Dell Studio 17 :: Chris Jean

Archive for Dell Studio 17

Mount Dell Studio 17 Card Reader in Ubuntu

by Chris Jean

February 10th, 2009

I’m using Ubuntu 8.10 64-bit, Intrepid Ibex, but these instructions should work for users of other distros (such as Linux Mint, Fedora, Sabayon, etc) as well.

This morning I needed to pull some images off of my camera’s SD card using my Dell Studio 17′s built-in card reader. I plugged the card in, got sidetracked for a few minutes, and then realized that I couldn’t find a mount point for my card.

Usually when I plug in the card, it is automatically identified and mounted. Then Nautilus would show a listing in the left-hand pane for the card allowing me easy access to the contents. However, that didn’t happen today.

I thought about rebooting in order to see if it was just a fluke, but I didn’t want to save all my projects, close out all my applications, reboot, and load everything back up. So, I thought I’d see about mounting the device manually. Fortunately, it wasn’t difficult at all.

Categories Linux, Tips 'n Tricks
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Dell Studio 17, Headphones, and Linux Mint

by Chris Jean

February 4th, 2009

A visitor to the site mentioned that he has the same laptop as I have yet is running Linux Mint rather than Ubuntu. He said that all the help that I was offering for getting Ubuntu to run well on the Studio 17 worked for him in Linux Mint except the headphone fix didn’t work. So, I dug in to see if I could find a solution.

I installed Linux Mint on my Dell Studio 1735 two nights ago and got the headphone jacks working successfully. Here’s step-by-step what I did:

Categories Linux, Tips 'n Tricks
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Headphones Jacks Now Fully Work on Dell Studio 17 Running Ubuntu

by Chris Jean

January 29th, 2009

A number of updates were installed on my machine yesterday. Ubuntu asked me to reboot, but I was busy, so I never ended up doing that yesterday. This morning, I booted my machine and was very surprised to find out that my headphone jacks no longer worked. Needless to say, I was upset.

As I discussed in a previous post, I’m running Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) on a Dell Studio 17 laptop and getting the headphones to work required some workarounds. Basically, you had to set up the headphones to be line outs which caused one of the jacks to function but failed to mute the speakers when headphones were plugged in. This resulted in needing to manually mute and unmute the Front audio channel when you used or removed headphones. It’s because of this workaround that I thought the jack no longer worked.

Categories Linux, Tips 'n Tricks
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Using the Mic on a Dell Studio with Ubuntu

by Chris Jean

January 27th, 2009

I received a comment from John asking about using a mic with Ubuntu on a Dell Studio. I hadn’t tried to use my mic before, so I thought that it was time to try it out. After playing around a bit, I figured it out.

Categories Linux, Tips 'n Tricks
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Week Two Running Ubuntu at the Office

by Chris Jean

January 15th, 2009

As of today, it has been exactly two weeks since I started using Ubuntu as my OS at the office. Not only that, it’s been two weeks since my office computer (Dell Studio 17) has booted into Windows.

I left Windows on the system “just in case,” but much to my surprise, I haven’t needed it once. Running Ubuntu is different than running Windows, but it’s not any more difficult. In fact, Ubuntu is much more powerful and forgiving than Windows has been. I can work so much faster now that I’m running Ubuntu than I ever have been able to with Windows, and that’s without being able to use my favorite editor, Crimson Editor.

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Adventures with Ubuntu Continued

by Chris Jean

January 5th, 2009

I’m now on my fifth day of using Ubuntu on my office machine. Slowly, I’m starting to get accustomed to working with it, but there are still a variety of things that I still need to do from time to time.

For those that haven’t read my previous posts on this topic, I’ve switched from Windows Vista to Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex (8.10) on my Dell Studio 17 laptop that I use at the office. Even though Ubuntu has a great ability to “just work,” often times it is difficult and unintuitive to get certain things to work. So, I decided to blog about all those difficulties so that I can have this information to rely on later and so others can benefit from my experience.

Categories Linux, Tips 'n Tricks
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First Day with Ubuntu at the Office

by Chris Jean

January 3rd, 2009

I got Ubuntu successfully installed on my office machine (Dell Studio 17) yesterday. Today, I’m going to use it all day at the office while making notes on what still doesn’t work, what I could get to work, how I fixed problems, and I’m sure some random ramblings will enter at some point.

Categories Linux, Tips 'n Tricks
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Setting up Ubuntu on my Dell Studio 17

by Chris Jean

January 1st, 2009

I have a Dell Studio 17 for my office computer. It’s a nice machine, but Vista fails horribly on it. The ATI driver for it causes a BSoD on average, once a day. I’ve finally had enough, so I’m switching over to Ubuntu 8.10, Intrepid Ibex.

I’m writing this post as I install and configure Ubuntu. This will make it easier for me to keep track of what I did in case I need to undo something later or if anybody reading this wants to make the switchover as well.

Categories Linux, Tips 'n Tricks
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