It gets past Grub and then stops at a blank screen and blinking cursor. From what I've read, this blinking cursor screen is presented by Ubuntu itself and not Grub, so I assume the boot process gets halted for some reason. Has anyone any guidance on how to diagnose this issue or what the cause is likely to be? Normally I need to press the reset button to reboot the PC and often it will reboot fine. The fact that it is intermittent is what confuses me."

Thanks very much!
G.

[atkaper]

Do you get same kind of freezing and has one of you find any solution? Seems its not only on M6500 but all PC under ubuntu 10.04.

I have had this kind of freezing a couple of times, but not in the last couple of weeks (or even months?) anymore... My guess is that it's some kind of hardware initialization timing issue. I have not searched for a fix, as it doesn't happen that often.

Greetings,
Thijs.

[nataraj88]

Hi Nataraj,



Here are the modules loaded on my system, if there's any speed improvements possible, I'm of course interested to hear about them ;-)


Greetings,
Thijs

I don't see any of the SATA drivers that are on the kernel.org website loaded on your system. I'm sure there's a driver loaded, I just don't recognize it.

My understanding is that there is a way to change the bios on the m6500 to use the native Intel device instead of generic emulation. I would definitely backup my disks before changing this setting.

https://ata.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Hardware,_driver_status



Nataraj

[Maurizio_Giunti]

Hi,

I run Ubuntu 10.4 64 bit on a Dell Precision M6500.
Everything works great on my system but the Standby: once it goes in standby it cannot wake up.
Wake up process starts but stop after few seconds. I can see a line of coloured dots at the top of the screen but the laptop is freezed and I have to switch it off.

In few (very rare) cases, it happened to work well, but usually it freezes.

Do your M6500 standby function work well?

Cheers,
Maurizio

[tahu363]

Hey guys. Just did a clean install of 10.10 and am sad to report that I am having the SAME EXACT issues :( CD/DVD drive wont detect blank DVDs, touchpad is erratic, all the issues present in 10.04 seem to have carried over. Still testing stuff out, and I'll keep you updated, but its not looking good :(

[Gargoulf]

Hi,
Upgraded from 10.04 32bits to 10.10. At least one good news: microphone bug is solved without need of ppa alsa versions.
Haven't tested other stuff yet

[Gargoulf]

Hi again,
Lot's of noise about multitouch in ubuntu 10.10....but how to enable/test it? Installed utouch (not by default) but then??? Serious lack of info here!!

[tahu363]

Have you tested out you CD/DVD drive? Its never worked for me... Also, I would also like the info on enabling multitouch - my trackpad is still buggy :( Anyone?

[@xi0m]

Subscribed.

How is the video performance in 10.10 with an ATI M7740?

I have a M6500 with
Core i7 Q820
12 GB RAM
ATI M7740

Thanks!

[smarts53]

I tried installing ubuntu 10.10 on my precision 6500 today and when the ubuntu splash screen starts for the live cd, I get a very messed up screen. The screen rapidly flickers many different colored bands across the screen distorting the entire video image. It looks like almost colored static. I connected the laptop to an external monitor which worked fine. I then tried installing 9.04 which worked perfectly. I updated this to 9.10 which also worked perfectly. I then updated again to 10.04. This time I got the strange video problem. I then tried booting into recovery mode with failsafe graphics settings. The video then appears to work but my mouse and keyboard do nothing. The laptop has an ATI FirePro M7820 graphics card.

I have no idea what to do, any help is hugely appreciated!

Ian

[jblaze]

I tried installing ubuntu 10.10 on my precision 6500 today and when the ubuntu splash screen starts for the live cd, I get a very messed up screen. The screen rapidly flickers many different colored bands across the screen distorting the entire video image. It looks like almost colored static. I connected the laptop to an external monitor which worked fine. I then tried installing 9.04 which worked perfectly. I updated this to 9.10 which also worked perfectly. I then updated again to 10.04. This time I got the strange video problem. I then tried booting into recovery mode with failsafe graphics settings. The video then appears to work but my mouse and keyboard do nothing. The laptop has an ATI FirePro M7820 graphics card.

