Many problems with a fresh installation on a DELL LAtitude E5510

Question

Hi all,
i'm writing to let you know about so many problems and issues I'm experiencing with my new laptop. I love arch, but i think this is the pc which gave me the hugest number of problems. Most of them I think are arch-related, but some not...or maybe i don't know...probably all of them are because of my stupidity
1
the first was the problem with the keyboard. I was not able to use properly some chars like @#e in many applications (firefox, writer, kate (in kde)). TTY shell was properly working. Keyboard has been properly set in rc.conf and with setxkb. I partially solved installing gnome (and since here same problem) then i installed gnome extra and it seems to work now. I tested fedora and ubuntu live version and there wasn't any problem. I opened a thread for this
2
the problem related to shutdown is discussed here and is still unresolved. I don't know why, but i can't shut it down, it only restarts, also after the message "POWER OFF". No problems with ubuntu and fedora from the live cd. If i select shut down, i can correctly shut down
3
the third is a microphone problem. I tried with cited distros, but i'm not able to record anything and therefore no skype conversation is possible. I can hear but cannot be heard. I have 2 mics, a built' in and an exetrnal jack. I tried many combination with line in, front mic...but nothing to do.
4
i created a dual boot with win 7. from disk utility in gnome i saw that the windows partition is sda3. then i set the menu.lst with rootnoverify hd(0,2) but it gives me an error message saying: no MBR boot loader is installed. I'm very confused. so many problem on only a machine ( a dell brand new machine - people say dell is very compatible with linux...but...i'm not pretty sure)
I wanted just to signal this situation. I don't knwo if you can help me. I don't know anymore what to do.
Thanks a lot for your patience and your help!

Answer 1

lang2 wrote:Have you resolved any of these issues? I probably will try to install Arch on the same laptop. This is a warning for me.
Hi,
well, i think that if you want to use all functionalities with this laptop, no linux distribution will give you the full support! I experienced all those problems, but i solved in some way some of them. Read the following!
1
the first was the problem with the keyboard. I was not able to use properly some chars like @#e in many applications (firefox, writer, kate (in kde)). TTY shell was properly working. Keyboard has been properly set in rc.conf and with setxkb. I partially solved installing gnome (and since here same problem) then i installed gnome extra and it seems to work now. I tested fedora and ubuntu live version and there wasn't any problem. I opened a thread for this
This issue has been solved when i re-installed AGAIN arch! i don't what was before...but now, i'm writing from here, with GNOME. I don't know, but the only difference wrt the previous gnome installation was the partition scheme: i used a partition for boot, one for /var, one for home, etc...as explained in beginner's guide. I don't think it's related, but it's the only difference i can remember.
2
the problem related to shutdown is discussed here and is still unresolved. I don't know why, but i can't shut it down, it only restarts, also after the message "POWER OFF". No problems with ubuntu and fedora from the live cd. If i select shut down, i can correctly shut down
this issue has been solved after one of the last system update. Actually i'm able to shut down and reboot correctly.
3
the third is a microphone problem. I tried with cited distros, but i'm not able to record anything and therefore no skype conversation is possible. I can hear but cannot be heard. I have 2 mics, a built' in and an exetrnal jack. I tried many combination with line in, front mic...but nothing to do.
This is still unresolved!! I also asked in alsa irc-channel, the guy gave me instructions to perform some tests, and at the end, he said that he never heard about that chipset!
Actually, sound is fine, mic doens't work. I tried ubuntu, fedora (both in live cd mode) and with all of them i'm not able to record any sound from mic. The strange thing is that in volume control there are controls for mic, but even if you enable them, you're not able to record. If you close and re-open volum control, they are again disabled. Nothing to do actually!
4
i created a dual boot with win 7. from disk utility in gnome i saw that the windows partition is sda3. then i set the menu.lst with rootnoverify hd(0,2) but it gives me an error message saying: no MBR boot loader is installed. I'm very confused. so many problem on only a machine ( a dell brand new machine - people say dell is very compatible with linux...but...i'm not pretty sure)
I don't know why, but if I set hd(0,1) it works!
MORE1:
the SD-card reader, simply doesn't work! checked on internet i seems to be incompatible with linux!
MORE2:
i'm not able to make the touchpad working with side scroll! I didn't work a lot on it, as i'm using the external mouse...but this is an other issue. Just configuring xorg file, it doens't work.
Let us know if you are able to solve any of these.
Good luck