Fixing wifi at my Dell Inspiron E1505

This is a common issue among Linux users. Every time you make a fresh install there is big chance that your Wifi will not work. This was the case for me when I removed the partitioning and decided to go all UBUNTU. The fix was reasonable (after finding the right solution of course)

first step, know exactly what is your Wifi drive:

$lspci -v
Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN [14e4:4311] (rev 01)
    Subsystem: Dell Wireless 1390 WLAN Mini-Card [1028:0007]
    Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR+ FastB2B- DisINTx-
    Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- SERR-     Latency: 0, Cache Line Size: 64 bytes
    Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 16
    Region 0: Memory at efdfc000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]

so my drive is The infamous Broadcom BC4. Now I need to install it

$sudo apt-get install firmware-b43-installer b43-fwcutter

then a reboot is in order (it is better to disconnect the Ethernet while doing this step)

now try turning it on
$sudo modprobe b43

Tada! Know it can see the signal and life is good.

http://askubuntu.com/questions/271044/getting-wireless-to-work-dell-inspiron-e1505-bcm4311

Touch pad wasin't responding for Dell Inspiron 17 - 7547

When instiall Ubuntu 12.04 on Dell 15 Inspiron machine, the fancy touch pad wasn't working. After some research the suggested fix was to update the kernel:

the current Kernel was:

$uname -r

3.13.1


To update to a newer Kernel (I read that 3.17 or 3.18 solved this problem) we do the following (64-Bit):

$ wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.18.1-vivid/linux-headers-3.18.1-031801_3.18.1-031801.201412170637_all.deb

$ wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.18.1-vivid/linux-headers-3.18.1-031801-generic_3.18.1-031801.201412170637_amd64.deb

$ wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.18.1-vivid/linux-image-3.18.1-031801-generic_3.18.1-031801.201412170637_amd64.deb

$ sudo dpkg -i linux-headers-3.18.1*.deb linux-image-3.18.1*.deb  ## to install the Kernel

$ sudo update-grub   ## to update grup to fetch the new Kernel
$ sudo reboot

It worked like magic. How ever, the "right click" is still an issue, you can over come it by the double touch (two fingers at the same time). This gie the same effect as a right click. 




Source: http://www.linuxandubuntu.com/home/how-to-install-upgrade-linux-kernel-3181-in-ubuntu

Reloading voice credentials for UBUNTU

Sometimes, after long hourse of usage, I lose the voice in my laptop. Here is a nice fix. 

$pulseaudio -k && sudo alsa force-reload

Mergin /home and / in UBUNTU

After install ubuntu on the DELL machine (see last post). I noticed that the home drive was limited to only 8GB, while the root (/) directory had over 400GB size. The solution was to merge them both.

I followed this link (the section after the partitioning is the relevant one).

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Partitioning/Home/Moving

Add UBUNTU 14.04 to windows 8.1 on DELL 7547

Good resource to consider:

http://www.everydaylinuxuser.com/2014/05/install-ubuntu-1404-alongside-windows.html

My problem with it was the requirement to remove secure boot. Indeed this is not necessary these days and could actually cause trouble in the partitioning phase.

 http://askubuntu.com/questions/458947/should-i-create-the-reserved-bios-boot-area-partition


http://askubuntu.com/questions/223177/how-much-space-i-should-use-for-ubuntu-which-partitions