CrunchBang Linux

trevallion

New Member

From: Texas

Registered: 2009-01-28

Posts: 9

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Dell Mini 9: Help & Tweaks

I know that there are probably lots of people who would like to run #! on a Dell Mini 9, as it is really suited extremely well to that. I am currently doing that, and I would like to start a thread that helps users do that. If you have questions about support for your dell mini 9, then I can tackle them here. I have installed all 3 versions of #! on my mini 9 and am currently using the Cruncheee version, which I am extremely happy with. There are configuration issues that all users will have to address. Other mini 9 users, I say to you, unite! and help people that are trying to get things to work, as I don't have every configuration. For example, I didn't get the built in webcam. Here are some ideas to start us off.

Pre-Install:

• You will need a USB thumbdrive for the easiest installation, 1gb will do fine for any #! version

• Use a regular version of Unetbootin to create your startup disk, easier, in my opinion than hooking up external cdrom

• Best idea is to boot into the live version, don't go straight to install on the boot menu

During install:

• Format using ext2, this limits the writes to disk (for solid state drives)

• Choose custom on the formatting as well, because you dont want to waste space with swap (maybe you do, I sure dont)

• Note that this will disable *Hibernate* modes and cause verbose bootloading screens.

After install
Font Issues

• Change the font size to 6 (You can leave it as default if you want to, but I have found 6 to be perfect for that small screen)

• First, the easy one, open your right click menu and go to 'Pref' 'Openbox config' 'GUI Config Tool' Go to apperance, and set all the default font sizes to 6

• Now the hard(er) one, all the menus are still big. Change that with this command

leafpad ~/.gtkrc-2.0

and edit that file so that it includes the line:

gtk-font-name="Sans 6"

This makes all the fonts that you see uniformly small (some people may not like that, I do). It was most irritating to me in Firefox, where my window headers were neat little space savers, and the my "File" menu was huge!

Getting wireless to work
I had a problem on Cruncheee for sure, and I think perhaps one of the others, getting the wireless to work. Here is what can make that happen for you:

Install ndisgtk:

sudo apt-get install ndisgtk

Download the windows driver from dell, and unarchive it somewhere that you will remember
Run ndisgtk:

sudo ndisgtk &

Now tell it where you put the drivers .inf file, and presto, the wireless works!

Sound
I am working on getting sound running on Cruncheee. The module that you need to turn on, if you are not running Cruncheee is intel hd sound, like this:

sudo modprobe snd-hda-intel

I am fairly certain that that works, however, that module isn't precompiled in the eeepclean kernel(version I am currently running), so I am going to post directions on getting the sound working once I get it finalized. (I am trying to make it simple, just a few instructions, if anyone cares to contribute, feel free

Are there any additional issues that Dell Mini 9 users are experiencing? I do not remember any issues with card readers, in the default file manager you just have to mount your SD card like you would a USB drive (by clicking on it). If you are having an issue, let me know, I will help as best I can!

Edit for conformity

Last edited by trevallion (2009-02-25 05:19:47)