Talk:Dell XPS M1330

Fresh install - Milan 08 2009

I bought the laptop off Trademe and it had some weird graphical output problems on startup, something to do with a "SmallLimp" "Blista".

So I decided to do a fresh install by downloading the 64bit Ubuntu 9.04 off Ubuntu.com onto my other laptop a.k.a. "pancake" and turning the .iso into a file installable off memory stick using the "Create bootable USB" application that comes natively with Ubuntu. In under 10 minutes after downloading the .iso, I had installed a fresh 64-bit Ubuntu onto my newly acquired M1330!

• http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu:Jaunty Very good Ubuntu guide!

Post-Install

Next, I added the Dell repository to my sources list:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/dell-team/ubuntu jaunty main deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/dell-team/ubuntu jaunty main

Then update and upgrade as usual,

apt-get update apt-get upgrade

Then it was time to subscribe to the od-workstation package:

• http://packages.organicdesign.co.nz/main/organicdesign-workstation.deb (click and open with GDebi package manager)

Following this, I enabled proprietary hardware drivers for 3d acceleration: System >> Administration >> Hardware Drivers

• Now I went through Ubuntu Post Install steps
• Install Skype

wget -O skype-install.deb http://www.skype.com/go/getskype-linux-ubuntu
sudo dpkg -i --force-all skype-install.deb 

• search and install using Synaptic
  • libqt4-gui

Data transfer

Once all the updates have installed it is time to transfer all the data across.

• Backup Evolution File --> Backup settings... to /Home/Desktop
• Remove the drive from the existing computer and place in HD enclosure
• Boot up freshly installed system and connect drive in enclosure
• Open terminal as root, copy files across from old hard drive, e.g.

cp -pR '/media/disk/home/user' '/home/user/backup'

• If you want to keep an eye on the data transfer as it is happening, you can use:

du -sh '/home/user/backup'

• Once the data has been transferred, you may need to change all the permissions to the new user:

chown user:user -R '/home/user/backup/user'

Restore applications and settings

• Copy backup folders into new Home:
  • Firefox profile (.mozilla/firefox)
  • Transmission (For the GTK+ client, all settings are kept in $HOME/.config/transmission)
  • F-Spot (problem importing photos, need to sort this out ;-( )
  • Pidgin (.purple)(!)
  • RhythmBox music player (~/.gnome2/rhythmbox/)
• Run Evolution and use backed up data file to restore settings and data

Add/remove

• GStreamer ffmpeg video plugin
• Acrobat reader 9
• Amarok
• Planner
• Asunder (CD Ripper) very slow! I miss the juicer!
  • Requires "lame"
• GStreamer plugins
  • mp3
  • quicktime
  • Xvid
  • aac
• Install hacked Wine from here.
• Force i386 install using

sudo dpkg -i --force-all '/home/user/Desktop/hacked_wine_1.1.6-1_i386.deb'

Restore scripts and config

• Pidgin emotes
  • If running Pidgin you can File:Od-pidgin-theme.zip which is currently just all the Skype ones (we've all been using mainly skype until now and would like to keep the same emoticons). It's a zipped up folder called "OD" which should be unpacked into /usr/share/pixmaps/pidgin/emotes. You'll need to make the emotes folder writable first with chmod 777 /usr/share/pixmaps/pidgin/emotes.
• Sources.list
• Key files
• Set VLC to default
  • Set your preferred multimedia application to VLC:
  • Open System, Preferences, Preferred Applications, then change to Multimedia tab, choose Custom, and enter vlc.
• Set up HP PSC 1315 Printer
  • Download hplip from http://hplipopensource.com/hplip-web/index.html

Issues and workarounds

• Fix Skype audio problem

killall pulseaudio
sudo apt-get remove pulseaudio
sudo apt-get install esound
sudo rm /etc/X11/Xsession.d/70pulseaudio

• Add a line to alsa-base

sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf

• Add

options snd-hda-intel model=dell-bios

Then hit save.