Dell Vostro 200s Linux Desktop Challenge

Installing Linux on Dell Vostro 200s PC could not be so obvious as expected. A brief tale of some working hours on 4 new Dell desktops, the troubles with some Linux distros and the (easy) solutions found on the net.

20.00       
Airplane takes off from Rome. Yet another trip back to Milan.    

22.00       
Back home.      
A Lab42 to setup, four new Dell Vostro 200s to unpack.      
Start from the first.      
Joy.      

22.10       
Windows Vista Business preinstalled works fine.      
A bunch of preinstalled software is there. Not bad.      
A name for the machine: beta      
No network cable attached, let's leave the beast in cage.      
Default partitioning is crap:      
55 Mb for a Dell own partition      
20 GB of NTFS for Windows recovery      
remaining 220 Gb for Vista.      

Things work fine, 1440x900 desktop looks well.      
Vista is fat, but on 2Gb runs well.      
Good.      

22.20       
Shrink Windows partition (who needs Partition Magic with Vista??) from the internal disk manager.      
These machines have to be installed, scratched, reinstalled multiple times.      
Ghosting windows is a requirement.      
Try some free cloning software for Windows: Driveimage XML, xxclone, they don't even see the hard drives.      
Download, burn and try Trinity rescue Kit Live CD. No network detected, no sign of hard drives.      

22.50       
Time to try the penguin.      
Shutdown.      
Let's play Centos 5.      
It fails on sata device recognizion (ata_piix module doesn't seem to do its work).      

Irritation.      
These boxes had to run mostly Centos/RedHat Linux.      
Usual checks:      
- noacpi noapic      
- noprobe      
Usual error.        
Getting worried.      

Try Suse 10.3.  Nothing.      
Try Ubuntu 7.04. It finds the hard disks, and mounts Windows partitions. No sign of networking.      
Things seem better, but I need also Centos/Fedora on this metal.      

23.30       
Panic.      
Visions of nightmares dance in my eyes.      
I blame myself for having chosen too new hardware for a Linux training room.      
I wonder how could I've been that stupid.      
I imagine a dark future and a crap start for Lab42.      
Try to chill down.      
Wait.      
Relax.      
HELP!!!      

23.35       
Google "dell vostro 200 linux"      
Tenth position:        
Disabling IRQ#217, the latest Linux installatio failed on Dell ...      
Hi there, I try to install Linux (CentOS 5) on this new and cheap Dell Vostro 200 slim tower. The installation didn't hang after 'Disabling IRQ'       
brings to        
http://www.hostingforum.ca/730868-disabling-irq-217-latest-linux-installatio-failed-dell-vostro-200-slim-tower.html      

Re: Disabling IRQ#217, the latest Linux installatio failed on Dell Vostro 200 slim to      
Hi Tomo,      
Got the answer from jackzhunj via email... the fix was to go into the BIOS and change the SATA setting from IDE to RAID. Works a treat now for both Fedora and Oracle Enterprise Linux (Red Hat).      
Cheers,      
Joe       

Thank you Joe, thank jackzhunj, thank Internet for existing.      
Thank you all.      
Solution.      
Net. Plain. Easy.      

I change SATA settings on BIOS.      
From IDE to RAID, Linux works. Vista, installed in IDE mode, doesn't boot anymore, but who cares, I had to reinstall it anyway.      
I notice that PXE support is here, but disabled by default (I'll need it).      
Things start to behave well.      

Google for "intel e1000 centos 5 rpm"      
At third position: http://www.centos.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=4250       

Download Inter drivers for Linux:      
http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scripts-df-external/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&Inst=Yes&ProductID=1878&DwnldID=9180&strOSs=39&OSFullName=Linux*&lang=eng      

Download Ubuntu 7.10.        
Try, try, try.      

Looking for the best friends of a Fedora/RedHat sysadmin, Dag, Livna and the others.      

I'm lazy.      
I wonder how can I experiment in classrooms with different distros, boot from net, kickstart, cobbler and everything without an easy and out of the box network support.      
Considering recompiling PXEBOOT kernels, with e1000 driver.      
Considering buying 4 PCI NIC to add to these silly and slim Dell desktops.      
Considering killing my Dell contact.      

