Fedora Core 3 Linux on my Dell Inspiron 300M

I received my 300M August 29, 2003. Windows XP came off August 30, 2003. I first put RedHat 9 on the machine (the details of this endevaour are documented as well). However, as RedHat was end-of-lifed, it becamse necessary to move onto a living, supported Linux. So, In September 2004, I installed Fedora Core 2 on my 300M. Later (I think in November), I upgraded to Fedora Core 3.

Here's the status of how my laptop is coming along. I will update as I proceed.

Again, I am grateful to Bill Moss for his explanations of the process.

Download the ipw2100 package at http://ipw2100.sourceforge.net/. Unpack the archive, and run make install.

Put the firware files (*.fw) into the /lib/firwmare/ directory. Note that the proper directory is no longer /usr/lib/hotplug.

Reboot. Kudzu will discover the wireless card during boot, and you're all set! You can use system-config-network to set up some network connections, if you like. I also use this program to switch around on wireless networks.

Get your DSDT (check out my page about DSDTs if you need more help here) and your kernel source ready. You'll still need to apply your custom DSDT to your kernel. However, using your custom dsdt is pretty easy in the 2.6 kernels. From the kernel configuration (menuconfig or xconfig), first uncheck Device Drivers --> Generic Driver Options --> Select only drivers that don't need compile-time external firmware then from the ACPI section check Include Custom DSDT and then type in the path to your DSDT file. (THank you for this tip, Ultrakorne!)

Then make sure you pop your DSDT in to wherever you specified in the kernel config.

Recompile your kernel, and you should be all set.