I have no idea what to do, any help is hugely appreciated!

Ian

Same issue here with same graphics card. Just tried 10.10 64bit with distorted video out after boot. Switching login screens (via alt-F1) doesn't fix anything either. I tried removing splash quiet from the boot options and do see the normal boot messages up to the point where X11 attempts to start. Must be something up with this M7820 / video drivers. No clue as to what to try next so I may just have to go back to one of the pre 10.04, LTS releases for now. Anyone have any other suggestions?

[johanhp]

I had the same issue.

Fixed it by adding: radeon.new_pll=0 to my kernel boot commands.

[@xi0m]

I finally took the plunge and installed 10.10 on my 6500. Everything is working fine including the 3D acceleration and my RAID1 array.

I have WINE installed and are running EVE Online and Team Fortress 2 perfectly.

[jblaze]

I had the same issue.

Fixed it by adding: radeon.new_pll=0 to my kernel boot commands.

That worked like a charm! Typing this post from my 10.10 install. I was even able to install the proprietary driver afterwards (totally expecting that to bonk out and cause me to have to reinstall) which worked as well. Thanks alot!

[@xi0m]

That worked like a charm! Typing this post from my 10.10 install. I was even able to install the proprietary driver afterwards (totally expecting that to bonk out and cause me to have to reinstall) which worked as well. Thanks alot!

Agreed. I was completely expecting the ATI drivers to bomb but they're actually working quite well.

[cbrinegar]

I have a work laptop that is a Dell Precision M6500 with the Intel i5 Core processor (kernel 2.6.32-27). It runs Ubuntu Linux 10.04 64-bit, and I cannot burn a CD or DVD with it. It seems not to recognize the blank disk in the drive. I know the disk is fine, because the same disk put into my desktop or IBM Thinkpad behaves normally (Nautilus asks what to do).

I have seen some posts implying the firmware for the DVDRW drive may not be playing nicely. I'm curious if anyone has figured out a fix for this problem.

[jisaac]

Did someone test:
http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/hardware/201004-5601

I mean, did someone ask to DELL the special image of Ubuntu?

[CedricFR]

Hello,

I called Dell for my Dell Precision M6500 because I had screen bug when I want to install Ubuntu 10.04 32 Bits LTS.
They reply that image is only for pre installed system and that they can't give me this system image.
They said me that the computer can use Ubuntu 9.04 without problem.

So I had installed an Ubuntu 9.04, next upgrade to 9.10 and add the amd proprietary driver for my ATI FirePro M7740, and next I upgrade to 10.04 LTS.

The computer is now using Ubuntu 10.04 without screen problem. :popcorn:

Cédric

(Excuse me for my poor english :rolleyes:)

[jisaac]

Hi CedricFR,

You're probably interested by testing this image too (It's supposed to be ok with the M6500):
http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/download.aspx?c=us&cs=08W&l=en&s=bsdv&releaseid=R284592&SystemID=LAT2120&servicetag=&os=WN104&osl=en&deviceid=26290&devlib=0&typecnt=0&vercnt=1&catid=-1&impid=-1&formatcnt=0&libid=58&typeid=-1&dateid=-1&formatid=-1&source=-1&fileid=421648

See also this thread:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1141757&page=21

Or if you want to make your own iso see this link:
http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/software-os/w/linux/building-base-ubuntu-factory-iso.aspx

[CedricFR]

Hi Jisaac

Thanks for links, I try to use 10.04 in all my company computer, it's more easy to my team.

I'll look for a canonical image, but now I had give the M6500 to the user which need it.

If we bought another one I'll try to build an iso with ATI drivers.

Thanks for your help

Cédric

[robisaks]

Has any one tried using Virtual Box on these? I've been struggling off and on trying to get it to work for a few months. I've tinkered with the settings a million times and toyed with the BIOS too.

I started a thread on the virtual box forums (not much help):
http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=36753

And I opened a ticket with virtual box (also not much help):
http://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/8487

(on a side note, when I disabled hyper threading in the bios, ubuntu's system monitor only displayed 2 CPUs, but virtualbox saw 4)