# Dell 500m

## BradB

I'm in the market for a new laptop, my requirements are

 - cheap (sub $3000NZ, or ~$1300USD)

 - linux compatible

 - >=30gb HDD, >=256Mb RAM, DVD drive

 - >= 1800ALthon equivalent

 - prefer Pentium-M class CPU

 - would be nice to have an OK 3D graphics card, but not really a big deal

It looks like the new Dell 500m fits the bill quite nicely, does know how well it runs under linux?

Anybody have recommendations for other laptops that might fit my bill?

Cheers

Brad

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## doggy

yesterday i spent exactly that (1300 USD after rebate) on dell 600m.  i'm not sure the deal that i had is still going but for this price i got 1.3ghz, 384mb, ati redeon 32mb, 14.1"sxga+ screen, dvd+cdrw combo drive.

from what i heard linux is fine on them except no support (yet) for the wireless centrino stuff.  IIRC there's a link to someone's writeup of linux on his dell at http://tuxmobil.org.

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## BradB

Thanks for the link.  I'd appreaciate it if you let me know how you get on with your 600m.

Cheers

Brad

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## eee

I've been running Gentoo on my 600m for about a month now and have been quite happy with it.  doggy is correct that the centrino (or any 802.11g) wireless doesn't work, but I've got a Netgear 802.11b card that works just fine.

DRM (for 3d) works fine with the upcoming 2.4.21 kernel + the xfree-drm ebuild.  ~1400 in glxgears IIRC.

I haven't had much luck with ACPI.  Mostly I run without it because it only succeeds in preventing the display from turning off when I close the lid.  It's been a while since I played with that, so I'm hopeful that I'll get it to work at some point.

Battery life is good ~2 hours with the netgear card in, more without it.

All in all, I am extremely pleased with it and it's ability to handle Gentoo.

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## mb

hi !

 *eee wrote:*   

> I haven't had much luck with ACPI.

 

take a look here: http://beta.phys.uh.edu/%7Eafritz/d800/gentoo-d800.html

i think the k.patches are most important.... 

the dsts file should the same for d600 and d800, or take this one: http://acpi.sourceforge.net/dsdt/view.php?manufacturer=Dell&name=Lattitude+D600

gl,

#mb

ps: i'm also waiting for my 600m (should arrive this weekend)  :Wink: 

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## BradB

Great - does anybody know how well the 855 chipset is supported in terms of graphics?  The Dell 500m doesn't have a radeon, instead relies on the integrated graphics.

Brad

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## techmetal

Hi,

I have a Dell 500m, the 855 chipset is supported under XFree86 4.3 but you can only get 16bit depth and 640x480 resolution max using the current drivers and kernel when running X. 

ACPI is supported, as well as the NIC. The wireless card, a Dell Truemobile 1300 isn't.

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## BradB

ich - 640x480?

How fast do you think other resolution will be gotten ready?

Brad

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## doggy

fyi, if u are still considering the inspiron m, there's a better deal than i said  earlier  :Twisted Evil: .  there's a 15% off with a coupon (code 17AF8E48BFD) if your order is over 1499 in the "small business" section.  i configured the m600 w/ 1.4ghz 14"svga+, 512MB, 40 GB, 32MB ATI Redeon and combo cdrw+dvd that came out to be $1220 a/f rebate/tax.

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## techmetal

 *BradB wrote:*   

> ich - 640x480?
> 
> How fast do you think other resolution will be gotten ready?
> 
> Brad

 

Franky I don't know. And I don't have time to find out--busy studyin. For the moment I'm installing GNU/Linux as a hobby. Check out the developer's webpage for more info:

http://www.xfree86.org/~dawes/845driver.html

I suggest considering buying a laptop with at least one Linux success story. I can't call mine one yet. But let me know if you insist with the 500m, I'll keep you posted on any updates regarding installation.

