In this article, I will share my experience related to installing and running Slackware Linux 13 on a Dell Latitude D620 laptop. As I expected, Slackware 13 runs extremely well on this particular Dell model.

If you are looking for an absolutely trouble free Linux laptop, look no further, get yourself a Dell D620 ! With a current kernel and Linux distro (April 2010), there simply are no problems left.

I bought this laptop, in April 2010, to replace my aging Latitude D610. As the model numbers suggest, the D610 and D620 are very similar laptops. The most notable differences are the color and the screen: the D610 was covered in a silver/gray plastic, the D620 uses a more stylish dark gray/silver combination. Other difference is the use of a wide ratio aspect screen on the D620.

The D620, being 2 years "younger", does not differ that much from the D610 in terms of hardware used, that is. With a 2.1 GHz Core Duo processor and 2 GB of DDR2 RAM, it packs a lot of power, feels very responsive, and has no problems handling whatever I throw at it.

As I did with my previous laptop reviews, I also submitted this document on the Linux on Laptops and on Tuxmobil.org.

CPU type	Intel Core Duo T2600
CPU speed	2.16 GHz
BIOS	Revision A10
Chipset	Intel Mobile 945GM (ICH7)
Memory	2048 MB DDR2 SDRAM
Harddisk	Seagate Momentus, 80.0 GB, 7200 rpm, SATA
Optical drive	HL-DT-ST CDRW/DVD-ROM GCC 4244, 24x
Display	14" WSXGA Color TFT, 1440x900
Video card	Intel Mobile 945GM Graphics controller
Network card #1	Broadcom NetXtreme BCM5752 Gigabit controller
WLAN	Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG
Sound Card	Intel 82801G HDA
Keyboard	full size Qwertz
Pointing device	"joystick" in keyboard + Touchpad
I/O ports	1 x serial, VGA, TV-out, 4 x USB, RJ-45,  RJ-11, 1 x PCMCIA/Cardbus, Mic in, Line out, Ir, cardreader
Installed OS'es	Slackware 13
Linux kernel	2.6.33.3 (at date of article)

When I got the laptop, it came with a German version of Windows XP installed. I am not a big fan of the German language, but the Windows installation was very convenient to perfom upgrades of the BIOS (was still A02) and firmware of the graphics adapter. Once these were done, I popped in the Slackware 13 DVD, and performed a clean installation.

Update 25-05-2010: I replaced the German keyboard. I couldn't get used to the QWERTZ layout. Now I have a UK Qwerty keyboard, much better ;).

The disk controller is an Intel Corporation 82801GBM (ICH7) SATA IDE controller . It is supported by the ata_piix driver, present in Linux kernel 2.6 series (Serial ATA section in the kernel config).

Here are the hdparm benchmarks :

 [root@porty /home/david]# hdparm -Tt /dev/sda

 /dev/sda:
  Timing buffer-cache reads:  2550 MB in  2.00 seconds = 1275.85 MB/sec
  Timing buffered disk reads:  142 MB in  3.03 seconds =  47.36 MB/sec

The harddisk is a 80.0 GB WD Scorpio, runs at 5400 rpm, and is equiped with 8MB cache:

 [root@porty /home/david]# hdparm -i /dev/sda

 /dev/sda:

  Model=WDC WD800BEVS-08RST2 , FwRev=08.01G08, SerialNo=     WD-WXE308ED9746
  Config={ HardSect NotMFM HdSw>15uSec SpinMotCtl Fixed DTR>5Mbs FmtGapReq }
  RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=50
  BuffType=unknown, BuffSize=8192kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=?8?
  CurCHS=16383/16/63, CurSects=16514064, LBA=yes, LBAsects=156301488
  IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:120,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120}
  PIO modes:  pio0 pio3 pio4 
  DMA modes:  mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 
  UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 udma5 *udma6 
  AdvancedPM=yes: unknown setting WriteCache=enabled
  Drive conforms to: Unspecified:  ATA/ATAPI-1,2,3,4,5,6,7

It works fine, and damn fast too.

Update (10-Feb-2012): I replaced the harddisk, there was nothing wrong with the old one, but the new one performs significantly better.

Here are the hdparm benchmarks for the new disk:

 [root@porty /home/david]# hdparm -Tt /dev/sda
 /dev/sda:
  Timing cached reads:   2492 MB in  2.00 seconds = 1247.11 MB/sec
  Timing buffered disk reads: 252 MB in  3.00 seconds =  84.00 MB/sec

The new harddisk is a 80.0 GB Seagate Momentus, runs at 7200 rpm, and is equiped with 16MB cache:

[root@D620 /home/david]>> hdparm -i /dev/sda

/dev/sda:

 Model=ST980411ASG, FwRev=DE17, SerialNo=5TF0DWWT
 Config={ HardSect NotMFM HdSw>15uSec Fixed DTR>10Mbs RotSpdTol>.5% }
 RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=4
 BuffType=unknown, BuffSize=16384kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=off
 CurCHS=16383/16/63, CurSects=16514064, LBA=yes, LBAsects=156301488
 IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:120,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120}
 PIO modes:  pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4 
 DMA modes:  mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 
 UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 udma5 *udma6 
 AdvancedPM=yes: unknown setting WriteCache=enabled
 Drive conforms to: unknown:  ATA/ATAPI-4,5,6,7

The CDRW/DVD-ROM drive works fine as well.

