Re: Wrestling with Dell Precision laptop. You too? Discuss tips & experience

[Johann Spies <jspies@sun.ac.za>]

On Tue, Jun 07, 2011 at 08:00:16PM +0200, Paul Johnson wrote:
> If you have one of these new-ish Dell laptops, maybe we can help each other.

I have a Dell Lattitude E6410.

> 
> 1. Don't bother with Debian Squeeze.  The newer kernel from

Mine is a bit older so Squeeze works and putting the laptop to sleep and
waking it up works.  
> 
> 1. The touchpad "sorta" works.  The system sees it as a PS/2 mouse,

I had so much trouble with the touchpad that I disabled it in the bios
to be able to work.  I just had enough of a jumping cursor which
disrupts my work.

> 2. The keyboard is weird. Compared to previous laptops I've had, it is
> almost awful.  Because the screen is so wide, they decided to add a

My keyboard was giving me a lot of trouble when the computer was
stressed (loadaverage > 1.0) to such an extent that I could not keep on
working when high level of IO was taking place in the background.  I
experienced problems like repeating characters or a lack of reaction
from the keyboard. A hint from another user using Fedora on
a HP who had similar problems convinced me to try an external
usb-keyboard.  That helped me to keep on working even when background
tasks like database dumps, indexing and backups were pushing up the
loadaverage.

Regards
Johann
-- 
Johann Spies                            Telefoon: 021-808 4699
Databestuurder /  Data manager

Sentrum vir Navorsing oor Evaluasie, Wetenskap en Tegnologie
Centre for Research on Evaluation, Science and Technology 
Universiteit Stellenbosch.

     "Fear thou not, for I am with thee; be not dismayed, 
      for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea I will 
      help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand
      of my righteousness."         Isaiah 41:10