Installing Debian Linux on a Dell Laptop

I recently bought (leased, actually) a
Dell Latitude C800 Laptop. In my work as a software development
consultant, I often need to have my own laptop at client sites. The
Latitude C800 is one of Dell's high-end laptop models, and an
impressive one at that. My laptop's hardware configuration is as
follows:

• PIII 1.0GHz Processor
• 256MB RAM
• IBM 32.0GB 5400RPM UDMA66 HD (IBM DJSA-232)
• ATI Rage Mobility M4 Video w/ 32MB RAM
• Built-in mini-PCI 3Com 56k modem + 10/100
  combo
• 15" UXGA Active Matrix (TFT) display
  (1600x1200)
• Built-in ESS Maestro 3i sound card
• LG 8X DVD-ROM Drive
• BIOS Revision A09

In this article, I will discuss all the steps necessary to
install the current stable release of Debian GNU/Linux (currently
2.2r3, also known as potato) on this laptop; upgrade from the
stable release of Debian to the unstable branch (currently known as
sid); and set up XFree86 4.1.0 to run at a resolution of 1600 x
1200 and at 24bpp color depth.Installing DebianI will do a network install of Debian on this laptop since I
have cable-modem internet access. Debian has an excellent network
installer that I would recommend to anyone who has reasonably fast
cable/DSL internet access.For people new to Debian, it is strongly recommended that
they (at least once) read over the Debian Installation Manual,
which can be found in various formats at
www.debian.org/releases/stable/#new-inst.For the case discussed here, you'll want to read the
Installation Manual for the Intel x86 architecture.Various flavours of Debian boot floppies are available, each
geared (i.e., having kernel configuration options) for specific
target hardware types. For the Dell C800 laptop, it is sufficient
to have a kernel configuration that supports 3Com Ethernet drivers,
so that the built-in Ethernet Card can be detected automatically
and the network set up at the same time. The compact boot floppy
set is ideal for this, available as three 1.44MB floppy images from
http.us.debian.org.

1. rescue.bin: floppy image for the bootable rescue
   disk
2. root.bin: floppy image for the root disk
3. driver-1.bin: floppy image containing kernel
   modules for various hardware not necessary for initial bootup. We
   don't need this floppy image as we are care only about having the
   internal NIC detected at bootup. So this floppy image can safely be
   ignored.

