Comments on: Installing Ubuntu Server on a Dell Inspiron 530

By: js

js — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 09:42:39 +0000

@Nohacks: I never was able to get Fedora running on this machine. I just ended up sticking with Ubuntu because it worked. I’ve thought about trying a more recent Fedora to see if it would work (inevitably there have been improvements in the year+ since I originally wrote this article), but I have it working fine with Ubuntu and haven’t had the time or desire to experiment. Sounds like the Dell guy doesn’t know what he is talking about, I bought the Inspiron 530 with Ubuntu pre-installed. What flavors/versions of Linux have you tried to install?

By: Nohacks

Nohacks — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 03:53:18 +0000

Hi,
I recently purchased a cheapie Dell Inspiron 530 as well.

I can’t get any form of Linux to work on this machine. I called Dell too and they said it was never shipped with Linux on it in any form. Maybe the guy on the help line was mistaken.

How did you get this running? I had to disconnect the Sata CDRom and use an external usb cdrom to even get it to boot. then during the install it fails the cdrom test. Very strange since it booted from the same cdrom it fails during the install..

Phil

By: Ubu Dale

Ubu Dale — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 17:52:39 +0000

Thanks. I just did and it now works. My mistake.

By: js

js — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 06:22:18 +0000

Ubu Dale,

Did you set up /etc/network/interfaces (step 5 in part 1 above) to bring up your network on boot?

By: Ubu Dale

Ubu Dale — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 04:31:53 +0000

System: Dell Inspiron 530
Ubuntu: 7.04 Feisty
Install of Intel e1000 works firts time. But on reboot, the network is disabled again. The e1000 driver gets loaded and shows up in the lsmod list. No number of network restart or rmmod/modprobe sloves the problem. Physically removing the driver file and reinstalling brings the network up again. On reboot, same problem repeats. Anyone?

By: Kyle Stevens

Kyle Stevens — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 01:13:25 +0000

Thanks. This helped me to get my network back up. I can’t believe this is required. I’ve installed Ubuntu on a lot of computers, and almost all detect the network by default.

By: Ray

Ray — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 03:25:42 +0000

I just had a similar situation with a Dell Inspiron 531 while attempting to install Ubuntu Server 6.06 LTS. The installer did not detect my integrated nVidia network adapter. I fooled around for a while trying to install a different network driver–without success. I also had to use the “noapic” option just to get the installer to start successfully. Not a very satisfying ordeal to say the least!

So I decided to try Ubuntu Server 7.04 instead. Talk about “night and day”. It installed very smoothly! So I’d recommend that others in a similar consider 7.04.

By: SaÃ¯vann

SaÃ¯vann — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 19:13:14 +0000

Worked for me, thanks!

By: Mathias

Mathias — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 19:10:04 +0000

Thank you for this howto. We have this “cheapie” in our office and ubuntu didn’t detect the network card. I’ll try this.