Tuesday, August 30, 2011
9:57 PM

HOWTO: Linux on the Dell Inspiron Duo

I recently invested in a new toy. A Dell Inspiron Duo netbook/tablet convertable:


I was pleased to see that most all of the netbook was functional OOTB with the 3.0 variation of the Linux kernel my latest Bodhi build was running (including multi-touch on the track pad). I plan to write a full review later on, today however I would simply like to share two tricks for getting some important functionality out of your Dell Duo while running Linux.

Making the Screen Work:
Without a working touch screen the Duo is basically just an over priced netbook. To get the screen working you need to simply add one thing to your grub2 command line. On most distributions you can add the needed command to your /etc/default/grub file. Look for the line that starts with

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT

If this line does not exist, add it. Then add the option usbhid.quirks=0x0eef:0x725e:0x40 to it. Your line should now look something like this:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="usbhid.quirks=0x0eef:0x725e:0x40"

Finally, run

sudo update-grub

On your next reboot your touch screen should now be functional.

Adding Key Bindings for Changing Modes:
On Windows 7 the tablet adds a touch layer UI when you switch the laptop into tablet mode. It does this by detecting when the screen changes positions. To add this functionality to Linux you simply need to run the following commands as root -

setkeycodes e073 148
setkeycodes e074 149

Once you have run these commands changing the position of the screen to all the way down (or bring it up) each triggers a different "key press" your desktop key binding manager should be able to address. On Bodhi (or any E desktop for that matter) you can easily configure these key presses to change profile using the enlightenment_remote command. Also worth noting is you will need to run these commands every time you start up your computer. I just added them to my /etc/rc.local file.

Have any questions feel free to drop a comment below and I'll do my best to help you get it sorted out.

~Jeff Hoogland

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