Hardware Compatibility

Much to my delight, Ubuntu supports most of my Dell Laptop's hardware straight out of the box... erm, cd burner. Wait, I can say that legally with Linux!

Hardware Inventory:

Stuff that Just Works straight after installation:

ATI Radeon X300; my definition of 'working' is that I can select the resolution I need. It does. I'm not sure which driver is installed, but it suits my needs perfectly.

Intel Pro Wireless 2200; as mentioned earlier, wireless configuration was quite a simple experience. The card is automatically installed, all I have to do is connect to my SSID and i'm online. The only problem has not been hardware related - I can't seem to find a way to tell the network connections thingy to connect to my wireless network instead of the neighbour's. I have to manually disconnect from the neighbour's network before I can connected to mine. Ah well.

HP DeskJet 5652 USB Printer; installation was marginally easier than in Windows. I plugged the printer in, powered it on, opened the 'Printers' configuration from the System --> Administration menu, double clicked New Printer, Selected USB Printer, then the make and model from a list, done! I printed a quick test page from Open Office, mostly because I wanted an excuse to use Open Office. When I chose the print option I was only given the choice of printing from 'Generic Printer' but hey, it put text on the page, that's all I need.

USB Camera; I used the bundled USB cord to connect my camera to the USB port, a friendly popup asked my if I wanted to import photos to my computer. Just the way it should work!

Laptop Function Keys; This keyboard has a Function key which, when pressed in conjunction with other designated keys, performs some function. Funnily enough. I had no expectation that it'd work, but it does. So far i've been able to adjust the LCD's brightness settings and sound card's volume, and the pseudo number pad also works. I haven't tested all functions, such as the key with the battery on it, because I don't know what it does :)

Stuff that doesn't work, and has no available configuration utility:

USB Mouse Side Buttons; My Microsoft USB mouse works straight after plugging it in, however I can't get the side buttons to work. One of those perks I really miss. Althgouh Alt+left and right works well, it just isn't the same.

Dell Touchpad; The basic functionality of the touchpad works well. However, the extra scrolling functionality does not. That's okay, I preferred pageup+pagedn anyway.

Multimedia Buttons; sometimes the volume adjustment buttons work, but mostly don't. The other function keys do not.