The system has two soundcards and that presents ongoing
issues. Simplest solution was to disable the on board sound card in
the BIOS, then only one sound card is found. Otherwise the “wrong”
one (on board) keeps getting preference it seems. Even when getting
the snd_ca0160 instead of snd_intel8x0 the soundcard is working
but when used direct through ALSA the sound is choppy—okay for
totem but for mplayer need to tell it to use “oss” instead of
“alsa” by setting the “ao” option in
/etc/mplayer/mplayer.conf—fixes it for some movies, but
others have the reverse problem with mplayer and need “alsa”
rather than “oss” ...weird;
Kernel 2.6.11 was required because of its AHCI support for
access to the hard drive (so dual boot could be simplified);
Non-free kernel modules required for support of the Tigon 3 NIC
card (tg3)—irmware license fixed in Linux 2.6.12 by ;
Vesa video used until the install of the non-free fglrx driver,
then replaced with the Xorg server with support for the Radeon RV370
(but without 3D support), then replace (070126) with the fglrx 3D
accelerated driver then upgrade Xorg (090424) and ensure all fglrx
packages are removed to avoid failure to start with message:
RADEON: No matching Device section for instance (BusID
PCI:1:0:1) found and then a Backtrace and exit.
The original, analog only, 19" Dell flat screen monitor (E193FP)
had a problem—there was no position where the whole screen was
crisp, top to bottom. Generally, letters were fuzzy and washed out
at the top of the screen, but fine at the bottom. Also, colours were
faded at the top, but clear at the bottom. Seemed like a problem
with limitations to off angle views. A replacement screen
soon arrived and was okay! Dell requested my paying for the return of
the faulty screen, but an email fixed this up and they covered the
costs.
The original PHILIPS DVD+/-RW DVD8631 drive failed after 5
months. Dell quickly replaced it with a NEC DVD+/-RW ND-3530A.