Installing Ubuntu on Dell Vostro A860

After years, I finally decided on a laptop. A Dell Vostro A860; Cheap, solid, comfortable. It arrived nearly two weeks ahead of the estimate, which was of course good news. I promptly set to installing Ubuntu on it, and the obligatory breaking in and customizing.
The lengthiest, most frustrating part of the entire process was simply waiting for the 8.10 ISO to download and burn. I did hit a few hurdles along the way, however they were all very simple to overcome, and are listed below.

• Intel® Celeron M® M560 (2.13GHz, 1M L2 Cache, 533MHz FSB) -- Works


• 15.6 inch Wide Display HD (1366 x 768 screen resolution) with anti-glare -- Works


• Intel® GM965 Express chipset with ICH8M -- Works


• 1GB,DDR2,800MHZ -- Works


• 120GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM) -- Works (BIOS has an option to set it to be quieter, in exchange for being slower. Haven't tested it.)


• Wired: Integrated 10/100 RJ 45 Ethernet network interface -- Works


• WLAN: 802.11b/g Wi-Fi standard -- Works (Does not work out of the box, but is a simple fix. Ubuntu Forums guide solves it. You'll need to 'sudo modprobe ath_pci' at every startup; I put it in rc.local so it is automatic)


• 24X DVD/CD-RW combo drive -- Works

Basic Installation of Ubuntu:

1. Obtain Ubuntu 8.10: Go to Ubuntu.com's Get Ubuntu section. I used the Desktop Edition installer of 8.10, 32-bit.
   
2. Boot from CD drive: By default, the Vostro will boot from the HDD, even with a CD in the drive. Press F2 at boot to open the BIOS, select the boot sequence option, and set the CD drive to boot first
   
3. Install Ubuntu
   
4. Enable wifi: See WLAN notes above.

Unresolved issues

• When changing screen brightness using the function keys, the OSD can steal focus and cause problems. If this happens, it is easy to work around-- just press CTRL+ALT+F1 to switch to a terminal, and CTRL+ALT+F7 to switch back to your desktop and it should be fine.
  
• One of the function keys appears to initiate either suspend or hibernate. On coming back, I had problems similar to the OSD from the brightness applet. I don't use this feature often, so it might be an easy fix. I will probably check it later. Suspend works fine. After hibernating, I was unable to reconnect to a network until rebooting. Again, might be a coincidence, but I don't have a ton of will to test it.
  
• Be careful with the keyboard. Nothing to do with ubuntu, but I accidentally popped off my Pg Dn key, and it took me a good hour to get back on properly.

Overall, the laptop is very friendly towards Ubuntu (and apparently ships with it in some regions), and so far I am very pleased with it. The only element that seems to fit the price tag is a very slight bulge towards the center of the keyboard, and that may even be intentional. The keyboard itself is very comfortable to type on-- and this is coming from someone who is accustomed to The Best Damned Keyboard Ever Made (Logitech had to trademark it as "G15"). For the same price as many netbooks, it provides a screen that feels plenty large (I am also accustomed to a large monitor) despite not being huge, due to it's 16:9 ratio. It never feels cramped, or oversized. The touchpad could stand to be a bit bigger, but I am very much biased against touchpads and think that they are evil, evil things.

Links

• Dell Vostro A860 manufacturer page
  


•