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/+s...er/+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/Troublesho...ling%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/t...d-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/t...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=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.

[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