The video controller is an Intel 945GMA Graphics Express. It is supported by Xorg, using the intel driver. It is part of the 945GM chipset and uses shared memory. Remember to enable DRI and AGP gart in the kernel and X for full acceleration. Performance is actually surprisingly good, both for 2D and 3D. Video playback is very smooth and these nifty OpenGL screensavers run pretty fast.
The 1440x900 resolution is no problem for Xorg (1.6.3), I didn't need any special modelines or other tricks. It just works.

Here is my xorg.conf, so you can use it too.

The sound controller is an Intel 82801G HDA audio controller. It is supported by the ALSA snd_hda_intel driver and works fine. Only drawback is that apparently you can only control the master volume and PCM channel.

The onboard Ethernet controller is a Broadcom NetXtreme BCM5752 Gigabit Ethernet controller. This controller gives you 10/100/1000Mbps full duplex networking. The connector is a regular RJ-45. It is supported by the Tigon3 driver and so far works just fine.

The laptop also features an Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection. This controller provides up to 54Mbps wireless networking. It is supported by the iwl_3945 driver, present in kernel 2.6 series, and works fine. The resulting device is named /dev/wlan0.

I use the excellent WICD tool to manage the configuration of both network controllers.

Update 03-06-2010: I replaced the Intel 3945ABG with an Intel 4965AGN (mini PCIe adapter). These adapters are easy to find on Ebay for prices as low as 18 Euros. The Intel 4965AGN is supported by the iwlagn driver. The 4965 has 3 antenna connectors, and at 1st sight, it looked like the D620 provided only 2 cables (the white and black one). But then I found the 3rd cable (colored gray) which was somewhat obscured by the inner construction of the laptop.
The 4965AGN provides 802.11n performance (up to 300 Mbps). However, my access point works in "bgn mixed mode" to allow older laptops to connect as well. So, the maximum rate is only 130 Mbps, but even at this speed, the card reaches transfer speeds (http) of up to 7.7 MB/sec. Not bad, considering the older 3945ABG only managed to pull 3 MB/sec.
17-09-2010: After upgrading the wireles access point with the latest firmware, the laptop even manages to reach transfer speeds of 10.7 MB/sec (http). Very nice.

The laptop is fitted wit a load of USB controllers. These controllers power a total of 4 external USB ports. They are supported by the UHCI (USB 1.1) and EHCI (USB 2.0) USB drivers and work fine.

Currently, I use 2 USB devices with this laptop :

• a Logitech Optical WheelMouse
• an 8 GB Memory Stick

The Cardbus controller is an O2 Micro OZ601/6912/711EO Cardbus/Smartcard controller. This controller powers 1 Cardbus slot and the Smartcard reader. It is supported by the Yenta Cardbus driver and appears to work fine.

I have a total of 3 pointing devices on this laptop :

an external Logitech Optical USB WheelMouse

the built-in joystick thingie

the buitt-in touchpad.

The joystick mouse and touchpad are recognised as a regular PS/2 Mouse. For the USB mouse, the usbhid driver is needed. All mice work fine simulteanously in X11, but the touchpad does not seem to work in console mode. For the console, I start gpm like this:

 /usr/sbin/gpm -m /dev/mouse -t imps2 

Just like the D610, this D620 supports ACPI extremely well, and suspends an resumes from ACPI state S3 without a single problem. Reporting on battery status, AC presence, . . . no problems at all.

The Pentium Core Duo CPU, used in this Dell, supports dynamic frequency scaling. This CPU can run at speeds between 1000 Mhz and 2.16 GHz, allowing to save energy, which is very interesting when running on battery. To enable this dynamic behavior, I installed the cpufrequtils, which can be found here. In rc.local, I added the following line:

/usr/bin/cpufreq-set -g conservative

This will put the CPU at it's lowest speed, but raise the speed gracefully as it is needed, just like that. Of course, your kernel must be compiled with support for ACPI CPU frequency scaling. If you want to see the current setting, you invoke cpufreq-info:

[root@porty /home/david]# cpufreq-info
cpufrequtils 004: cpufreq-info (C) Dominik Brodowski 2004-2006
Report errors and bugs to cpufreq@lists.linux.org.uk, please.
analyzing CPU 0:
  driver: acpi-cpufreq
  CPUs which need to switch frequency at the same time: 0
  hardware limits: 1000 MHz - 2.17 GHz
  available frequency steps: 2.17 GHz, 1.67 GHz, 1.33 GHz, 1000 MHz
  available cpufreq governors: conservative, ondemand, userspace, performance
  current policy: frequency should be within 1000 MHz and 2.17 GHz.
                  The governor "ondemand" may decide which speed to use
                  within this range.
current CPU frequency is 1000 MHz (asserted by call to hardware).

internal modem : never used it, so I can't say if it works

serial port : idem as above

Bluetooth : idem as above

I can only assume these ports work fine, but since I have no use for them, I didn't bother to find out. Would have been nice if Dell dropped the serial port, and added Firewire instead, and maybe eSata or 2 more USB ports.

kernel config, kernel 2.6.34

dmesg, kernel 2.6.34

lspci

see X11 section for xorg.conf