This is a not-too-short list of pitfalls when installing linux on a DELL D630. This list may help others when they face similar issues.
Because I did not own the laptop on which I installed linux, I decided to go for wubi, which is a ubuntu (7.0.4) derivative. The major advantage of wubi is that it can install linux into files on a NTFS (Windows XP) partition, so I avoided messing with the partition table of someone elses computer.
I installed linux directly from the internet as described on the wubi http://wubi-installer.org/ homepage. As I used a WLAN connection to transfer of the corresponding files, this took approximately 3 h (for 690 MB).
After the installation, I first hid my linux installation from any administrator who could possibly mess with it. To do so, I edited c:\boot.ini. Before I could edit this file, I had to remove its write protection by using the command
C:\attrib -s -h -r boot.ini
on the command line (cmd). I then changed changed the line timeout=15 to timeout=0. After this manipulation, I changed the write protection back by entering
C:\attrib +s +h +r boot.ini .
After this step no curious admin will see a bootloader when my notebook starts. This also implies that I had to press F8 during startup to load the Windows XP boot manager, which had a menu entry that allowed me to load a different operating system. Apart from hiding the bootmanager, I also hid the directory c:\wubi (attrib +h c:\wubi) and two other files c:\wubildr and c:\wubildr.mbr (attrib +h c:\wubildr; attrib +h c:\wubildr.mbr).
Once I felt safe enough, I fixed an issue with the X-window server. Instead of a graphical environment, all I got was a blank screen and an error message. To overcome this problem, I used

1. lspci

to look up the graphics controller inside my laptop:
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile Memory Controller Hub (rev 0c)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 0c)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 0c) .
Apparently, my DELL D630 came with an Intel and not with an NVIDIA graphics controller. I looked up a solution for this issue on the internet and found that I had to
- replace my /etc/X11/xorg.conf by a version that can be found under http://shadowarts.nonlogic.org/projects/thinkpad/xorg.conf and
- upgrade the packages xserver-xorg-video-intel, linux, linux-headers,linux-modules etc. from Ubuntu version feisty (7.0.4)to Ubuntu gutsy (7.10). This requires a modification of /etc/apt/sources.list: I added the line
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu gutsy main restricted
to this file. Afterwards I entered

1. apt-get update

to rebuild the list of (Ubuntu) packages and installed the required packages:

1. apt-get -t gutsy install xserver-xorg-video-intel
2. apt-get -t gutsy install linux linux-generic linux-headers-generic linux-image-generic linux-restricted-modules-generic .

Since the 3rd command upgraded the kernel of the operating system from version 2.6.20 to version 2.6.22, I rebooted the system for the changes to take effect.
Upon reboot the X-server worked properly. Unfortunately the kernel upgrade broke the ALSA sound card support. This is also a known issue. To enable sound support, I had to download (wget ftp://ftp.alsa-project.org/pub/driver/alsa-driver-1.0.15rc3.tar.bz2) and compile the latest ALSA driver:

1. bzip2 -d alsa-driver-1.0.15rc3.tar.bz2
2. tar xvf alsa-driver-1.0.15rc3.tar
3. cd alsa-driver-1.0.15rc3.

Before I could compile the driver I had to download the C header files for the gcc compiler:

1. apt-get install build-essential .

Once I had both the source code of the driver and the compiler ready to use, I compiled and installed the driver sources

1. configure --with-cards=hda-intel
2. make
3. make install .
4. rm -r -f /lib/modules/2.6.22-14-generic/ubuntu/media/snd-hda-intel

I then adjusted 3 files:
The path to the newly compiled module has to be modified in /lib/modules/2.6.22-14-generic/modules.dep by finding the section that contains snd-hda-intel and replacing it with
/lib/modules/2.6.22-14-generic/kernel/sound/pci/hda/snd-hda-intel.ko: .
Also, the two lines
snd_hwdep
snd_hda_intel
had to be appended to /etc/modules.
Eventually, I added one line
options snd-hda-intel model=3stack
to /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base .
When I rebooted, my linux system was well-hidden, had a working X-server and had a working sound system.
After working for a while, I found the console font annoying. Whenever I used a graphical command like the midnight commander (mc) on the linux console, I got a graphical environment made up of weird characters. To fix this problem, I
changed the console font permanently by adding the following lines to my ~/.bashrc:
if $TERM == "linux" ; then
consolechars --font=Lat2-VGA16
fi .
In addition, I had to resize my home directory from 1 GB to 2 GB. The introduction that I found on the internet froze my computer several times, so I decided to include a modification: The first required step involves the creation of a file of the size of the new home directory (2 GB in this case):

1. cd /media/host/wubi/disks
2. dd if=/dev/zero of=extra.virtual.disk bs=1000 count=2000000

This file is then formated with an ext3 file system as if it was a partition,

1. mkfs.ext3 -F /media/host/wubi/disks/extra.virtual.disk

and mounted it as a (loopback device). The "sync" option in the below command is missing in most introductions on the internet.