We will also need a floppy disk in order to create a bootable
floppy, so that the Debian installation can be booted from it
instead of the hard disk.All in all, we will need three blank floppy disks, one for
rescue.bin, one for root.bin and one for the boot disk (to be
created later on in the install).Once you have downloaded the rescue.bin and root.bin images,
you have to write them to blank floppy disks (preferably brand new
ones) using the instructions provided at
www.debian.org.Debian Install--Phase OneBoot the laptop with the rescue floppy. (If your laptop does
not search the floppy drive at bootup for a floppy disk, you will
have to change the bootup sequence, located in the BIOS settings,
so that the first boot device is the disk drive).Press Enter at the Welcome screen.As the kernel starts booting, you should notice that the
internal miniPCI 10/100 NIC card has been detected as eth0. If your
C800 laptop has the 3Com internal miniPCI combo (like mine), you
will notice the kernel's 3c59x.c driver has been loaded for the
NIC.You will then be prompted for the root floppy disk, after
which the console-based Debian installer appears.The first step will be to Configure the keyboard. Choose
qwerty/us: US English (QWERTY).Since I am starting out with a blank, unpartitioned hard
disk, the next step presented by the installer will be Partition a
Hard Disk. If you already have an OS installed, your choice will be
different.Select the drive to partition; there will be only one choice,
/dev/hda, after which you will enter into cfdisk.I will also create the following partitions:Partition NamePartition TypeSize (MB)Purpose/Intended Use/dev/hda1Primary256/ for Debian/dev/hda2Primary4000Win2K/dev/hda3Primary5000FreeBSD/dev/hda5Logical512swap/dev/hda6Logical500/tmp/dev/hda7Logical500/var/dev/hda8Logical3000/home/dev/hda9Logical3000/usr/dev/hda10Logical2000/usr/localModify your disk partition layout to suit your needs and the
intended use of the laptop. In my case, since I intend to use Win2k
on this laptop, I have left a 4GB primary partition for it. I want
to try out the recently released FreeBSD 4.4 as well, so I have
left a 5GB primary partition for it.You also don't have to follow my disk partition layout. I
prefer to have mountpoints like /tmp, /var, /usr and /usr/local on
separate partitions. Keeping /tmp and /home on separate partitions
allows me to share/reuse these disk partitions (as well as the swap
partition, of course) with other Linux installs on the same
disk.Also, since I do install some software from source (XEmacs
21.4.4, Xine and mplayer, for example), I prefer to keep /usr/local
as a separate partition for software not tracked by the package
management system.Minimally, you will need at least two partitions, a swap
partition (usually 2 * PhysicalRam) and a root partition for the /
mountpoint.By default, cfdisk will give all newly created partitions the
Linux type. To prepare for the next step of the installer, change
the partition type of the intended swap partition, in my case
/dev/hda5, to the Linux swap type (type 82) by selecting that
partition with the cursor keys. Then choose the Type option from
the cfdisk menu at the bottom of the screen.Once you have completed disk partitioning and are satisfied
with your layout, select the Write option from the cfdisk menu to
write out the partition layout to disk, and then the Quit option to
return to the Debian installer.The installer will prompt you to Initialize and activate a
swap partition. A Swap Partition Selection menu should appear with
the intended swap partition listed in it (/dev/hda5). Press Enter
to select that partition. You will be asked if you want to skip the
bad-block scan on this partition. After that, select Yes to
initialize that partition as the swap partition.For all other partitions you choose to initialize as Linux
partitions, the installer will ask 1) do you want to retain Linux
kernel 2.0 compatibility, and 2) should the bad-block scan be
skipped on dev/hdXYY?You should answer No to the first question since you probably
don't intend to run a 2.0.x kernel. It's up to you whether you want
to run a bad-block scan on partitions. Just remember that the
larger the partition is, the more time it will take to check for
bad blocks.At the next step, Initialize a Linux Partition, choose the
partition that you intend to mount as /, or the root partition. In
my case, this is /dev/hda1. When this partition has been
initialized (formatted), answer Yes to Mount as the Root
Filesystem.The next step of the installer will be Install Operating
System Kernel and Modules. Since I have chosen to have separate
partitions for other mountpoints (/tmp, /var, /home, /usr,
/usr/local), I will select the alternate installation task,
Initialize a Linux Partition, from the installer menu and specify
the remaining mountpoints:/tmp, /var, /home, /usr, /usr/localFor each of these remaining partitions, when initialization
is complete the installer will notice that the root (/) partition
has already been initialized and mounted, and it assume that the
user wants to specify a non-root mountpoint for this partition.
It's at this step that I will specify the remaining mountpoints
(/tmp, /var, /home, /usr, /usr/local).Once that is (finally!) complete, select Install Operating
System Kernel and Modules, choosing network as the installation
medium.Configure your network settings, including hostname. Since I
have a DHCP server running on my internal network at home, I will
choose DHCP to automatically configure eth0. If you have a static
IP configuration, say No to DHCP/BOOTP configuration, and you will
then be prompted for all the settings.At the Select Installation Server step, accept the default
for the Download URL. If you use a proxy server, make sure to enter
that information.Once the rescue.bin and drivers.tgz files have been
downloaded and installed, the installer will present the next task,
Configure Device Driver Modules. You can skip this installation
task, as we intend to compile a custom kernel from source later on.
You will notice the following alternate tasks listed:

