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Dell Vostro V131
Introduction
This is a compatibility guide to running Linux with the Dell Vostro V131 laptop.
This page is just for discussing using Linux on the Dell Vostro V131. For a general discussion about this laptop you can visit the Dell Vostro V131 page on LapWik.
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Specifications
For full specifications see the Dell Vostro V131 specifications page.
| Name | Dell Vostro V131 |
| Processor | Intel® Celeron® Dual Core (847) or Intel® CORE i5 or Intel® CORE i7 |
| Screen | 13.3” (1366×768) Widescreen |
| RAM | Up to 2GB |
| HDD | up to 320GB |
| Optical Drive | None |
| Graphics | Intel HD 2000 Graphics |
| Network | 10/100/1000 Ethernet 802.11 b/g/n |
Linux Compatibility
| Device | Compatibility | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Fingerprint reader | No driver | Built in |
| Processor | Tested | Intel® CORE i5 |
| Screen | Tested | |
| HDD | Tested | 120GB SDD |
| Graphics | Tested | |
| Sound | Tested | |
| Ethernet | Tested | |
| Wireless | Tested | |
| Bluetooth | Tested | |
| Modem | Not Tested | |
| Leds | Tested | |
| Function-keys | Tested | |
| USB | Tested | |
| Card Reader | Tested | |
| Webcam | Tested | |
| Built in UMTS Modem | Not Tested |
Notes
Ubuntu 11.04 and 11.10, Linux Mint Debian Edition, Debian 6.0, ArchBang 2011.11, ROSA Desktop.Fresh 2012 work out of the box.
Battery life is about 7 hours using the 6 cell version.
Suspend / resume is working.
Summary
Well built and quiet Linux laptop. Fan does not even turn on when doing normal office and internet stuff.
Discussion
I'm using it with “ROSA 2012 desktop.fresh” linux (it's my second laptop, first is with ROSA linux to). Everything works fine.
Hi,
Bluetooth works fine for me, but does not work on resuming from suspend. Other than that, everything is as described above - 5.5 hour battery life with the i5 spec.
Any thoughts on how to fix the bluetooth problem on resuming from suspend?
Cheers
Aravind
I have solved this restarting the bluetooth deamon:
/etc/init.d/bluetooth restart
Another note: my touchpad was very jumpy with multitouch scrolling. The defaults turned out to be too sensitive and the pad was reporting touch when my finger was close but not touching. Check your settings with:
synclient | grep -i finger
My FingerLow/FingerHigh were set to 25/30, but setting both to 50 gave better results:
synclient fingerhigh=50 fingerlow=50
To make those settings permanent in Wheezy, create the file /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/synaptics.conf with the contents:
Section "InputClass" Identifier "Touchpad" # required MatchIsTouchpad "yes" # required Driver "synaptics" # required Option "SHMConfig" "true" Option "FingerHigh" "50" Option "FingerLow" "50" EndSection…and reboot or otherwise restart the X server.
The SHMConfig entry also allows you to test your settings with:
synclient -m 100
…to find the optimum pressure settings for your specific pad.
Works with Debian Wheezy too. Everything works as stated above on Core i3 version. The HD 3000 graphics driver works with Gnome 3 out of the box and gives smooth desktop effects. Also plays 1080p Youtube videos fullscreen without stuttering, and works well with Google Earth. Built-in microphones and webcam work well in Skype and Google Talk.
Volume, screen brightness, keyboard backlight and wireless enable function keys work.
Wireless doesn't work out of the box. Install the firmware-iwlwifi package from the non-free repository (via ethernet) then reboot.
7-hour battery life with the 6-cell is unrealistic IMHO. I'm seeing closer to 4. Installing laptop-mode-tools and some aggressive settings (30-minute write cache, 60-second HD spindown) eek it out to 5.
Vostro 131 works pretty well with Xubuntu 11.10. Two major issues:
1) The network manager is losing WPA key all the time. Replaced with WICD, pretty stable connection so far.
1) Blueman does not see built-in bluetooth adapter though Ubuntu 11.04 works fine with bluetooth. No solution yet. Upgraded Blueman to the latest version (1.23), no changes.
BTW, Fedora 16 (USB startup disk) can see bluetooth, pairing with headset is OK but the network manager is losing WPA key all the time (like in Xubuntu 11.10).
Vostro 131 works fine with Debian Squeeze. The leds, the Webcam,the microphone, the touchpad,the bluetooth and the function-keys are working fine too.
I have not tested the modem UMTS and the fingerprint