Considering that after all life is not so bad it Linux can at least find an hard disk where to install.      

2.00       
Windows Vista reinstall from Dell Operating System disk.      
I find that Microsoft has finally done a decent partitioning tool in the installer.      
Wiped out default partitions, 80 Gb for Vista.      

2.15       
Vista installation done. First boot configuration steps taken.      

2.51       
Ati catalyst drivers installed, Vista finishes to download 39 updates.      
Reboot.      

2.56       
Everything OK. Vista updated. Restart.      

3.03       
Fedora 8 x86_64 on dvd drive.      
Quick and dirty 100000 Gb for root.      

3.07       
ALT+F4 Let's poke around      
lsmod gives surprises:        
e1000e      
Fedora digests the Intel NIC :-))      
1419 packages to install,      
Just selected the software groups Office and Development tools        

3.25       
Fedora installed.        
Resolution at 1024x768, no more.        
Hope ATI drivers don't betray.      
Network works..      

3.33       
144 updates to download.      
Enough.      
At bed.      
Feeling better.         


The day after. LINUX ON DELL VOSTRO 200S DESKTOP        
So, patient reader. If you are here maybe you are really interested in knowing how Linux works on Dell Vostro 200s desktops.      
Main issues are:      
- Disk drive      
- Network Adapter      
- Graphic card (at least for my case, I've an ATI Radeon 2400 HD PRO on board, and I want it accellerated and at 1440x900).      

Disk drive: Intel Corporation 82801 SATA RAID Controller       
Only Ubuntu seems to recognize properly the onboard SATA controller when operated in IDE mode (the default).      
Many other distros just fuck up during recognition.      
SOLUTION: In Bios change SATA mode from IDE to RAID.        
BEWARE: This will make the existing Windows installation unusable. So, if you want a dual boot box, make the operation at the beginning before customizing too much your Windows.      

Network: Intel Corporation 82562v-2 10/100 Connector        
It is recognized only on more recent distros.      
It's ok for Ubuntu 7.10, Mandriva 2008.0, Fedora 8      
Centos 5.0, Ubuntu 6.04 don't recognize it at first glance and you have to install the relevant rpms or recompile the e1000 drivers.      
I've found later that Centos/RedHat 5.1 recognizes and loads the e1000 driver withous problems.    SOLUTION: Use a recent distro with e1000 support.  

Graphic card ATI Radeon 2400 HD PRO       
At the moments this remains the stuff that doesn't work as it should.      
None of the mentioned distros manages to run at 1440x900 as it should with my monitor.      
They stop at 1152x768 which looks crap.      
Mandriva and Ubuntu provide the Ati drivers by default, Fedora needs the Livna repository, ATI provides the Catalysts drivers for Linux but the problem remains.      
I suppose I'll have to quarrel with this.  
SOLUTION: Installing the ATI Catalyst drivers is easy, download them from ATI website or install the relevant packages from the distro or repository that provide them.  
SOLUTION for a 1440x900 resolution: Still have to find it.

UPDATE 18 Jan 2008
SOLUTION for a 1440x900 resolution on Ati Radeon 2400HD: Use  radeonhd drivers.

Let's explain a bit the mess around ATI drivers, up to now.
fglrx are the official proprietary Catalyst drivers from ATI, they support 3D accelleration, but fail on particular resolutions. You can easily find them packaged for your distro.
Download then at: http://ati.amd.com/support/drivers/linux/linux-radeon.html

radeonhd drivers have been developed by Novell Suse, based on the specifics released by ATI. They currently do not support 3D accelleration but support odd resolutions (they are my actual choice). They are dedicated to the newer Radeon cards with R5xx/R6xx chipset.
Find them at:
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/X11:/Drivers:/Video:/radeonhd/

radeon is the previous and older driver for Ati graphic cards. Better for older models, with also 3D accelleration, that might non be supported by the other drivers, is not the best choice for more recent adapters (no 3D). You find it in every distro.

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