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## BradB

 *Quote:*   

> I suggest considering buying a laptop with at least one Linux success story. I can't call mine one yet. But let me know if you insist with the 500m, I'll keep you posted on any updates regarding installation.

 

Yeah - I agree with that.  I think I'm actually going to go away from the Centrino laptops - the extra money you pay for 1 or 2 hours extra battery life isn't that important to me.

Cheers

Brad

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## kamikaz3

Well I find dell rather expensive for what you get.

If I configure

D600 1.6ghz 512MB Radeon 9000 bluetooth DVD/CDRW 

I pay 3199,24 EUR

(600m isn't for sale in belgium/europe)

Then I look at acer travelmate 803lcib, which has the same specs and I can buy that one for 2200 EUR

From what I've read that acer is a damn good notebook. So why should I pay 1000 extra for a dell?

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## flokno

for dell 500m:

try adding

```
Option "VideoRam" "32768"
```

to XF86Config.

see http://www.xfree.org/current/i810.4.html.

the dell500m seems quite cheap here in europe.

-- flo

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## Owiber

 *flokno wrote:*   

> for dell 500m:
> 
> try adding
> 
> ```
> ...

 

If this works for someone, let me know... I'm expecting my D400 within a week or so, and I think it has the same problem (since it has to do with the 855GM chipset).

I *think* this may not work because of an issue with Dell's BIOS... but I may be wrong (hopefully =)...

Also, if you try this, perhaps try with a newer kernel as well... specifically one with agpgart support for the 855gm (2.5.64+)... or 2.4.21 ac (I think, something like that).

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## ypok

I've got a 500m. ACPI and SpeedStep works with a 2.5 kernel. In X i only get 640x480 too  :Sad: 

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## Owiber

 *ypok wrote:*   

> I've got a 500m. ACPI and SpeedStep works with a 2.5 kernel. In X i only get 640x480 too 

 

I believe the C400's had the same/similar problem and a workaround was written by Abraham vd Merwe.  Unfortunately, I emailed him and he said he did not have the time to work on XFree86 drivers anymore.

David Dawes (the guy who handles these drivers for XFree86) says he does not know of a work around (on his page: http://www.xfree86.org/~dawes/845driver.html )... but perhaps he is not aware of the C400 work around?  I'll try emailing him...

It could be that although similar, the solution for the 500m/D400 is different than the C400.

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## Owiber

Just an update... I got an email back from Manuel Chakravarty who wrote this page: http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~chak/linux/c400.html and he says that if the 855GM is not radically different from the 830M (which it might be, I don't know) then the C400 fix should work for our laptops.

Here's what he said:

 *Quote:*   

> The current release of XFree86 does support the C400
> 
> out-of-the-box and current Linux distributions (such as Red
> 
> Hat 9.0) include this support.  The fix for the problem
> ...

 

I went ahead and fired off an email to the XFree86 devel list (is that the Xpert mailing list?) so we'll see how that goes.

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## Owiber

I got a patch from David Dawes that he said to try which enables the old 830M work around for all platforms.  Since I haven't gotten my D400 in yet, if someone wants to try it out and report back, that'd be great.

```
Index: i830_driver.c

===================================================================

RCS file: /home/x-cvs/xc/programs/Xserver/hw/xfree86/drivers/i810/i830_driver.c,v

retrieving revision 1.27

diff -u -r1.27 i830_driver.c

--- i830_driver.c       14 Feb 2003 17:12:42 -0000      1.27

+++ i830_driver.c       17 Jun 2003 20:11:55 -0000

@@ -1039,7 +1039,7 @@

       return TRUE;

 #endif

 

-   if (IS_I830(pI830) || IS_845G(pI830)) {

+   if (1 || IS_I830(pI830) || IS_845G(pI830)) {

       pI830->useSWF1 = TRUE;

       pI830->saveSWF1 = INREG(SWF1) & 0x0f;

 

@@ -1084,7 +1084,7 @@

    }

 #endif

 

-   if ((IS_I830(pI830) || IS_845G(pI830)) && pI830->useSWF1) {

+   if ((1 || IS_I830(pI830) || IS_845G(pI830)) && pI830->useSWF1) {

       swf1 = INREG(SWF1);

       swf1 &= ~0x0f;

       swf1 |= (pI830->saveSWF1 & 0x0f);

@@ -1111,7 +1111,7 @@

    }

 #endif

 

-   if ((IS_I830(pI830) || IS_845G(pI830)) && pI830->useSWF1) {

+   if ((1 || IS_I830(pI830) || IS_845G(pI830)) && pI830->useSWF1) {

       CARD32 newSWF1;

 

       /* Need MMIO access here. */
```

