Dell Inspiron 1420
Created by: Bill Giannikos,Last modification on Sat 13 of Oct, 2007 [04:51 UTC]
This guide is intended to provide you details on how well this laptop works with Linux and which drivers you need to configure. For details on how to actually install and configure the required drivers have a look at our guides section for distribution specific instructions.
Author
Bill Giannikos (bill2 at giannikos.com.au)Introduction
This is a guide to running Linux with the Dell Inspiron 1420 laptop.Editing This Page
View our Editing GuidelinesSpecifications
| Name | Dell Inspiron 1420 | |
| Processor | Intel Core 2 Duo T7500 2.2GHz | |
| Screen | 14.1" WXGA+ | |
| RAM | 2GB | |
| HDD | 160GB | |
| Optical Drive | DVD+-RW | |
| Graphics | Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100 | |
| Network | 10/100 Ethernet, Intel 3945 802.11g Wireless, Bluetooth | |
| Other | 4 x USB2.0, 1 x Firewire | |
Linux Compatibility
| Device | Compatibility | Comments |
| Processor | Yes | |
| Screen | Yes | |
| HDD | Yes | |
| Optical Drive | Yes | |
| Graphics | Yes | See notes below |
| Sound | Yes | Use the snd-hda-intel driver |
| Ethernet | Yes | |
| Wireless | Yes | Use the ipw3945 driver |
| Bluetooth | Not Tested | |
| 56K Modem | Not Tested | |
| USB | Yes | |
| Firewire | Not Tested | |
| Card Reader | Not Tested | |
Notes
Dell have released a customised version of Ubuntu 7.04 designed for this laptop. You can find it here. Be careful with this though as certain configurations of the 1420 may not be fully supported (see the Dell page for details).If you are about to buy the Inspiron 1420 laptop try to configure it with the Intel 3945 wireless controller rather than the Dell 1390. The former has much better drivers available.
The Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100 in many models of the 1420 is not fully supported by most Linux distributions. Dell's version of Ubuntu (see above) does not have this issue and the upcoming Ubuntu 7.10 and Fedora 8 shouldn't have this issue either. In the standard Ubuntu 7.04 you need to use the xserver-xorg-video-intel driver. I will have a guide for other distributions hopefully in the next few days.
Some versions of this laptop have the Nvidia Geforce 8400M GS. This does not currently work with the open source 'nv' driver so you will need to use the proprietary driver. I do not know if Dell's Ubuntu distribution fixes this issue.
Related Resources
Preparing your laptop for LinuxConfiguring a nVidia graphics chip
Configuring the ipw3945 driver for the Intel 3945ABG wireless controller
Increasing battery life
Summary
Thanks to Dell's commitment to Linux with the Inspiron 1420 this laptop works quite well with Linux. Of course the easiest install is to use Dell's remastered version of Ubuntu 7.04.Have you installed Linux on this laptop? If so how about leaving a comment about your success in the comments section below.
Comments