Dell Inspiron Mini 9 Netbook

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Dell Inspiron Mini 9 Netbook

While there are many netbooks on the market from a variety of different vendors, for the most part they are composed of the same hardware. They generally carry an Intel Atom processor with a solid-state drive or hard drive, 1GB or so of memory, and an 8" to 10" screen. One area though where these netbooks can differentiate is with the operating system. While Microsoft's Windows XP continues to be used on a large number of netbook computers, when it comes to those vendors deploying Linux each usually has a slightly different flavor. ASUS prefers a spin of Xandros on their Eee PC, there is Linpus, gOS, and many others are out there. When it comes to Dell with their popular Inspiron Mini 9 netbook, they happen to be using Ubuntu but with a few modifications. In preparations for an article later this week where we will be extensively looking at Ubuntu's netbook performance, in this article we are taking a closer look at Dell's Inspiron Mini 9.

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=13696

[bugmenot]

Does this device have an ugly poulsbo chipset?

[joffe]

Intel GMA 950 graphics

No.

It's a shame Intel won't support Poulsbo properly on Linux, it's a great chipset.

[Zhick]

The Dell Mini 10 has a GMA 500 (=Poulsbo) afaik. If it wouldn't be for that it would be pretty much the perfect netbook.

[mdmadph]

Hooray for sticking with 8.04. Nothing wrong with that.

[hobbes]

Michael, Please do a test trying to play a 720p H.264 file using VLC and Totem (Gstreamer and Xine).

The Dell Mini 10 has a GMA 500 (=Poulsbo) afaik. If it wouldn't be for that it would be pretty much the perfect netbook.

Indeed, but there is still hope Intel will fix this situation in the future.

I hope NVIDIA ION plays well, too.

[Melipone]

Actually, the article is incorrect on one thing - the mini9 ships with both evince and adobe pdf readers, and you can choose which to use. Additionally, you have to agree to an adobe licence agreement before you can use it. I chose to uninstall adobe.

[curaga]

backlit -> backlight on page 2

[eric.frederich]

Michael, Please do a test trying to play a 720p H.264 file using VLC and Totem (Gstreamer and Xine).



Indeed, but there is still hope Intel will fix this situation in the future.

I hope NVIDIA ION plays well, too.

Uhm, isn't this a netbook with 4Gb of solid state hard drive. After the OS how much room is left for 720p video?

[Michael]

Uhm, isn't this a netbook with 4Gb of solid state hard drive.

It's an 8GB SSD,

[Adler]

Hi All,

I'm looking for a much larger screen than 9".

Is there such a critter out there?

I run Linux, of course.

JJMacey (http://jjmacey.net/blog/)
Phoenix, Arizona

[dm0rais]

I really admire dell efforts to promote linux on some computers, too bad its on USA only :(

[risbac]

It's available in several countries in Europe too.

And it's a nice machine. We have maybe 6 or 7 of them in the company, and it's a great performance/price value. 8Gb SSD with Ubuntu, working fast, booting fast, no noise, good battery life (almost 5 hours) with a great weight (1kg). And we chose it because they didn't choose an exotic linux distro with some locks. Sure, the LPIA version of Ubuntu is only for Hardy, and all packages are not available. But we customized it with a Cherokee web server and couples of other things, it was really easy and without hacking stuffs.

And the 10" version is said to have Ubuntu soon. However I have some concerns about the battery, currently it's only a 3 cells, the 6 cells should arrive soon, but the weight will also increase. Dell will also announce a professional 10" soon, I'm curious to see this model. Until then, we are sticking with this 9".

[TheK]

On Dells German Website I can only find the Mini 9 and Mini 12 (Interesting: it's called to have an GMA500 in the tech details?!) with Ubuntu - no big Notebooks, no Desktops any more. Am I only to stupid to find them?

[themiddaysun]

Im wondering if I can easily put the Netbook remix on my Mini 9. It is currently waiting for me at home, was just delivered today!

[joffe]

Hi All,

I'm looking for a much larger screen than 9".

Is there such a critter out there?

I run Linux, of course.

JJMacey (http://jjmacey.net/blog/)
Phoenix, Arizona

http://system76.com/
http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/linux_3x?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs

Not with Atom, though.

[risbac]

Im wondering if I can easily put the Netbook remix on my Mini 9. It is currently waiting for me at home, was just delivered today!

I think i tried it on the Mini9, it was working fine, except maybe for sound. But a simple fix is available. However, I'm not sure if the laptop will boot as fast. I will try the NBR 9.04 RC soon on my test machine, if you want I can post my comments here.

[themiddaysun]

I think i tried it on the Mini9, it was working fine, except maybe for sound. But a simple fix is available. However, I'm not sure if the laptop will boot as fast. I will try the NBR 9.04 RC soon on my test machine, if you want I can post my comments here.

Yes, that would be killer.

[risbac]

Yes, that would be killer.

