Dual Boot in DELL XPS M1330 with Windows Vista, Ubuntu and Dell MediaDirect 3.3

If you are in the category trying ambitiously to setup your newly bought DELL XPS M1330 laptop for dual boot with GNU/Linux and ended up screwing up everything and finally Dell MediaDirect stopped working and don't know what to do, probably you've come to the right place, but you have to be ready for one fresh installation.

I bought my DELL XPS M1330 last Monday (15-October-2007) evening with the configuration – Intel Dual Core 2 2.2 GHz, 2GB RAM, 128MB nVidia GeForce Go 8400 GS, 13.3 Ultrasharp WXGA Display with TrueLife Monitory, 160G 5400RPM SATA HDD, Slot-Load DVD+/-RW Drive and some more bla bla components.

I need Vista for my office works which is on .NET Framework 3.5 (WPF, WCF) and GNU/Linux for my personal project in python and QT. Well, due to my carelessness, going ahead with Guided Partition (which behaved in a weird way, never had problem with that for past 2 years) the whole hard drive got allocated to Ubuntu. Not until I completed the installation and restarted, it occurred to me that I don't have Vista and MediaDirect anymore.

Banking on my years of experience with installing operating systems, I decided to re-install Vista and MediaDirect. My hatred towards the manuals made things worst by discarding the warning given in Dell MediaDirect CD. I installed Vista, blew up Ubuntu and MediaDirect, but got close to make it work right. The problem with MediaDirect is that, you cannot install direct from Vista Operating System or the CD itself during the boot. You have to first allocate the space (2G) for MediaDirect by booting with MediaDirect CD and then install the Operating System (Vista for example) and then complete the installation (MediaDirect installation) from the installed Operating System (Vista).

Another annoying thing is that, without setting up MediaDirect, hitting on the MediaDirect button next to power button will end up messing everything (the operating systems) and you'll have to once again re-install everything. But then, I decided to go for clean Install because its 3rd day since I bought this laptop and I am desperate to finish the installations and get to work.

Okay, stories aside, here is what you have to do to make things work. First boot GNU/Linux using Ubuntu Live CD (7.10), format the whole hard drive using GNOME Partition Editor (you can use any other software without booting with Ubuntu Live CD). The reason for me doing this is that during my trail and error basis installation, I messed up my HDD completely and was not detected in Vista Installation or MediaDirect, so I had to use Ubuntu Live CD (what a relief since I thought the HDD is repair).

Now that the partitions are erased and the entire hard drive is available for the installation, you are ready to go ahead with installation. Reboot the system replacing the drive with DELL MediaDirect 3.3. I have to give a note here. If you tried installing Windows XP prior to this, probably you might have disabled AHCI which is a wrong idea for MediaDirect 3.3 (as I have discovered during one of those frustrating moment where I came close to make it work).

Make sure that AHCI is enabled for SATA (to Enable/Disable, press F2 during reboot and enter the BIOS setup, go to On Board Devices section, choose SATA Operation and you will have two choices; Off and Enable) to avoid Blue Screen of Death while trying use MediaDirect by pressing the button and you'll never be able to boot into any of the Operating Systems after that.

Now, while rebooting, press F12 and select DVD-RW as boot device. Boot using MediaDirect, select option 2 when you are presented with 3 options: 1. Use entire hard drive (C:\), 2. Custom allocation and Q. Quit (the menu text varies, but this is what it says).

Enter 60 (calculated in GB) when you are asked to enter the amount of space to be allocated for your Operating System Installation (feel free to allocate the required space according to your need. Since I do most of my work in GNU/Linux and Vista is merely for Visual Studio 2008/SQL Server 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5, I allotted the minimal space - 60G for Vista). Once you are done, the partitioning starts with MediaDirect allotting extra 2G for MediaDirect operating system. Rest of the space is left unallocated.

When re-starting, remove the MediaDirect CD, replace with the Vista DVD and start Vista Installation in the allotted space for the Operating System (by MediaDirect; the 60G partition for example, the rest of the space apart from 2G for MediaDirect is left unallocated for Ubuntu). Once Vista installation is complete, remove the Operating System DVD, place the Drivers DVD and install the drivers.

Once drivers installation is complete, it's time to install DELL MediaDirect 3.3 (make sure the version is right for your laptop, it’s a blue color disk). Remove the driver DVD, place the MediaDirect disk and wait for the auto run (well, you can run the program directly too). Follow the instruction and complete the installation. Once the installation is complete, eject the disk and select 'MediaDirect' from the Start menu (All Programs) to complete the setup. Shutdown the laptop and now press the Dell MediaDirect button and you'll be able to launch MediaDirect without any problem. To make sure the Vista is intact, exit MediaDirect and login into Vista (reboot).

Now it's time to install Ubuntu. For the first time the guided installation didn't work for me (the first time it replaced the entire Vista). I had to choose manual partition instead. Manual partition is not as scary as it sounds if you know about partitioning and if you are familiar with GNU/Linux. If you are not sure, I suggest you Google some tutorial regarding GNU/Linux mount partitions before start manual partitioning. The good thing about Live CD is that, you can do those reading while installing the operating system.

Boot Ubuntu using the Live CD; and once Ubuntu is ready and running from the Live CD, double click the ‘Install’ on the Desktop. Follow the instructions and just in case, if you decide to go for manual partition for the same reason as mine (bad experience with guided partition), allocate 3G (or 4G) for swap and the rest of the free partition (which we let without allocating during our initial partitioning using MediaDirect) for root (/) with ext3 as filesystem (or your favorite).

Now complete Ubuntu installation following the instructions and at the end it will ask you to reboot removing the Live CD. You can be relaxed since we've completed the dual boot setup. Now it's all routine works (installing applications, video card drivers, etc...).

Don’t bother about whether you'll be able to launch MediaDirect after installing Ubuntu, MediaDirect appears to have no connection with whatever you do with MBR and it launches directly once you press the MediaDirect button on the laptop.

So, now we have completed the Dual Boot with MediaDirect working. Enjoy.

Note: I have read about installing Grub in special partition (taking special care of installing Grub in / alone) in order to make MediaDirect, Windows and Linux work. As for my experience goes (after 5 attempts to install MediaDirect, Windows and Linux), you don't have to do anything special about Grub. Just follow the order which I have mentioned above. It works.

openSUSE 10.3 Released - Download Links

Finally the day has come. The final release for one of my favorite GNU/Linux distribution has come. openSUSE 10.3 was finally released yesterday October 4, 2007 as promised and are available at the following locations for download.

DVD ISO Image Location
http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/10.3/iso/dvd/

Torrent Location
http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/10.3/iso/torrent/

CD ISO Images Location
http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/10.3/iso/cd/

I suggest download using Torrent. My initial attempt to download DVD ISO from the location mentioned failed (it finished the download within 2 seconds with file size 0 in all the 5 times I tried using various download managers), however it might be just for me or temporary.

Official Announcement:
http://news.opensuse.org/?p=400

openSUSE 10.3 Improvements: A Sneak Peak
http://news.opensuse.org/?p=341

Survey to Improve Yast
http://news.opensuse.org/?p=405

Submitting Bug Reports
http://en.opensuse.org/Submitting_Bug_Reports

Participation
http://en.opensuse.org/How_to_Participate


Enjoy... Spread the word of openSUSE 10.3's arrival (another one of my favorite distribution Ubuntu 7.10 arrives in another 2 weeks... can't wait to get my hand on the final release).