Installing Fedora 4 on a Dell Inspiron 9300 laptop certainly isn't flawless, but with a modicum of effort it's possible to get it working - after which time it's a great system!
After the first reboot (which occurs mid-way through the installation) my laptop failed to boot. It just stopped after this message:
GRUB Loading stage2....
To remedy this, I used the rescue mode to run:
chroot /mnt/sysimage
grub-install
After rebooting, the install continued as if nothing had been wrong.
The Wireless network card didn't work. The ipw2200 kernel module gave an error message when it was loaded. The error message can be found with:
dmesg | grep ipw2200
ipw2200: Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2200/2915 Network Driver, 1.0.0
ipw2200: Copyright(c) 2003-2004 Intel Corporation
ipw2200: Detected Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection
ipw2200: ipw-2.2-boot.fw load failed: Reason -2
ipw2200: Unable to load firmware: 0xFFFFFFFE
ipw2200: failed to register network device
ipw2200: probe of 0000:03:03.0 failed with error -5
To remedy the wireless network problem I first had to install the relevant firmware. It is available at: ipw2200.sourceforge.net
rpm -i ipw2200-firmware-2.2-5.at.noarch.rpm
Then I had to create/edit: /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-dev20588. I used a combination of hand-editing & using:
system-config-network
My ifcfg-dev20588 file looks like this:
IPV6INIT=no ONBOOT=no USERCTL=no PEERDNS=yes GATEWAY= TYPE=Wireless DEVICE=dev20588 HWADDR=00:13:ce:19:89:37 BOOTPROTO=dhcp NETMASK= IPADDR= DOMAIN= ESSID= CHANNEL=7 MODE=Auto # RATE=Auto RATE=
Create /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/keys-dev20588
KEY=$insert_your_WEP_key_here
Make sure there is NO "s:" prefix in the key value! (I think the system-config-network command puts this in.)
After that, you should be able to issue either of these commands to get the wireless network running.
ifup dev20588
/etc/rc.d/init.d/network restart
system-config-display
I kept getting 1280x864 resolution (which meant the virtual root window was larger than the actual screen size) regardless of the resolution I asked for. You can find out the resolution with:
xdpyinfo | grep dimension
In the end I had to hand-edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf. But first I had to work out the appropriate Modeline for 1440x900 resolution:
gtf 1440 900 60
Which gave output of:
# 1440x900 @ 60.00 Hz (GTF) hsync: 55.92 kHz; pclk: 106.47 MHz
Modeline "1440x900_60.00" 106.47 1440 1520 1672 1904 900 901 904 932 -HSync +Vsync
After adding this line to my /etc/X11/xorg.conf file & changing a few other minor things it looks like this:
# Xorg configuration created by system-config-display Section "ServerLayout" Identifier "single head configuration" Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0 InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer" InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard" InputDevice "Synaptics" "AlwaysCore" EndSection Section "Files" # RgbPath is the location of the RGB database. Note, this is the name of the # file minus the extension (like ".txt" or ".db"). There is normally # no need to change the default. # Multiple FontPath entries are allowed (they are concatenated together) # By default, Red Hat 6.0 and later now use a font server independent of # the X server to render fonts. RgbPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb" FontPath "unix/:7100" EndSection Section "Module" Load "dbe" Load "extmod" Load "fbdevhw" Load "glx" Load "record" Load "freetype" Load "type1" Load "synaptics" Load "dri" EndSection Section "InputDevice" # Specify which keyboard LEDs can be user-controlled (eg, with xset(1)) # Option "Xleds" "1 2 3" # To disable the XKEYBOARD extension, uncomment XkbDisable. # Option "XkbDisable" # To customise the XKB settings to suit your keyboard, modify the # lines below (which are the defaults). For example, for a non-U.S. # keyboard, you will probably want to use: # Option "XkbModel" "pc102" # If you have a US Microsoft Natural keyboard, you can use: # Option "XkbModel" "microsoft" # # Then to change the language, change the Layout setting. # For example, a german layout can be obtained with: # Option "XkbLayout" "de" # or: # Option "XkbLayout" "de" # Option "XkbVariant" "nodeadkeys" # # If you'd like to switch the positions of your capslock and # control keys, use: # Option "XkbOptions" "ctrl:swapcaps" # Or if you just want both to be control, use: # Option "XkbOptions" "ctrl:nocaps" # Identifier "Keyboard0" Driver "kbd" Option "XkbModel" "pc105" Option "XkbLayout" "us" EndSection Section "InputDevice" Identifier "Mouse0" Driver "mouse" Option "Protocol" "IMPS/2" Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice" Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5" Option "Emulate3Buttons" "yes" EndSection Section "InputDevice" Identifier "Synaptics" Driver "synaptics" Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice" Option "Protocol" "auto-dev" Option "Emulate3Buttons" "yes" Option "LeftEdge" "120" Option "RightEdge" "830" Option "TopEdge" "120" Option "BottomEdge" "650" Option "FingerLow" "14" Option "FingerHigh" "15" Option "MaxTapMove" "110" Option "VertScrollDelta" "20" Option "HorizScrollDelta" "20" Option "MinSpeed" "0.3" Option "MaxSpeed" "0.75" EndSection Section "Modes" Identifier "16:10" # 1440x900 @ 60.00 Hz (GTF) hsync: 55.92 kHz; pclk: 106.47 MHz Modeline "1440x900_60.00" 106.47 1440 1520 1672 1904 900 901 904 932 -HSync +Vsync EndSection Section "Monitor" Identifier "Monitor0" VendorName "Monitor Vendor" ModelName "LCD Panel 1440x900" UseModes "16:10" DisplaySize 505 315 HorizSync 31.5 - 100.0 VertRefresh 59.0 - 75.0 Option "dpms" EndSection Section "Device" Identifier "Videocard0" Driver "radeon" VendorName "Videocard vendor" BoardName "ATI Radeon X300" EndSection Section "Screen" Identifier "Screen0" Device "Videocard0" Monitor "Monitor0" DefaultDepth 24 SubSection "Display" Viewport 0 0 Depth 24 # Modes "1920x1200" "1920x1440" "1680x1050" "1600x1200" "1400x1050" "1280x960" "1280x800" "1280x1024" "1152x864" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" Modes "1440x900" EndSubSection EndSection Section "DRI" Group 0 Mode 0666 EndSection
The soundcard didn't appear to work when running:
system-config-soundcard
but all I had to do was run
alsamixer
& enable the external amplifier. (press 'm' to toggle)
To play MP3 files I had to install the xmms-mp3 package:
The Ctrl-Alt-Fn keys won't work properly.
To solve this, download this file to /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/libvgahw.a (make a backup first!) & restart X.
$Id: fedora4onInspiron9300.html,v 1.4 2005/10/30 22:53:56 ss Exp $
This page was written by Scott Smedley.