Help Please! Installing Ubuntu Ultimate on Dell Laptop

[rodney]

Hi all,

I am a total beginner when it comes to Linux, but I thought I might try installing Ubuntu Ultimate on my old Dell 640m laptop. The problem is, however, as soon as I hit install (regular or safe mode) I get an error message saying:
"Failed to start the X server (your graphical interface). It is likely that it is not set up correctly."

I have tried changing things in "text mode" and Google hasn't provided much help. If any of you Linux masters have any ideas, I would be most grateful!

[jolok]

do you have the right kind of partition ?

[rodney]

I already have windows xp installed on an NTFS partition and I'm just trying to install over that... is that possible?

[jolok]

i believe Linux doesn't support NTFS, you need to parition first, if you download Ubuntu boot disc, i think it has partition tools come with that.

[board123]

My Inspiron 640m also has that problem with both 6.06 and 6.10. I haven't tried Ultimate yet but since the new version (Feisty Fawn) hasn't come out yet I'm assuming it's based on 6.10. It loads up the LiveCD but X fails and I have to do every in text. I got 6.06 installed but the video drivers aren't working because I don't have the correct resolutions.

I haven't tried to fix it yet. This was a couple months ago.

[hawkbox]

Probably a video issue, I vaguely recall having that problem on my Inspiron. I was using a radeon X300 at the time, but my thinkpad with an X1400 doesnt seem to have a problem. Usually its something to do with the video drivers. I would recommend http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu_Edgy as damn near the best resource I've ever seen.

[rodney]

thanks for the info so far,

I'll try this guide and post back later.

Grr... perhaps this is why open source OS's haven't gained greater popularity.

[rodney]

Alright, I managed to solve the original problem by changing my monitor settings to "vesa" and successfully installed the OS, but now I'm having issues with screen resolution. I'm running a 14.1" with a resolution of 1440x900 but the only options I have in Ubuntu are 640x480, 800x600 and 1024x768. No matter how many times I specify the resolution in xserver-xorg, the resolution options dont change...

Any ideas??

Thanks in advance!

[t04jas]

It would be useful to know a little bit more about your video card, but I've used 915resolution (http://www.geocities.com/stomljen/) on my Inspiron 6400 and it works well. You should be able to download it with apt-get, hope it works for you!

[Gromit]

This guy has a decent tutorial on getting it installed on a Dell 1501, pretty similar:

http://ubuntu1501.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_archive.html

Start at the bottom of the page, and work your way up.