A number of NSW schools (and home users) are installing the Dell Dimension 2350 computer. This is an extremely inexpensive mini-tower system which delivers quite a lot of bang for the buck (current RRP is $999.00 including a 17" monitor). However, as you would expect, the micro-ATX mainboard inside presents a few challenges for Linux installation.

I recently had occasion to install Linux on one of these machines for a local school. The installation procedure did not detect the network interface, and after installation, X was extremely unreliable, failing to paint the screen correctly and freezing the machine after a short time.

My investigations on the web turned up a lot of varied opinion on the machine. Some people loved them, others could not get them to work at all, or suffered frequent mysterious crashes. After a lot of reading, I tracked down the required drivers. At this point, it is school holidays time, and I have not had an opportunity to get back to the school and install them, so these links are given in the hope that they will assist others, and are not guaranteed. I hope to be able to provide definitive information on whether they work or not by the end of April 2003.

Ethernet

The network interface is a Broadcom 440X 10/100 integrated ethernet controller. The Broadcom site is less than helpful - positively annoying, in its corporate smugness, in fact - but I was able to discover that the Asus A7V8X mainboard uses the same chip, and drivers can be downloaded from the Asus web site. Use this link:

http://www.asus.com.tw/support/download/item.aspx?ModelName=A7V8X

and look for the file 4401_653.zip. This is a huge download (15.2 MB) as it unfortunately contains drivers for all supported operating systems. You'll also see that the README suggests that a source RPM package is included - it is not, but generating a source RPM from the source tarball included should not be too hard.

X and Graphics

This machine uses the Intel (R) 82845G Extreme Graphics Controller. A driver (in source code form) can be downloaded from (careful with the wrapping URL here):

http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scripts-df/filter_results.asp?strOSs=39&strTypes=DRV%2CARC&ProductID=865&OSFullName=Linux*&submit=Go%21

Installation is accomplished by untarring the file i830-20030120-i386-linux.tar.gz, changing to the dripkg directory it creates, and, as root, running the 'install.sh' script. All this should be done with X shut down, at runlevel 3, of course. The script compiles the required files, and installs them into place, after which X can be restarted.

At the time of writing, I have only had a chance to test this on another Intel 82845G-based system, but the performance improvement over the standard driver from Red Hat 8.0 was startling, to say the least; it also fixed up a crippling problem which had made KDE's konsole terminal windows completely unusable, and supported higher resolution to boot. I'm hopeful that the Dell will show similar results.

Other Comments

The only other comment I could make on the Dimension 2350 relate to the minitower enclosure and microATX mainboard. I haven't looked at the back of the machine - the one I was working on was bolted down - but I expect it only supports three PCI slots, which could be limiting in some applications. And of course, the case has virtually no space for additional drives. Our intended application is piloting an intranet server, so if we proceed to a full implementation I expect that we will need to replace the Dell with a larger box with more drive bays and expansion slots.

I really can't fault the Dimension 2350 for its intended purpose, though - as a desktop Windows XP box it delivers a lot of bang for the buck (though I wish it came with Windows XP Pro, rather than Windows XP Home - schools that want it to participate in a Windows NT or 2K domain are in for a rude shock).
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