Unfortunately, he said that if this doesn't work, we'll have to take it up with Dell. =(

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## techmetal

I'd like to try this one. But how do you actually proceed?

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## Owiber

 *techmetal wrote:*   

> I'd like to try this one. But how do you actually proceed?

 

I've never actually patched something before... I'm fairly new to this whole "linux" thing... haha  :Wink: 

I believe you can save that up there into something like... maybefix.diff

copy that and cd into the directory with the i830_driver.c file

then...

```
patch -p0 <maybefix.diff
```

Again, I'm not 100% sure if this is the correct way to do this... someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

Also, I'm not sure if the first four lines (the lines above "diff -u -r1.27 i830_driver.c") should be in the .diff file or not.

You may even be able to edit the i830_driver.c file manually and add the "1 ||" to all the places you see IS_I830(pI830) || IS_845G(pI830) as that seems to be only changes he made to the file (makes sense to me at least, hehe...)

anyhow, after you do that, you should be able to recompile your kernel/modules and that is it... I think?

Good luck!

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## Owiber

oh also, techmetal (or ypok or anyone else who's installed Gentoo on the 500m or D400), were there any peculiars to your Gentoo install on your 500m? I just wanna get an idea of what I'll have to do to my D400 to get it to work when I get it in.

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## Owiber

A guy from the Dell forums said he tried the patch and it didn't work... just to let you guys know. =(

You can still try it, but it prob won't work...

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## ypok

 *Owiber wrote:*   

> A guy from the Dell forums said he tried the patch and it didn't work... just to let you guys know. =(
> 
> You can still try it, but it prob won't work...

 

i'll try it   :Smile: 

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## Owiber

Also, I thought it patched one of the files that comes with the kernel, but I was wrong... I think the driver is with XFree86.

Just in case others want to try their luck... heh =)

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## Owiber

Out of curiousity... if none of this turns out to work, does anyone know what would be involved in modding the BIOS?

ie... grabbing the image and looking for where the 832KB or whatever is specified and changing it, then reflashing?

Of course, that would probably require sifting your way through lots of assembly or something like that... I've never done anything like this, so I was just asking if it's possible or achievable... legal?

I'm not sure if the assembly Dell uses in their BIOS is standard though, so we may not even be able to see that? Just a bunch of bits? (if that's the case, then it's probably impossible for us without some kind of documentation).

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## techmetal

 *Owiber wrote:*   

> Also, I thought it patched one of the files that comes with the kernel, but I was wrong... I think the driver is with XFree86.
> 
> 

 

It won't work for me then since I'm using the i810 driver for the 855GM.

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## techmetal

 *Owiber wrote:*   

> oh also, techmetal (or ypok or anyone else who's installed Gentoo on the 500m or D400), were there any peculiars to your Gentoo install on your 500m? I just wanna get an idea of what I'll have to do to my D400 to get it to work when I get it in.

 

Yeah, something weird with my filesystem check out this thread:

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=59946&highlight=

But I think it's probably some misconfig I've done during installation.

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## Owiber

 *techmetal wrote:*   

>  *Owiber wrote:*   Also, I thought it patched one of the files that comes with the kernel, but I was wrong... I think the driver is with XFree86.
> 
>  
> 
> It won't work for me then since I'm using the i810 driver for the 855GM.

