Installing Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn on a Dell Vostro 1500

So I got this brand new Dell Vostro 1500 laptop a couple days ago and I thought it would be fun to Dual-Boot it with linux.

This thing is sweet.

:Intel Core 2 Duo T7500 2.2GHz, 800Mhz FSB, 4M L2 Cache
:15.4" Widescreen SXGA+ with TrueLife display
:3GB RAM
:256MB NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT video card
:160GB hard drive
:8x DVD+/-RW with Dual Layer
:Dell Wireless-N 1505 mini card
:Sprint Mobile Broadband Card (I don't know how I ever lived without this gadget)
:85 WHr 9-cell battery (I can use this thing all day)

Enough of the specs, I want to install linux. Being a FreeBSD guy, this should be fun.

First thing I did was to repartion the hard drive.
I made a 13GB Ext3 partition, a 6GB Swap partition and a 1GB FAT partition (to transfer data to/from windows)

It took me awhile to figure out how to boot the Ubuntu 7.04 LiveCD. I was finally able to do it with both the 32bit and the 64bit disks.

Here is how I booted it:
First I booted to the 64bit CD. From the menu I had to select the safe graphics mode (but don't hit enter yet)
Then I had to press F6 to edit the options.
I added the command "break=top "(without quotes) to the very begining of the line and hit enter.
Next at the command prompt (you won't see a command prompt if you set the resolution to anything other than VGA, but this will still work) I typed:

modprobe piix
exit

This allowed X to start.

Now I proceeded with the installation. I had to guess how many times to press the {TAB} key before pressing {ENTER} because the resolution was 800x600 and I couldn't see the installation buttons to click on next. I figured it out after a couple trys.

Make note of what partition you installed linux to. Mine was /dev/sda4.

After installation, DO NOT REBOOT. Continue using the LiveCD and launch a terminal.
Type:

mkdir target
sudo mount /dev/sda4 target
sudo chroot target
echo piix >> /etc/initramfs-tools/modules
update-initramfs -u
exit

reboot

Now you should be able to choose to boot windows or linux. Next I will talk about installing video drivers.



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