Mandrake 8.0 on an Inspiron 8100

Specs:

Partitioning

30GB total.

/dev/hda1	31MB	(XP uses this partition for hibernation)
/dev/hda2	3GB	C:\
/dev/hda4		Extended
/dev/hda5	3GB	/
/dev/hda6	7GB	D:\
/dev/hda7	400MB	swap
/dev/hda8	2GB	/usr
/dev/hda9	3GB	/var
/dev/hda10	8GB	/home
	5GB	(empty)

Graphics

I had a lot of trouble getting the right NVIDIA drivers installed, but eventually it worked (my trouble was, I think, due more to my inexperience than anything else). I ended up mostly following the NHF on linuxnewbie.org, though I also got some info from a HOWTO on mandrakeuser.org.

From a fresh install of Mandrake, I first recompiled my kernel. I didn't change any options from the defaults, but it was necessary to make the gcc versions of kernel and kernel drivers match up. Then I downloaded all the necessary files from xfree86.org and (re)installed XFree86 with their install script (rather than from RPM), even though I had just installed it during the system install. I'm not sure quite why this was necessary, but the drivers worked when I did it, and not when I didn't.

I also downloaded the tar.gz source of the NVIDIA drivers (both NVIDIA_kernel and NVIDIA_GLX) and unpacked them. (I had absolutely horrible troubles with the RPMs, thus I would not recommend them at all.) For the kernel drivers I got errors that my gcc version was not the same version that the kernel was compiled with, even though it was (later I did in fact have problems when running a kernel with a different gcc version). Thus I had to tell it to ignore that:

NVIDIA_kernel] make install IGNORE_CC_MISMATCH
NVIDIA_kernel] cd ../NVIDIA_GLX
NVIDIA_GLX] make install

The NHF says 'make', but the NVIDIA README says 'make install'. I had better success with 'make install'. Oh, and there was also some renaming of Mesa files, most of which I didn't even have.

At this point comes XFree86 configuration. I followed the HOWTO on this and snatched 'atimp316.rpm' from Dell's support site. It provided me with a sample XF86Config-4 file which I then modified according to the HOWTO. I rebooted to be safe, and it worked!

What I did may not work for you, but don't lose hope - I tried umpteen times and kept on getting different and confusing results.

Known Issues

Apmd does not properly recognize the battery. Haven't tried burning CDs or using the modem.