 

hehe, well it might be... just find the file to patch I guess, should be the right one... I'm pretty new to this, so don't take my word for it =)

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## ypok

i tried the patch too, it doesn't work... i'm using bios version A05.

here is my error with or without patch:

```

(II) I810(0): sxga: Using hsync range of 31.50-64.30 kHz

(II) I810(0): sxga: Using vrefresh range of 50.00-70.00 Hz

(II) I810(0): Not using mode "1280x1024" (no mode of this name)

(II) I810(0): Not using mode "1024x768" (no mode of this name)

(II) I810(0): Not using mode "800x600" (no mode of this name)

(II) I810(0): Not using built-in mode "640x480" (width too large for virtual size)

(EE) I810(0): No valid modes.

```

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## Owiber

yeah, it doesn't work...

after reading stuff from the xfree86 devel. list, it seems like the only way to fix this problem is if Dell updates their BIOS or Dell/Intel release the necessary documents to bypass the BIOS to the open source community.

Someone from Intel did say that Dell should release a BIOS in 2 months with the Intel fix (assuming Dell is cooperative, which may or may not happen)

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## techmetal

So we're stuck in 640x480 mode  :Sad: 

Any other options aside from waiting for a new BIOS version? Is there any other way to "steal" video memory?

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## ypok

 *techmetal wrote:*   

> So we're stuck in 640x480 mode 
> 
> Any other options aside from waiting for a new BIOS version? Is there any other way to "steal" video memory?

 

there is  :Wink:  ... atleast in win the driver does!

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## Owiber

VMWare?  That's what I'm using at the moment, pretty impressed by it too.  It's kinda pricey though, might cough up the money for the student license....

They give a free 30 day trial license though.

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## HAsker

I'll hope dell will fix this.. or have they done it?

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## Owiber

Nope, not fixed yet.... as far as I know.

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## jalapenoharry

I'm stuck with the same problem on my 500m

I've called Dell a couple of times. Urge you guys to do the same and request an updated BIOS.

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## Owiber

Christian Zietz posted this on the Dell forums:

http://www.mail-archive.com/devel%40xfree86.org/msg02247.html

This supposedly will allow more memory to be allocated (but still won't let you go 1400xwhatever res on the 500m)... let me know if it works for any of you guys.

I've got my linux install in a VM (VMWare)... so I haven't tested it yet.

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## techmetal

I've tried setting memory to 64k using the patch to run at 1280x1024,16bpp. Works for me, but the colors aren't that even at 16bpp! Still, I'm happy with 1024x768@16bpp!! Let me know what kind of tests you do!

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## Owiber

Neat, well, I've got a D400, so my screen is native 1024x768... so this hack is sufficient for me.

From the looks of it, they still need a BIOS update to get to the 500m's max resolution.

I'm pondering if I should ditch my VMWare install and go with a regular linux install and use this hack.  If I do that though, I won't be able to use the 802.11g card that is integrated... I'll have to grab my old Orinoco.

Hmm... we'll see. =)

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## Owiber

1400x1050:

http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=linuxport&message.id=234

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## piyushkhengar

Hi All,

I have just installed Gentoo 1.4 on my Dell 500m, and using the 855patch I have managed to specify a depth of up to 16. But I still can't get a resolution higher than 640x480 (or whatever it is), even though I know I should be able to get up to 1280x1024.

After specifying a resolution the screen just blinks when restarting X. I've included my XF856Config file for anyone who can help me!

