{"id":239,"date":"2009-03-28T16:44:53","date_gmt":"2009-03-28T23:44:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jamie.workingagenda.com\/blog\/?p=239"},"modified":"2018-10-22T12:30:47","modified_gmt":"2018-10-22T16:30:47","slug":"ubuntu-910-beta-on-dell-xps-m1530","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jamie.workingagenda.com\/blog\/2009\/03\/28\/ubuntu-910-beta-on-dell-xps-m1530\/","title":{"rendered":"Ubuntu 9.04, beta, on Dell XPS M1530"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/abbr>\n

I just installed Ubuntu 9.04, beta, on a Dell M1530. The install program asked if I wanted a dual boot configuration with the older 8.10 version, and I said yes. That resulted in a longer install, but it worked fine. Then I was asked if I wanted to migrate my data settings from the older partition. This was a nice option, but since I didn’t have much on the older partition, I couldn’t evaluate how well it works. <\/p>\n

I did notice right away the cursor worked fine, without having to tweak the grub loading commands, as was necessary for the m1530 for Ubuntu 8.10. Open Office 3.0<\/strong> is also supported, which is a good reason to consider upgrading when the final version is ready.<\/p>\n

I turned on the “partner” repositories, and installed the “Ubuntu restricted-extras” packages, which I highly recommend.<\/p>\n

I next went to www.medibuntu.org<\/a>, and followed the directions for adding the medibuntu repositories. <\/p>\n

I installed Cheese to see if the webcam<\/strong> worked, and it did, without any problems. More important for me, I used the Synaptic Package Manager, to install Skype<\/strong>, which I tested with a USB Logitech headset and also a USB VOIP phone. Skype recognized and used both devices without any problems. The voice quality from the USB Logitech headset was particularly good, which show shows the value of a good microphone. It also found and worked well with the m1530 webcam. The built-in webcam seems to work quite a bit better with skype than with cheese.<\/p>\n

So far, the beta version looks pretty polished, and it works better on this machine than did final 8.04 or 8.10 releases.<\/p>\n

The Dell XPS m1530 is in some ways a nicely designed machine. Mine has a very high resolution screen 15.4 inch screen, 1920 x 1200 (16:10), and a fast NVIDIA video card. It has a fingerprint reader you can configure for log-in, an SD\/MMC (8 in 1 they claim) memory card reader, built in web cam and microphone, bluetooth and lots of I\/O, including HMDI and S-Video for video. It is also pretty light, and has a decent keyboard. <\/p>\n

Despite all of this, right now I am using my older Dell 1420n, which is heavier, and has a smaller, but still pretty decent screen. The reason I switched back was that when using Ubuntu 8.10, the m1530 was not as dependable as the 1420n when I used suspend. And even more important, the battery life for the m1530 has been terrible for me, and this is a big deal when I travel.<\/p>\n

If I can resolve the battery issue, I would probably switch back to the XPS m1530. But for now, I am more comfortable using the older laptop.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just installed Ubuntu 9.04, beta, on a Dell M1530. The install program asked if I wanted a dual boot configuration with the older 8.10 version, and I said yes. That resulted in a longer install, but it worked fine. Then I was asked if I wanted to migrate my data settings from the older […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14],"tags":[28,29,30,19,18],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jamie.workingagenda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jamie.workingagenda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jamie.workingagenda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jamie.workingagenda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jamie.workingagenda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/jamie.workingagenda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1534,"href":"https:\/\/jamie.workingagenda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239\/revisions\/1534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jamie.workingagenda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jamie.workingagenda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jamie.workingagenda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}