Linux on the Dell Inspiron 3500

• Unit baught March 10, 1999 ($2500 w/ educational discount, plus some extras, but minus the internal WINMODEM :-)
• RedHat 5.2 installed without a snag, FIPS20 was used to split the 4G disk. Some nice features:
  • external PS2 mouse is hot insertable
  • FD on parallel port is insertable with a suspend (Dell recommends a power-down though)
• APM installed by recompiling the kernel,
• PCMCIA does not work if you warm-boot from Windows98, but works fine accross a suspend.
• I kept hitting the Fn-(A?) button, accidentally of course, which puts the machine into suspend-to-disk mode. nice to know it works under linux, but a bit distracting at times. I believe emacs users might be more prone to this than vi users.
• Sound: unknown at this point
• Other people have also written about this unit (you should be able to find their links on the Linux Laptop Page too.
  • Kal Ng
  • Dave ...
  • Kevin Rae
  • Henrik Krobath Olesen