        Alternate : Configure PCMCIA Support
        Alternate1: Edit Kernel Boot Parameters

Skip both and instead choose Install the Base System by
scrolling down the list of installation tasks. Again, select
network as the installation medium. Follow the same steps as above
when prompted to Select Installation Server.Once the base system has been downloaded and installed, the
installer will again present you with the next task, Configure
Device Driver Modules. Two alternate tasks will be listed:

    Alternate : Configure PCMCIA Support
    Alternate1: Edit Kernel Boot Parameters

As before, skip both and instead scroll down the list of
installation tasks and select Configure the Base System.Select your Timezone and also indicate if the hardware clock
will be set to GMT (recommended).In the next step, Make Linux Bootable Directly from Hard
Disk, you will have to specify where you want to install LILO.
Select the first option listed, which will be to install LILO in
the MBR.We are at the last step of this first phase of installation,
creating a boot floppy. The second step will be to boot the system
from the HD and perform additional post-boot, base configuration
tasks.Select the final step (of this phase of installation) and
reboot the system, making sure that the boot floppy you created has
been removed from the floppy drive.Debian Install--Phase TwoSome versions of the PCMCIA Card Services package (including
the one that comes with Debian's potato release) are incompatible
with the PCMCIA hardware on certain Dell laptops, including the
Latitude C800. The result is the PCMCIA init scripts hang at system
startup, as the PCMCIA bus is scanned. To fix this, we will reboot
the system in runlevel 1 and remove the offending package.As the system is rebooting, press and hold the shift key
until the LILO boot: prompt appears. Type Linux
single.Linux will boot, and after the partitions have been mounted
you will be prompted for the root password, which is "" (empty) at
this point, i.e., press Enter.To remove the pcmcia-cs package, type dpkg --purge
pcmcia-cs at the shell prompt. With this done, type
exit so that we leave runlevel 1 and the Debian
System Configuration can continue. As this second phase continues,
you will be asked:

• if you want to enable MD5 passwords: Select
  Yes
• if you want to install shadow passwords: Select
  Yes
• to enter a password for root
• to create a normal user account

Although it's a bit late for the installer to ask, select Yes
when it asks whether you want the PCMCIA packages to be
removed.Since our Ethernet connection is already up, answer No to
whether you want to use a PPP connection to install the
system.At the Apt Configuration step:

• choose http as the method to access the Debian
  archives
• answer Yes to "Use non-US software?"
• answer Yes to "Use non-free software?"
• answer Yes to "Use contrib software?"
• choose the country the mirror should be in (I will
  select United States. And I will choose the main US mirror site,
  http.us.debian.org.) Enter Proxy information for HTTP access, if
  necessary.

When prompted whether you want to add another apt source,
select No.The next step offers two choices:

1. simple: selecting groups of related software
   packages to install
2. advanced: selecting packages to install one by one,
   which can be very daunting given that Debian currently has over
   4,000 packages to choose from!

Choose simple (option 1) so that we can quickly complete the
install and get to a login prompt.At the Task Installer screen, leave all options unchecked.
This will allow you to edit the /etc/apt/sources.list file by hand
and change the source distribution from stable to unstable. That
way, we can choose packages to install from Debian's unstable tree,
which will allow us to get newer, updated packages, including
XFree86 4.0.1.With all options unchecked, select the Finish button. Type Y
when asked whether you want to continue with the download of
packages.Once all the packages have been installed, and you have
answered all remaining prompts, you will finally be presented with
a console login screen that looks like:

    Debian GNU/Linux 2.2 matrix tty1
    matrix login:

