CentOS 5.5 on Dell Vostro A840

When I purchased my Dell Vostro A840 last February, it came pre-loaded with Ubuntu 8.04. This version of Ubuntu was a Long Term Support (LTS) release, which means that it is still being updated with security patches and (hopefully) new versions of the installed applications. That being said, I found that this situation left much to be desired.

For one, everytime I upgraded the kernel, I found to my dismay that my sound drivers would go on the blink. Not being familiar with Ubuntu, I didn’t want to go around compiling software (even granting that I could find proper drivers for the hardware). I also found that my applications — updated or otherwise — were very, well… dated. They were usable, yes, but way behind the times.

Upgrading to another version of Ubuntu would have been a solution. But the best way to do that would have been to burn a DVD installer and make a clean installation. If I was going to do that, I thought, then why not go the whole hog and switch to a Liunux version with which I was familiar, such as CentOS?

I checked online and saw that thewre was a new version of CentOS: version 5.5. Now that looked attractive.

Would CentOS work with the Dell?

The first step, of course, was to find out if CentOS would work with the Dell. Fortunately, there’s a CentOS LiveCD, which will allow me to test the software without messing up my current Ubuntu installation. After downloading and burning the LiveCD, I popped it in the disc tray, rebooted, reconfigured the BIOS so the computer would boot from the CD, and hoped for the best.

I was not disappointed. Although running a LiveCD is very slow, at least all the hardware worked properly! I had sound, my wifi connections would work, and video was fine. I could read the hard disk and bluetooth was working too. Looks like I had a winner.

Media troubles

It tooks me a couple of months before I could get to installing CentOS. One of the reasons for the delay was the fact that my DVD burner started acting up, and could not manage to burn the ISO properly. This glitch was intermittent, as I could burn other DVDs as long as I did not fill them up to the brim (I had to keep them at around 3.5GB). This was unacceptable, but the repair and service faciluty for Dell was in Megamall, and I had already gone back to Cebu. What was to be done?

Time to take risks. I burned a couple of new CentOS installer DVDs on higher-quality media, and tried to run them although my burning software indicated that there were errors. And, to my surprise, the machine booted off the DVD!

CentOS comes with a media checking facility so I decided to run that. The first DVD (which booted) was found to have errors, but the second (which also booted) was fine. This was my way through. I backed up my data on some more DVDs (yes I had an error or two), and started the installation.

The installation

I encounteredf only one glitch in the entire procedure, but it was a showstopper. After choosing the software and configuratuion to install, the installation script choked and stopped. There was a bug. My solution was to choose fewer packages to install (I could install them later) and to try again. This time it went without a hitch. In about half an hour I had a brand new installation of CentOS 5.5 up and running on the Dell.

Having done that, it was only a matter of setting up my preferences, updating the packages, and installing other software.

But that is another story.