Dell Inspiron E1405

This article shows how to install Gentoo x86 on a Dell Inspiron E1405. The basic installation is described in the Gentoo Handbook.

Hardware
CPU      : Intel Yonah Core Duo T2300 (1.66 GHz/2MB L2 Cache) DDR      : Hard disk : 120GB SATA hard drive Screen   : Liquid Crystal Display 14.1WXGA Graphics : Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 Sound    : SATA     : Ethernet : WiFi     : Dell 1390 Mini Card 802.11 b/g (54 Mbps) TouchPad : USB      : Optical  : Sony CDRW/DVD 24x Bluetooth : Modem    :

The official hardware list is on the Dell Website.

The below listing shows the PCI devices.


 * 1) lspci

The below listing shows details on the CPU.


 * 1) cat /proc/cpuinfo

Stage
The core 2 processor is an x86 cpu, so get an x86 stage.

Kernel configuration
You can use gentoo-sources for this machine. Tested with linux-2.6.30-gentoo-r5, and most recently, linux-2.6.32-gentoo-r5.

Processor
The Core Duo processor is said to use Pentium M kernel configuration.

IDE controller
When correctly configured the following information about the devices can be found here: cat /proc/scsi/scsi

Wired network adapter
For the Broadcom BCM4401 ethernet adapter you need the following driver.

Wireless network adapter
For the Broadcom BCM4311 you need the following kernel options.

You also need to install b43-firmware. First, allow for installing masked software by adding the following to package.keywords.

Then emerge the firmware.

To use the wireless card, you need either wpa_supplicant or wireless-tools. Because wpa_supplicant has better crypto support, it is preferable. See the Gentoo Handbook for configuration details.

Using wpa_supplicant
To use wpa_supplicant, emerge it. To use wireless-tools, emerge it.

The required driver is. Add the following to.

Using wireless-tools
To use wireless-tools, emerge it. See the Gentoo Handbook for configuration details.

Sound card
There are many ALSA options -- the default ones are probably sufficient, plus the below.

Video card
There are many ways to adjust the screen brightness. Here's a command to set the screen to its brightest.

The maximum brightness is 100, and the minimum brightness is 12. This sets the screen to its dimmest.