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Posts Tagged ‘Dell XPS’

Howto Make Dell XPS M1530 Multimedia Keys Work With iTunes!!!

January 21st, 2010

I have being using itunes for a long time on my Dell XPS M1530… The only thing that bugs me while using itunes is that the multimedia keys only work when the itunes main window is in focus, which is very irritating…

After a little bit of googling I found out this post and his solution works… This is what you have to do to fix this issue….

Download this plugin: Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Apple, Dell XPS, iTunes, Microsoft, Windows, Windows 7
Posted in Techi Gyaan | Comments (5)

Coming Soon: Dell Adamo XPS!!!

November 11th, 2009

Heavily hyped with more than a few teasers from Dell, the computer giant has finally launched its wafer-slim Dell Adamo XPS in time for the Christmas market. The third in the Adamo series, there’s no doubt Dell’s aim with this machine is to give arch-rival Apple’s MacBook Air a run for its money. And the launch follows in the wake of super-thin machines such as the Sony Vaio X range.

Said to be the world’s thinnest laptop, the Dell Adamo XPS is just 9.9mm thick, and weighs in at less than 1.5kg. The laptop doesn’t open with a conventional mechanical button release. Instead you move your fingers over a heat sensor to release the full-size aluminium keyboard and watch the laptop unfold itself. AWESOME!!!

Close

Dell Adamo XPS

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Dell XPS
Posted in Fun Gyaan | Comments (1)

Dell’s new Adamo XPS!!!

September 11th, 2009

The Dell Adamo is already one of the hottest laptops in the market currently. But on Wednesday Dell offered a peek at a “design concept” for a stylish, high-end laptop that could become the computer maker’s next challenge to Apple’s MacBook Air. The New Adamo XPS is slimmer than the Adamo model unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show at the start of this year, although details are sketchy at the moment. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Adamo, Apple, Dell XPS
Posted in Assorted Gyaan | Comments (1)

Reasons to put Linux/Ubuntu on your netbook!!!

June 10th, 2009

Microsoft pounded itself on the chest in April saying over 96% of netbooks now use Windows. This made me somewhat sad, because I was hoping these little computers could be the break Linux had been waiting for.

The first couple of netbooks all had Linux pre-installed. Unfortunately, Asus chose to go with a custom Linux distribution for which it has yet to release its first update. No Firefox 3, no Flash 10 and no easy way to get additional software. Except for the easy to use interface, they came up with the worst example of what Linux can be. But if there’s one thing Linux offers its choice. It is my opinion that Ubuntu is the most user-friendly Linux distro out there, and I highly recommend giving it a go on your netbook.

Here are some reasons why you should use linux(Ubuntu) on netbooks instead of windows…

1. It does everything what netbooks should do…

There’s no Adobe Photoshop for Linux, and the same goes for many other professional applications. There are alternatives, but that’s not the point here. Running Photoshop on an Atom processor is no fun. That’s the kind of thing you do on a desktop PC or a high-end laptop. Ubuntu comes with everything installed that you need to surf the web, chat, download (a bittorrent client!) and email. Oh, and OpenOffice too.

2. It’s extremely configurable

If you’re even slightly geekish (like me ), you’ll probably like tinkering with a new Operating System. Ubuntu, like any Linux distribution is extremely configurable. Lots of options to play with, tons of new software to get to know. But even if you’re not into all that, you’ll find Ubuntu to be incredibly easy to operate and very stable.

3. It’s got fast boot time

Ubuntu 9.04 version of Linux has proven that it doesn’t need to take minutes to boot into a fully operational OS. Intel’s Moblin also boots in seconds, even on slower hardware. Because of the nature of open source software, Linux would always have an edge over windows in this field.

4. F for Free and Freedom

When you use Windows XP on netbooks, it takes a long time to boot and then you have to wait for the updates to finish. Firewall, virus definitions, Windows Updates. Not fun at all. And once all that was done you’d be looking at XP’s ugly (and ancient) user interface. It’s like working on your PC, just a lot slower.

With Ubuntu, using your netbook has becomes a little adventurous, because everything normally don’t work out of the box you’ll occasionally need to figure out how to do something, and that’s when you come across Linux’ best feature. Its user community is full of helpful people. I’ve never not been able to do something I wanted, and even the most challenging issues took no longer than minutes to fix.

Talk about Microsoft Statistics..