You should now be able to login either as root or as the
non-root user that was created earlier.Installing XFree86 4.1.0We have installed the base Debian system, but it is very
minimal right now since we didn't choose any packages to be
installed. Also, the X Window System has not been installed so we
are limited to working from the console only.What we have installed is the stable release of Debian,
currently version 2.2r3, but known as potato. Debian's XFree86
4.1.0 packages are available in the unstable tree, currently known
as sid. So, let's upgrade this new installation to Debian's
unstable tree. After that, we will install the XFree86 4.1.0
packages.Login as root from one of the virtual consoles, and edit the
/etc/apt/sources.list file using vi so that the source lines use
the unstable tree. Modify the file so that it contains only the
following lines:

deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian unstable main contrib non-free
deb http://non-us.debian.org/debian-non-US unstable/non-US main contrib non-free

If you have selected different mirror sites during the Apt
configuration step, your source lines will look different. In that
case, it should be sufficient to change all instances of stable to
unstable in lines that are not commented (begin with a #
character).To complete the upgrade, type the following:

    apt-get update
    apt-get dist-upgrade

Press Y to begin downloading the packages. Once all packages
have been downloaded, installed and configured, the upgrade to
Debian's unstable tree is complete. Its that easy.We are now ready to begin downloading and installing the
XFree86 4.1.0 packages. Two metapackages are provided in Debian's
stable and unstable trees that allow for a full installation of
XFree86:Debian's unstable tree provides a metapackage that makes it
easy to do a full install of XFree86 4.1.0, x-window-system. This
package has as its dependencies all other necessary Debian packages
needed for a full XFree86 4.1.0 install. To begin installation of
XFree86 4.1.0, type apt-get install
x-window-system.Press Y to begin downloading and installing the
packages.A Debian Configuration screen, similar to the ones in the
installer, should appear. This will be for configuring the
xserver-xfree86 package. Select the following options to configure
the C800's ATI Rage Mobility M4 video card:

  Select the desired X server driver                        : ati
  Use kernel framebuffer device interface?                  : no
  Select your keyboard model                                : pc101
  Choose your mouse port                                    : /dev/psaux
  Mouse type                                                : ImPS/2
  Is your monitor an LCD device                             : yes
  Choose a method for selecting your monitor characteristics: Advanced
  Monitor's horizontal sync range                           : 30-94
  Monitor's vertical sync range                             : 50-75
  Select the video modes you would like the X server to use : 1600x1200 (check only this option)
  Select your desired default color depth in bits           : 24

Once you have selected OK through the various info dialog
boxes that appear, the /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 file, the
configuration file for the XFree86 4.1.0 X server, should be
written. We are essentially done with the installation and
configuration of XFree86 4.1.0.Let's test this configuration to make sure everything was set
up properly, and that we can indeed run X at a resolution of 1600 x
1200@24bpp. Type startx to start up the X
server. If everything goes well, you should see the familiar grey
stippled background of X, but that's all you see. That's because we
haven't set up an X display manager or a window manager.First, press Ctrl+Alt+Backspace to kill the X server and
return to the console. The Debian x-window-system package will have
already installed xdm (the classic X Display Manager). To start
xdm, type /etc/init.d xdm start. You should see
a grey login panel against a grey stippled background. If you don't
like xdm, you can install another display manager e.g., WDM (Wings
Display Manager), KDM (K Display Manager), etc.Congratulations, you should now have a minimal installation
of Debian unstable, along with XFree86 4.1.0 running at a
resolution of 1600 x 1200.I have listed some resources below to help with installing
Linux on the Dell Latitude C800 laptop. The Linux-Dell-Laptops
(LDL) Yahoo! Group is an excellent help forum.Part 2 of this article, "Post-Installation Configuration of a
Dell Laptop", is now
available.ResourcesDebian GNU/Linux Home
PageDebian
GNU/Linux Installation ManualLinux-Dell-Laptops
Yahoo! GroupLinux-Dell-Laptops
FAQDebian-Laptop
Mailing ListLinux on
LaptopsMy
XFree86Config-4 FileSalman Ahmed is a
Toronto-based independent consultant specializing in
Object-oriented Software Development, and all things Linux.

email: ssahmed@pathcom.com