1. mount -t ext3 -o loop,sync /media/host/wubi/disks/extra.virtual.disk /media/extra

If this statement is omitted, the system is likely to freeze when the files are copied.

1. rsync -avx /home/ /media/extra
2. umount /media/extra .

It also helped to quit all other programs including the X-server before issuing the rsync command mentioned above.
Eventually, I had to boot windows, change to the directory c:\wubi\disks\ and swap the names of the files extra.virtual.disk and home.virtual.disk.
In conclusion, it is possible to build a well-hidden linux system with sound-support and a graphical environment on a DELL D630 laptop. There are, however, a few practical difficulties during the installation. I tried to point these out in this document, so the installation of linux on a DELL D630 may become easier in the future. Good luck!

I made the 4965AGN work on my D630 with Fedora 7. I followed a mix of the instructions from here:
http://w3.ualg.pt/~aanjos/misc.html
and here:
http://www.intellinuxwireless.org/?p=iwlwifi&n=HOWTO-iwlwifi

but I also used Yum install iwl4965-firmware in the end. I cannot tellexactly what made it run. At the bginning I started out with just:
Yum install iwl4965-firmware
but that did not work. Maybe it was the advise:

cp iwlwifi-4965-ucode-4.44.17/iwlwifi-4965.ucode /lib/firmware/iwlwifi-4965-1.ucode
NOTE*: the destination filename has an extra "-1".

from http://w3.ualg.pt/~aanjos/misc.html that did it.

After my first "Yum install iwl4965-firmware" which did not work, I did "Yum remove iwl4965-firmware"

Then I did this:
//getting the firmware
wget http://intellinuxwireless.org/iwlwifi/downloads/iwlwifi-4965-ucode-4.44.17.tgz
tar xvf iwlwifi-4965-ucode-4.44.17.tgz
cp iwlwifi-4965-ucode-4.44.17/iwlwifi-4965.ucode /lib/firmware/iwlwifi-4965-1.ucode
NOTE*: the destination filename has an extra "-1".

And then I tried this:
% wget \
http://intellinuxwireless.org/iwlwifi/downloads/iwlwifi-1.1.21.tgz
% tar xvf iwlwifi-1.1.21.tgz
% cd iwlwifi-1.1.21
% make
% make install

but got errors on make, and was unable to run make install.

So then I did:
Yum install iwl4965-firmware
rebooted, and everything worked fine : )

Børge

and tried to install iwlwifi-1.1.21 with "make" and "make install" but got errors.

Been running GNU/Linux since 1997. I still have much knowledge to acquire. It grows faster than our ability to absorb!

When partitioning drives, I prefer GPartEd. It can be used as the stand-alone application, available on it's own website, or, it is often the partitioning tool included in most GNU/Linux distros.

Thanks for the details on the set up of accessories. Dell did a great thing for users the world over, by selling computers with Linux pre-installed.

However, being too frugal to buy a new Dell at full price, we shop one of the 500 refurbish shops in the USA, where we get Dells with the one year warranty at less than half the new prices. Most are fresh off of executive lease.

One such shop is cheaptronicsdepot, near our home in Florida. They have a dotcom website. Your review would go a long way towards letting folks know there are other options than new, or eBay. As a service tech. on Macs, and on PCs, I see at least one new customer each week who has a non-functional laptop or desktop computer, or component, that they paid for on eBay, that should have been scrapped as garbage.

That is heart breaking to watch. There are too many scoundrels on eBay for anyone I know to shop there for high tech. gear. Most is defective. Your experience might vary, but, I am the technician who tries to repair that junk bought off of eBay.

Let's break the chain of disappointment. Either require a 30 day warranty from eBay, or stop shopping there!

Regarding problems with the optical drive during installation, at the time of writing, Ubuntu 7.04 fails right at the start. Debian 4r1 works.