Ubuntu Feisty 7.04 Custom Live DVD
Following are instructions on installing Ubuntu preconfigured for the Dell Inspiron 6400 w/ ATI along with a ton of pre-installed applications. This guide may also work for other brands that use the ATI driver. This “Dell 6400 Ubuntu Live DVD” will install a working Ubuntu system with ATI drivers, WiFi drivers, Modem Drivers (this also works on the Live DVD), Beryl (3D Eyecandy), and a huge list of other applications (see below in About This DVD).
Follow these instructions to download and install from the “Dell 6400 Ubuntu Live DVD”:
Step 1: Download the “Dell 6400 Ubuntu Live DVD” image here: Download Here
Step 2: Burn the iso to a DVD and boot your Dell 6400 Inspiron with ATI from it. You’ll boot into a “normal” Live DVD.
Step 3: Double Click the “Install” icon and install to your system.
Step 4: Boot your new system and login to a normal Gnome session (NOT XGL).
Step 5: Double Click the “FinishUp” icon and wait for it to finish installing updates.
Step 6: Reboot your system. Upon reboot you can then select the “Gnome-xgl” session and login to your new system with Beryl!
Step 7: Optional: If you are legally able to, you can run the “Codecs” script on the Desktop after your reboot to install DVD and Win32 Codecs.
About This DVD:
The “Dell 6400 Ubuntu Live DVD” is configured for ATI systems. This will most likely work on other brands that use ATI, such as HP, but I’ve not tested this. It is configured with the ATI driver and the Broadcom Wireless driver for systems with the bcm43xx wifi hardware (such is the case with systems that have the Dell 1390).
The Live DVD contains the following software pre-installed and will also install this software on a normal install:
1. Build Tools
2. Beryl + XGL
3. Dell Modem Driver
4. JAVA Plugins
5. Skype
6. VMWare Server
7. Popular Multimedia Codecs
8. MPlayer and Firefox Plugin
9. Flash Plugin for Firefox
10. Nautilus scripts for opening Nautilus as Root, and others.
11. Extra Fonts
12. Compression Utilities
13. Google Desktop
14. Firestarter Firewall and ClamAV Virus Protection
15. Wine for Running Windows Apps
16. Backup & Restore
17. i8K Utility for Hardware Monitoring such as CPU Temp.
18. ScanbuttonD for Operating Canon Scanners
19. Automatix2 for Installing Codecs, VMWare, and TONS of other useful software. Learn more about Automatix at www.GetAutomatix.com.
20. F-Spot for Photo Management
21. DVGrab, Kino for Video Editing
22. Banshee
23. Audactiy for Audio Editing
24. DVD Ripping Software
25. DeVeDe for DVD Authoring
26. Totem Xine Player Open for More Codecs
27. VLC Media Player
28. Cinelerra Video Editing Software
29. Cinepaint Frame by Frame Video Editing
30. RecordMyDesktop Desktop Video Recording
31. Updated GIMP
32. Inkscape Vector Graphics Software
33. Xara Xtreme Drawing Program
34. Blender 3D Rendering Software
35. FontForge Font Editing Software
36. Agave Color Schemer
37. Adobe Acrobat 7.0
38. Scribus Desktop Publishing
39. Liferea RSS Reader
40. Bittornado Bittorent Software
41. GAIM Chat Beta Software
42. gSTM Proxy Tunneling Software
43. Bluefish HTML Code Software
44. Kompozer HTML Editor
After Running the “FinishUp” Script the Following is Performed on Your New System:
1. Sources.list is “fixed” and updated with all sources
2. System Upgrade Including Kernel Upgrade (necessary for running VMWare, Beryl and others correctly)
Have fun!
John-
Good to see you got this working. I learned a few things I didnt’t already know by looking at the go script.
Hi,
Firstly THANK YOU for this wonderful working script that installs ubuntu on my Inspiron 6400 with no hassle. I can appreciate your work even more as I had installed ubuntu earlier and had to search and configure my wireless and 1680*1080 resolution. With the previous installation I could never get Beryl to work on my system. Hence I decided to reinstall everything with your script.
With your DVD script, Ubuntu installation went great. But I am having issues with Beryl (Beryl is one of the many attractions to move from XP to ubuntu). The Beryl features turn on and off randomly like the wobbling option windows and so on. Also when I try applying the Beryl themes, I am unable to do so even though I am able to see the various themes. I am pretty imoressed with the various Beryl pictures you have displayed and as your laptop is same as mine, I am confident I can have them too. Its just a amatter fo right onfiguration. As such can you please help me configure my system. Or is it that ATI drivers are buggy leading to inconsistency.
Looking fwd to your reply. I will be more than happy to provide you with more info about my configuration.
Thanks
Prateek
My question is this. After installing the system and running the scripts including the system update, is it possible to update to the next release while retaining the working order of the system?
Have the 6400, and depend heavily on hibernate/suspend. So after trying the latest, decided to redownload the live-dvd and do a fresh install.
Everything went fine, but for some reason the CODECS and FINISHUP scripts do nothing. I looked in the folders where these scripts refer to, and files were not there.
Do I need to download these? Any manual ways to get them back?
Thanks,
bmdavis