Formatting now... I'm replacing the Dell LPIA 8.04 by the newest x86 NBR 9.04. I know it's only a RC, but that seems to make more sense than to test a 8.10.

The live USB test was really good: sound working out of the box, webcam working, video fine (Compiz working but conflicting with the NBR menu, should be fine if you are using the usual desktop view), speed was really comfortable, wireless ok, screen light shortcuts were working, sound shortcuts too. I'm installing on an ext4 partition now, without swap. I will give you my comments in a couple of hours after some longer tests.

[risbac]

So far NBR 9.04 RC is quite impressive on the Mini9

-Sound is working
-wireless seems ok (not wireless network here, so i will try it at home later to confirm, but the 3d party driver is said to be installed, so to me it's working)
-screen is recognized, keyboard shortcuts work
-the keyboard shortcut to shutdown the wireless receiver is not working, but that should not be hard to check how Dell did it on their 8.04 version
-suspending is working
-webcam is working
-bluetooth is working
-boot on Ext4 is faster than the Dell version. Complete boot (press button to a working desktop) in 40s, without any modification, it's at least 5s faster than Dell version. And it can be improved (Dell does not show any Grub screen, while I have a 3s pause here). Good job, even if I need to check if it would be as fast with the Cherokee webserver that we install on our Mini9. But for an "untuned" system, it's better than what I expected
-system is fast and responsive. 140Mb used at boot, <2Gb on the disk, no swap.
-Compiz is working fine is you are using the regular desktop and not the UNR with the customized menu. Effects are smooth.

That's my first comments so far. I'm taking the laptop home to test it more and see if the PPTP VPN pbs we had with 8.10 are solved. Apparently not, but it's maybe our fault. Ask any question if you want.

[themiddaysun]

So far NBR 9.04 RC is quite impressive on the Mini9

-Sound is working
-wireless seems ok (not wireless network here, so i will try it at home later to confirm, but the 3d party driver is said to be installed, so to me it's working)
-screen is recognized, keyboard shortcuts work
-the keyboard shortcut to shutdown the wireless receiver is not working, but that should not be hard to check how Dell did it on their 8.04 version
-suspending is working
-webcam is working
-bluetooth is working
-boot on Ext4 is faster than the Dell version. Complete boot (press button to a working desktop) in 40s, without any modification, it's at least 5s faster than Dell version. And it can be improved (Dell does not show any Grub screen, while I have a 3s pause here). Good job, even if I need to check if it would be as fast with the Cherokee webserver that we install on our Mini9. But for an "untuned" system, it's better than what I expected
-system is fast and responsive. 140Mb used at boot, <2Gb on the disk, no swap.
-Compiz is working fine is you are using the regular desktop and not the UNR with the customized menu. Effects are smooth.

That's my first comments so far. I'm taking the laptop home to test it more and see if the PPTP VPN pbs we had with 8.10 are solved. Apparently not, but it's maybe our fault. Ask any question if you want.

Great, thanks a bunch for all the information. I have the NBR 9.04 that I was going to install, this sounds encouraging.

[themiddaysun]

Just opened my mini 9! I have not installed the Netbook Remix yet, I wanted to get the out of box experience.

Im not impressed.

1. Fisrt boot, no X. Had to log in as root (no password) and restart masnually.
2. Wireless woulod not connect automatically without another reboot.

3. As stated in this article, the Yahoo toolbar and Yahoo plugins set by default on Firefox.

4. Dells very obtrusive "launcher"

I have since turned off those items and now have a clean gnome like desktop and clean default looking firefox. Maybe look into Netbook remix after I give this a spin for a few days.

[risbac]

I did more tests. The NBR is really doing fine:

-wireless is working without any problem

-I installed the Cherokee webserver with PHP, and it's still booting faster than the Dell 8.04. In fact, it's booting faster than before... I'm under 40s now for a complete boot.

-the keyboard shortcut to switch display is not working on my external screen. The configuration utility let me switch to the screen though. No big deal.

[themiddaysun]

Im creating the NBR bootable flash now. Going to go with the install. I dont need the external monitor function that u state is not working via the hot key, so I should be fine. thanks for your sharing of info.

[risbac]

Im creating the NBR bootable flash now. Going to go with the install. I dont need the external monitor function that u state is not working via the hot key, so I should be fine. thanks for your sharing of info.

Remember that default install use EXT3. EXT4 is not 100% stable on the RC (see the info on the ubuntu website), but it's only a problem with very big files. So if you want to try it, remember to edit the partition configuration and change the file system format. The boot speed was significantly faster with EXT4 when I compared it to EXT3.

[themiddaysun]

Decided to go ahead and install the full jaunty beta after playing with the remix some. I just dont like the `launchers` in the netbook versions. There is something about a normal gnome install. clean I guess.

Anyway, everything worked without any configuration at all. so far, me likes my mini 9 with jaunty!