Linux: Ubuntu 6.06 on Dell Latitude D610
I just installed Ubuntu 6.06 on my Dell Latitude D610. I love it! You start with a live CD. Hence, you can "try before you buy". Then, when you're ready, you double-click the "Install" icon; you don't even have to burn another CD.
Compared to Ubuntu 5.10, a lot of polish has been added. Since I came from a Fedora background, I was impressed to see that Ubuntu has caught up with all the polish that Fedora has (graphical installer, graphical boot, etc.). Furthermore, despite the fact that I installed it the day after it came out, the Wiki had already been updated with instructions on how to get deal with proprietary formats such as MP3s, Windows video, Flash, etc.
As far as hardware goes, everything pretty much just worked--even hibernate and suspend! To support the builtin wireless, I had to use NDIS. Here are my abbreviated instructions:
Compared to Ubuntu 5.10, a lot of polish has been added. Since I came from a Fedora background, I was impressed to see that Ubuntu has caught up with all the polish that Fedora has (graphical installer, graphical boot, etc.). Furthermore, despite the fact that I installed it the day after it came out, the Wiki had already been updated with instructions on how to get deal with proprietary formats such as MP3s, Windows video, Flash, etc.
As far as hardware goes, everything pretty much just worked--even hibernate and suspend! To support the builtin wireless, I had to use NDIS. Here are my abbreviated instructions:
Add the ndiswrapper-utils package.All in all, I'm stoked. :)
Download the driver from ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/network/R102320.EXE.
mkdir driver
cd driver
unzip ../R102320.EXE
ndiswrapper -i bcmwl5.inf
ndiswrapper -l
ndiswrapper -m
Reboot. I'm not sure if this is necessary.
Setup the network settings as usual.
If the card doesn't work, make sure you didn't hit some function key that turns off the wireless in the BIOS.
Comments
See here for complete instructions. Here are my abbreviated instructions:
echo 'blacklist bcm43xx' |
sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
rmmod bcm43xx
rmmod ndiswrapper
Installed ndiswrapper-utils.
Used driver from here.
mkdir driver
cd driver
unzip ../R102320.EXE
ndiswrapper -i bcmwl5.inf
ndiswrapper -l
ndiswrapper -m
modprobe ndiswrapper
Setup the network settings as usual.
If the card doesn't work, make sure you didn't hit some function key that turns off the wireless in the BIOS.
I have the same setup as you. Ubuntu LTS 6.06 on a Dell Laptop D610. I am curious which graphics card you got with your laptop. I personally have the ATI one and I'm having some issues with the driver (right now I'm using dropin .so replacement as suggested somewhere in the forums, but I get a bug everytime I launch open-office).
Cheers
Ubuntu is based on Debian, of course ;)