[papajon]

I am an experienced Ubuntu user. I inherited a Dell Inspiron Mini 910 with the original Ubuntu 8.04 installed. I want to do a clean install of Ubuntu 11.04 but I seem to recall Dell messing with hardware in some way so that only their version of Ubuntu would work (??). Any known issues? I am going to try it using a thumb drive first but thought I would start here. I assume the standard 32bit version is the one to install. The Broadcom doesn't seem to work on the original.

Any help greatly appreciated.

Papajon

[eriknilsson]

Hey!

I installed Ubuntu 11.04 today without any issues. Wifi is working with the Broadcom STA drivers. The only issue I've been having is that whenever I unplug the power cord the computer goes to sleep. Is there a fix for this?

//Erik

[papajon]

Yes. I also installed 11.04 on the mini9 with no issues. Wireless worked out of the box. I don't have power off issues when I unplug. Battery bad?

I want to upgrade to 2GB ram also.

[eriknilsson]

Ok for some reason the computer has stopped going to sleep after unplugging the power. I was wondering if you have tried getting the two finger scrolling working? I haven't had any luck with it today.

I've thought about upgrading the ram but haven't done it yet. Would probably make the computer quite a bit speedier, but I think I'll be using the money to get a larger SSD. I'm using the stock 16GB that came with the mini.

[papajon]

I haven't tried 2 finger scrolling - not even real sure what it is other than a way to scroll on a touchpad - no? I don't think the ram is very expensive if you can find them. RunCore has drives for the mini up to 128gb with pretty good specs, but the high end ones cost more than the mini.

[lswartz]

I'm glad you both have Natty working. I am well pleased with Lucid which required a broadcom download for the wireless to work. I never let mine sleep so I'm not much help there. How do you get 2 fingers on the touch pad to scroll? There is only room for 1 on mine but it works well.

[eriknilsson]

Yeah it is pretty cramped but I had it working when I was messing around with mac os x on the mini. There's a setting for 2 finger scrolling under the mouse settings in the control center in Ubuntu but selecting that didn't do anything. But I think I'll be sticking with the edge scrolling for the time being.

As for the mini suspending when the power is unplugged it seems to only happen when the battery is slightly discharged. I tried it today with the battery at 40% and when I unplugged it I got a message that there was only 1 minute of power remaining and the mini suspended but woke up without needing the power cord and showed over an hour of battery life left.

---------- Post added at 12:11 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:03 AM ----------

I've found another issue. I can't get an external display to function properly. I wonder if it's an issue with drivers. Will have to do some digging to try to find a solution.

[reflex]

Originally Posted by eriknilsson

I've found another issue. I can't get an external display to function properly. I wonder if it's an issue with drivers. Will have to do some digging to try to find a solution.

Login, plugin an external display, then open a terminal. In the terminal window, run "xrandr". It should give you info about the connected displays.

As another test, run "xrandr --output VGA1 --auto --right-of LVDS1". This should activate the VGA output, at its preferred resolution (--auto), and place it to the right of the onboard display (LVDS).

[dkazia]

I just installed 11.04 over 8.04 with no problems. Everything works just fine. I don't have a CD drive, so had to create a bootable USB stick.

[bpage]

does anyone have a step by step guide for this install? I have a dell mini 9 running Mac OSX 10.5.6, having issues getting my USB stick to boot.