Most netbooks might be sold with Windows on them, but the only reason you didn’t get one with Linux was because those weren’t actually available. Very few Linux models are, so everyone wanting to run Linux on them will still need to buy a Windows version. That will definitely skew the statistics.

But I don’t want to be a poor sport here… It’s upto people to decide what they like or dislike. Some people like Windows because they are familiar to it.. Others like to be adventurous and wanna go off the track.. for them there’s Linux..

Cheers

Tags: Dell XPS, Linux, netbooks, Ubuntu, Windows
Posted in Assorted Gyaan | Comments (0)

OLPC Operating System Sugar On a Stick!!!

June 4th, 2009

Sugar is the desktop environment originally developed for the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) computer/education project and as of May 2008 being developed under the umbrella of Sugar Labs. Sugar is used on the OLPC XO-1 laptop computer and is also available as a session option on Ubuntu and Fedora. Unlike more traditional desktop environments, it does not use a “desktop” metaphor and only focuses on one task at a time. It is written in the interpreted Python programming language, whereas most other environments are written in a compiled language such as C. Sugar is also referred to as the OLPC Python Environment. It is composed of the Python language, GTK GUI and Gecko HTML engine.

One of the goal is to bring the Sugar OS to any computer, not just the OLPC XO Laptop. And as step one, the team released Sugar on a Stick a while back. Basically, what Sugar on a Stick lets you do is download and install the Sugar OS onto a USB flash disk with 1GB of storage space or more. The end result is a USB stick that you can insert into pretty much any x86 based computer to boot into the Sugar environment.

There are two versions of Sugar on a Stick available at the moment. One is based on Fedora 10, while the other is based on Ubuntu 8.10. I tried out the Fedora version, which also makes it easy to create persistent storage space on the flash drive, which means you can save any changes to the USB stick. In other words, while Sugar on a Stick boots like a LiveUSB, since you can save changes you can treat it like a portable operating system. You can carry it with you and plug it into any computer to pull up your operating environment. I used Sugar USB pen drive on my Dell XPS M1530.

Sugar OS is designed primarily as an educational tool for children, and includes a number of games, and other tools including utilities kids can use to write their own programs. But if you want to see what the buzz is about without buying your own XO Laptop, Sugar on a Stick is the way to go.

For more Screenshots visit my Flickr Photostream..

Tags: Dell XPS, Fedora, FOSS, Linux, olpc, Sugar, Ubuntu
Posted in Assorted Gyaan, Fun Gyaan | Comments (0)

Dell XPS M1530 fingerprint reader on Ubuntu 9.04!!!

May 11th, 2009

Ubuntu 9.04 has got to be the best Ubuntu version so far for the Dell XPS M1530 as all the hardware works out of the box. Here are the steps for getting the fingerprint reader to work :

Installation

---

Add the key by typing in the terminal:

Now add the PPA repositories to your source.list (/etc/apt/source.list):

Update installer:

install thinkfinger:

Test the Driver

---

Now the driver is installed and should be working.

To acquire your fingerprint use:

To verify your fingerprint use:

Try it as root if it doesn’t work.

Configuring PAM to use ThinkFinger

---

You don’t need to edit anything on Ubuntu 9.04, just type in the terminal:

Now we are ready to add users to thinkfinger. You can add a fingerprint for a user with:

If you would like to use thinkfinger for su, you have to enroll the fingerprint for root user with:

I haven’t got my fingerprint reader to work for unlock of screen when it is locked by screensaver. I’ll update this post when i get it to work.

Tags: Dell XPS, Linux, thinkfinger, Ubuntu
Posted in Techi Gyaan | Comments (2)

Ubuntu 9.04 on Dell XPS M1530!!!

May 10th, 2009

I’ve installed Ubuntu 9.04 on my XPS M1530 (both 64 and 32 bit) and it worked, beautifully, right out of the box. I recommend every Dell XPS M1530 user to use Ubuntu 9.04 as everything works right out of the box.

The install time was insanely fast and easy. The boot time now is pretty less, around 25 seconds. I got the fingerprint reader to work, find it really useful that typing the password again and again (I’ll post how to make it to work really soon), the webcam worked great using Cheese (in the repository). The 64bit tended to drain the battery a bit too fast–understandable. I ended up reinstalling and going back to 32bit as there were a few applications which were needed and weren’t yet ported over to 64bit.

