Last Wednesday, the FedEx guy arrived with my new Dell Inspiron 530 desktop. Still in my pajamas, I rushed to the door to greet him, gave him a quick "thank-you", and rushed back up the stairs to begin unboxing.
I spread out the CPU, LCD widescreen monitor, mouse, and keyboard on the living room floor. From there, I transferred all of the items to the office, and timed the set-up process: a quick 5 minutes and 49 seconds (Sorry Kyle's wife!) from plugging in to powering up to surfing PCMag.com. After I got the Internet working, I decided to be brave and install our F5D7000 Belkin Wireless G Card all by myself!
After installing the card, however, I was at a loss. I didn't know what to do at that point. The wireless connection wasn't working for some reason. So, I waited that day until my boyfriend, Eric came home from work. He explained to me that Wi-Fi does work with Ubuntu, but it does not support WPA encryption out of the box. This is a huge setback since WPA is one of the most widely used network encryption methods. Anyway, we did have the proper driver to install the Belkin card (the included Ubuntu CD contained a wireless driver on it), but we still couldn't get it to work.
After Eric stayed up until 4am, he woke up the next morning and tapped me on the shoulder. "So, did you get the wireless to work?" I asked. Disgruntled, he replies: "I thought it was because of Linux that we couldn't get Wireless to work; but turns out, you just didn't put the Wireless card all the way in!" I felt so bad, but it was my first time ever installing a card. Oh well.
I've used Ubuntu for a week now, and it does take some getting used to. But, I'll save that for another post, which you can catch on our sister software/app blog, AppScout.com, right now. In the meantime, check out more photos of our system.
Mugsy with the Dell boxes.
Unboxing the 19-inch widescreen Dell Monitor.
I was so inspired by the Inspiron packaging.
Unboxing the CPU, keyboard, and mouse.
Up close and personal with the 530.
The back of the 530.
Mugsy in the office next to our Dell Inspiron 530.
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August 23, 2007 11:35 AM
Awsome timing! I came short of 35min with my HP 4mb cache duo 2 core laptop!!!
www.dpinyc.com
August 23, 2007 1:22 PM
gearlog needs more pet cameos, me thinks.
August 23, 2007 4:50 PM
Awesome pictures. It sucks that Dell is charging the same for Ubuntu machines right now as they do for Windows Vista machines. I think Ubuntu Dells would take off if their price reflected the fact that their OS is free. If you are interested in web development, here are two posts that tell you how to configure a LAMP server on your local area network using Ubuntu. It is really easy. ONE, TWO
August 23, 2007 6:04 PM
so, ubuntu did support your card "out of the box", you just didn't put it in right or what? What card is it exactly?
August 23, 2007 6:05 PM
so, ubuntu did support your card "out of the box", you just didn't put it in right or what? What card is it exactly?
August 23, 2007 6:45 PM
Very cool. I love love LOVE unboxing photos. :)
Glad to hear you guys got the wireless working and everything, and that it was a simple issue. Gotta admit, those guys are easy to set up and mostly easy to use. Looking forward to a possible future update on how you're living life with Linux!
Also - very nice desk you have there!
August 24, 2007 3:24 PM
Sam, yeah it surprised me too that you can get an Inspiron with Vista for the same price you would with Ubuntu. Maybe Dell is doing that because it's the only way the company can actually sell a machine running Vista!!!
August 24, 2007 6:10 PM
Gimp: Yes, the F5D7000 Belkin Wireless G Card worked out of the box with a Ubuntu "restricted driver," which basically means it's not an open source driver but still works. I just didn't push it into the slot all the way! Silly me :)
December 11, 2007 2:49 AM
Hey, I got an Inspiron 530 too. Only thing I don't like is the blue power light that flashes when the computer is sleeping. Drives me nuts! But other than that it's awesome :)
January 16, 2008 3:43 AM
Great choice! At the moment I am waiting for my Inspiron 530s to arrive! Your pictures inspired me to buy one as I was able to get a great view thanks to your detailed pictures! Can't wait! They are an attractive machine and very reliable! Great job
Regards,
Ben
New Zealand
February 8, 2008 6:33 PM
Ubuntu 7 DOES come with WiFi support and WPA encryption.
N00bz :-/
February 16, 2008 9:23 AM
do i need a wireless router for my dell inspiron 530
February 22, 2008 2:48 PM
i got the dell inspiron 530 too..&wanted to ask you a question. okay,did your mouse have the ball in the bottom,like all the mouses do??mines didnt &im just pissed! =[ i keep thinking that my monitor was used because i found a scratch&u know tht the monitor has this 2 buttons&the 2nd button doesnt work??i feel like the comp i just order was used.. sinces we order the same comp,i wanted to ask if u had the same problem.. thank you!! hope u reply soon!!!
December 14, 2008 9:44 PM
I bought a dell inspiron 530 last week. I have not be able to load any form of Linux on the box.
I even disconnected the Sata CD-Rom and using an external usb-cdrom to install. It does not seem to want to work.
How did you get it up and running?
Thanks
Phil
January 10, 2009 4:46 PM
I bought a dell inspiron 530 last week and the ubuntu 8.10 desktop cd installed without any issues whatsoever. I was up & running in 10 minutes.
The only thing left to do was find a couple wikis on how to setup the multimedia plugins and how to get DVDs to work which didn't take much time.
NoHacks: Do you have your BIOS setup to boot from DVDs and removeable media before the hard drive (it's not the default option)?