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Ubuntu Feisty Installation - Dell Inspiron 1520

It’s been quite sometime that I installed Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn on Dell Inspiron 1520. My experience with this Ubuntu installation has been good and I have got Compiz Fusion working this time (something I could not do before).

Installation was slightly problematic with Feisty, since the Live CD did not boot at all. It failed after I pressed “Enter to Install” and I had to search for available solutions for this problem. I solved the problem by following the steps provided here. The workaround provided helped me out and I could boot using Live CD and installed Ubuntu Feisty subsequently. No problems after the boot process. Installation was simple and straightforward and completed in 18-20 minutes.

Now, since many essential features were missing, so first thing I had to do was to install those missing packages. So, I needed to update the packages list or apt-get should I say. But I did not choose apt-get, instead I selected Smart Package Manager this time. I have had a very good experience with smartpm previously, so decided to try it out this time on Ubuntu as well. I haven’t faced any problems till now, in fact I’m impressed with Smart Package Manager. I find it better since as per my experience, it resolves package dependencies better and I never faced any version conflicts which I faced otherwise with apt-get at times.

Here’s how you can configure smart package manager to add apt-get channels available in default sources.list file:

Issue all these smart commands as root.

smart channel --edit

Now add the following repositories:


[aptsync-a30ca3197e720a6180d50388c93162f8]
type = apt-deb
name = feisty - free non-free
baseurl = http://packages.medibuntu.org/
distribution = feisty
components = free non-free


[deb-sys]
type = deb-sys
name = DEB System


[feisty-backports]
type = apt-deb
name = feisty - backports
baseurl = http://in.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/
distribution = feisty-backports
components = main restricted universe multiverse


[feisty-main]
type = apt-deb
name = feisty - main
baseurl = http://in.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/
distribution = feisty
components = main restricted universe multiverse


[feisty-security]
type = apt-deb
name = feisty - security
baseurl = http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu
distribution = feisty-security
components = main restricted universe multiverse


[feisty-updates]
type = apt-deb
name = feisty-updates
baseurl = http://in.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/
distribution = feisty-updates
components = main restricted universe multiverse


[medibuntu]
type = apt-deb
name = medibuntu-updates
baseurl = http://medibuntu.sos-sts.com/repo/
distribution = feisty
components = free non-free

After adding all the sources, I updated smartpm using the following command:

smart update

First, I installed envy to fetch the Nvidia Graphics Driver. Envy worked extremely smoothly and setup everything automatically without requiring any manual edit of xorg.conf file. So, I got the wide screen 1440×900 resolution setup correctly. Later, I used the Amaranth repository to setup Compiz Fusion on the system. But I had to remove the other 3D desktop packages like Desktop effects, beryl before that. Then I followed this link to install the Compiz Fusion package and it worked without further issues. Here are some screen shots: Screenshot 1, Screenshot 2, Screenshot 3

Smart worked well for the installation of other essential packages as well; you can refer this page for the list of essential packages like DVD support, Multimedia audio codecs, mplayer, banshee, flash plugin, java plugin, vlc, rar archives: http://ubuntuguide.org

One problem that I noticed on Ubuntu Feisty is that I get less battery life for my laptop using the same settings (screen brightness, hdd activity) that I have on Windows Vista Premium. Another issues is the alsamixer, bluetooth and the microphone. Even when I plugged in the headphone, sound used to come through speakers, so I had to upgrade ALSA manually as instructed at this link.

Sound problem was resolved, but the bluetooth and microphone are still not working. Moreover, there is a problem with the power management functions. If the system goes into sleep mode, it does not resume, you get blank screen. I could not find any solution for this problem.

Otherwise, it’s a nice distribution over all.

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