Dell laptop update

[Ben Lutgens <ben@cssolutionsinc.com>]

Those of you who were at the meeting last weekend may remember talking abou
the soundcard in my new Dell Inspiron 3800. I mentioned that I couldn't seem
to get the sound working. The reason is that the Maestro 3x series of chips is
unsupported becase the chip make hasn't released the proper information yet,
please see http://people.redhat.com/zab/maestro/ for more info if you care. I
also tried OSS/Linux and Alsa both of which failed.

if you are a person like me who simply has to have sound, don't buy this card
or a machine with it inside.

Other than that, this laptop is wonderful. Every piece of hardware is
supported even the docking station stuff (ethernet NiC, and various ports),
the APM is buggy at best but works. If I manually suspend it with the hotkeys
I can't get it back but if the BIOS suspends it it's fine. PCMCIA and USB
support works great too. On boot I can pick with network interface I want to
use, so if I am at home ro work I still get net access without any fuss. It's
a resonably fast machine for a laptop and the video is quite clean (An ATI
Rage Mobility *MB card) and can run as much as 1024x768. I could use more RAM
though with only 64MB but hey how can I complain since I didn't have to buy
it (My company bought it for me). All in all I would reccomend this laptop to
anyone who wants to run linux (Debian woody inm my case) on a portable.
-- 

Ben Lutgens         651-623-6162
Sysadmin / IT Consultant
CS Solutions Inc