Anybody got any ideas?

```

Section "ServerLayout"

   Identifier     "XFree86 Configured"

   Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0

   InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"

   InputDevice    "USB Mouse" "SendCoreEvents"

   InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"

EndSection

Section "Files"

   RgbPath      "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb"

   ModulePath   "/usr/X11R6/lib/modules"

   FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/"

   FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo/"

   FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/"

   FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/CID/"

   FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/"

   FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/"

EndSection

Section "Module"

   Load  "extmod"

   Load  "glx"

   Load  "dri"

   Load  "dbe"

   Load  "record"

   Load  "xtrap"

   Load  "speedo"

   Load  "type1"

EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

   Identifier  "Keyboard0"

   Driver      "keyboard"

EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

   Identifier  "Mouse0"

   Driver      "mouse"

   Option       "Protocol" "auto"

   Option       "Device" "/dev/mouse"

EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

   Identifier  "USB Mouse"

   Driver      "mouse"

   Option      "Protocol" "IMPS/2"

   Option      "Device" "/dev/input/mice"

   Option      "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"  #This line enables the wheel

EndSection

Section "Monitor"

   Identifier   "Monitor0"

   VendorName   "Dell TFT LCD"

   ModelName    "Dell 1400x1050 Laptop LCD"

        HorizSync    31.5-90.0

        VertRefresh  59.0-75.0

        DisplaySize  286 214

   ModeLine     "1400x1050"     0.00   1400    0    0    0   1050    0    0    0

EndSection

Section "Device"

        ### Available Driver options are:-

        ### Values: <i>: integer, <f>: float, <bool>: "True"/"False",

        ### <string>: "String", <freq>: "<f> Hz/kHz/MHz"

        ### [arg]: arg optional

        #Option     "NoAccel" "False"              # [<bool>]

        #Option     "SWcursor"              # [<bool>]

        #Option     "ColorKey"              # <i>

        #Option     "CacheLines"            # <i>

        #Option     "Dac6Bit"               # [<bool>]

        Option     "DRI" "True"                  # [<bool>]

        #Option     "NoDDC"                 # [<bool>]

        #Option     "ShowCache"             # [<bool>]

        #Option     "XvMCSurfaces"          # <i>

   Identifier  "Card0"

   Driver      "i810"

   VendorName  "Intel Corp."

   BoardName   "852GM/852GME/855GM/855GME Chipset Graphics Controller"

   BusID       "PCI:0:2:0"

        VideoRam    65536

   Option      "AGPMode" "1"

EndSection

#Section "Modes"

#   Identifier "Modes[0]"

#   Modeline   "1400x1050" 

#EndSection

Section "Screen"

   Identifier "Screen0"

   Device     "Card0"

   Monitor    "Monitor0"

   DefaultDepth 16

#   SubSection "Display"

#      Depth     1

#   EndSubSection

#   SubSection "Display"

#      Depth     4

#   EndSubSection

#   SubSection "Display"

#      Depth     8

#   EndSubSection

#   SubSection "Display"

#      Depth     15

#   EndSubSection

   SubSection "Display"

      Depth     16

      Modes "1280x1024"

   EndSubSection

#   SubSection "Display"

#      Depth     24

#      Modes "1400x1050" "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600"

#   EndSubSection

EndSection

Section "DRI"

   Mode 0666

EndSection

```

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## Vbman

Same problem on 500m!

I tried all the 855patch, emerged xfree-drm and Intel's driver. But it failed to go up to 1024x768 for Gentoo 1.4

However it works if I use RedHat 9 with 855patch.

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## Aike

Anyone made any progress on getting it @ 1400x1050 using Gentoo ?

I'm a little scared to run redhat  :Wink: 

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## gimlet

Well i've managed to get my Dell 500m (UK) running with Kernel 2.6.1 and the A06 bios.

I am using the 855patch executable to modify the video memory to 32MB. here are the X and Kernel configs:-

Kernel Config

XF86Config.

I did not emerge xfree-drm or Intel's driver, its all worked from a stage 1 install.

I'm quite pleasing for my first ever attempt at installing Gentoo / "linux from scratch" type of distro, I am normally used to Red Hat. Beginners luck maybe?[/url]

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