Ubuntu

Dell M1530 Laptop

Asked by JohnTCorrigan

Before I bought the Dell laptop,I checked to see if it would work with ubuntu 8.04.
I was told that it would. The laptop works well with MS Vista that came with it.
But, when I tried to run ubuntu 8.04 from the DVD the touch-pad had little or no control
over the pointer. This made an installtion imposible. The touch-pad is made by Alps Electric
and is conected to PS/2 mouse port internaly. Can anyone help?
Many Thanks,
John.

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Félim Whiteley
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Best Félim Whiteley (felimwhiteley) said : 		#1

Hi John,

Seems this is actually a BIOS/Hardware issue that Dell have a patch for, but it does require updating your BIOS (Which can be dangerous in extreme circumstances but a lot of improvement has been made). There have been a lot of complaints already about this:

http://www.dellideastorm.com/article/show/10077695/Fix_the_M1530_touchpad

The BIOS patch is here:

http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/download.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&releaseid=R182442&SystemID=XPS_M1530&servicetag=&os=WLH&osl=en&deviceid=14338&devlib=0&typecnt=0&vercnt=3&catid=-1&impid=-1&formatcnt=1&libid=1&fileid=248848

For Linux Users: Upgrade to v8 of the BIOS, then add i8042.nomux=1 to the kernel options.
See guide here for more:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/InstallingUbuntuOnADellXPSM1530

I hope this helps. But please be careful following the BIOS update instructions !!

All the best,

Félim

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JohnTCorrigan (john-corrigan) said : 		#2

Hi Félim,

Thanks for the help.
My Dell BIOS is vers. A08 from 03/19/2008.

I cannot load LINUX at all so I can't change anything in the options.

I will be away for some time now, so I will continue this when I return.

Many, many thanks,
John.

Revision history for this message
Félim Whiteley (felimwhiteley) said : 		#3

Hi John,

Sorry that's a no go for you. What you could do is try the Alternate install CD, this is a text mode only, and is relatively straight forward. It's not AS easy as the GUI installer but it works in a lot of cases where the normal one will not due to strangness. If you want continue on this thread when you are back and I'll try help again.

Have a good one,

Félim