I used envy to get my Nvidia 8600GT to work. The best thing I find about Ubuntu 9.04 on Dell XPS M1530 is that there is no more need to tweak the mouse pad, the camera or anything else!

Tags: Dell XPS, Linux, Ubuntu
Posted in Fun Gyaan | Comments (13)

How to make Dell XPS eject button work in Ubuntu!!!

January 11th, 2009

The eject button on top of the keyboard does not work out of the box in ubuntu.
To solve this issue :
Just type in the terminal :
sudo gedit /etc/sysctl.conf
And add the following lines at the end
# Unlock the CDROM eject button
dev.cdrom.lock=0
Now reboot and try.
Leave a comment if any problems are faced.

Tags: Dell XPS, Ubuntu
Posted in Techi Gyaan | Comments (1)

Dell XPS touchpad not working in ubuntu…

January 11th, 2009

The touchpad might jump around all over the screen or do other weird crap. To fix this first you have to update your BIOS to A09 or higher version. This can be done by downloading the driver from Dell and installing it via windows. Now in ubuntu terminal type :
sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst
And edit
# kopt=root=UUID=cdf0c690-dd5e-41b5-920c-a6dc7959b097 ro
to
# kopt=root=UUID=cdf0c690-dd5e-41b5-920c-a6dc7959b097 ro i8042.nomux=1
and also line
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.27-7-generic root=UUID=cdf0c690-dd5e-41b5-920c-a6dc7959b097 ro quiet splash
to
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.27-7-generic root=UUID=cdf0c690-dd5e-41b5-920c-a6dc7959b097 ro quiet splash i8042.nomux=1
now save and exit.
In the terminal type
sudo update-grub and reboot.

You can also update your BIOS via ubuntu just type the following commands :
wget -q -O – http://linux.dell.com/repo/firmware/bootstrap.cgi > bootstrap.sh
sudo bash bootstrap.sh
sudo aptitude install firmware-addon-dell
sudo aptitude install $(sudo bootstrap_firmware -a)
sudo update_firmware

If the command returns that new BIOS has been found and can be updated. Then type
sudo update_firmware –yes
After this proceed with editing your /boot/grub/menu.lst.
If you face any problems plz leave a comment.

Tags: Dell XPS, Ubuntu
Posted in Techi Gyaan | Comments (3)

Dell XPS M1530 fingerprint reader in Linux!!!

January 11th, 2009

Using a fingerprint reader to access your account is better than typing those long passwords again and again in Linux. Some people have said that even if it works in Linux sometimes it doesn’t recognize your fingerprint, well if u swipe your finger “properly” it surly works . I you have Ubuntu 8.10 then here are a couple of steps that you would need to follow :

First edit your /etc/apt/source.list
sudo gedit /etc/apt/source.list
and then add the lines :
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/jon-oberheide/ubuntu intrepid main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/jon-oberheide/ubuntu intrepid main
to the end of the file, and save and exit.

Now in the terminal type:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install thinkfinger-tools

Now reboot and then try and test the driver by typing the following in the terminal
tf-tool –acquire

If it gives an error as
animesh@animesh-laptop:~$ tf-tool –acquire

ThinkFinger 0.3 (http://thinkfinger.sourceforge.net/)
Copyright (C) 2006, 2007 Timo Hoenig

Initializing… done.
Error while opening “/home/animesh/.thinkfinger.bir”: Permission denied.
Could not open ‘/home/animesh/.thinkfinger.bir’.

Then just try with sudo tf-tool –acquire

Now try and verify it by
tf-tool –verify (use sudo if you used sudo before to acquire your fingerprint)

Now edit your /etc/pam.d/common-auth by typing in the terminal :
gedit /etc/pam.d/common-auth
To make it look like.
….
# here are the per-package modules (the “Primary” block)
auth sufficient pam_thinkfinger.so
auth [success=1 default=ignore] pam_unix.so try_first_pass nullok_secure
# here’s the fallback if no module succeeds
….

Now type
sudo tf-tool –add-user $USERNAME
So that you can login using your finger than password
and to use your finger as root password type
tf-tool –add-user root

To unlock the screen saver using your finger is given at this site (as it is not working for many users of 8.10 i have not included it in this post )
If you face any problems plz leave a comment.

Tags: Dell XPS, Ubuntu
Posted in Techi Gyaan | Comments (0)

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