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The following is what I have found while using Arch on my Inspiron 1420. User experience may vary.

[edit] Hardware Specifications

• Model: Dell Inspiron 1420
• Processor:
  • Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo T5850 (2 x 2.16GHz, 667Mhz FSB, 2MB L2 Shared Cache, 32-bit/64-bit) or
  • Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo T7100 (2 x 1.8GHz, 800Mhz FSB, 2MB L2 Shared Cache, 32-bit/64-bit)
• Memory: 3GB 667MHz DDR2
• Video Card:
  • 128MB nVidia GeForce 8400M GS or
  • Intel Corporation Mobile X3100 Integrated Graphics Controller
• Hard Drive: Hitachi HTS72201 SATA 160GB 7200RPM
• Optical Drive: TSSTcorp DVD+-RW TS-L632H
• Display: Anti-glare 14.1" WXGA (1280x800)
• Network Adapter: Broadcom Corporation NetLink BCM5906M Fast Ethernet PCI Express
• Wireless Adapter:
  • Broadcom Corporation BCM4310 USB Controller or
  • Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection
• Sound: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller
• Cardbus: Ricoh Co Ltd RL5c476 II
• USB1: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller
• USB2: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller
• Firewire: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C832 IEEE 1394 Controller
• SD Host Controller: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Host Adapter
• Integrated Webcam: OmniVision Technologies, Inc. 2 Megapixel Webcam

[edit] lspci Output

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile PM965/GM965/GL960 Memory Controller Hub (rev 0c)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile PM965/GM965/GL960 PCI Express Root Port (rev 0c)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Contoller #4 (rev 02)
00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 02)
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 02)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 02)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 02)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 4 (rev 02)
00:1c.5 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 6 (rev 02)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 02)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev f2)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801HEM (ICH8M) LPC Interface Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) IDE Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) SATA AHCI Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 02)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation GeForce 8400M GS (rev a1)
03:01.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Ricoh Co Ltd R5C832 IEEE 1394 Controller (rev 05)
03:01.1 SD Host controller: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Host Adapter (rev 22)
03:01.2 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C843 MMC Host Controller (rev 12)
03:01.3 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C592 Memory Stick Bus Host Adapter (rev 12)
03:01.4 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd xD-Picture Card Controller (rev ff)
09:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetLink BCM5906M Fast Ethernet PCI Express (rev 02)
0c:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4310 USB Controller (rev 01)

[edit] lsusb Output

Bus 004 Device 003: ID 05a9:2640 OmniVision Technologies, Inc. 
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002  
Bus 007 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001  
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002  
Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001  
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001  
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001  
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001  

[edit] lshw Output

lshw output can be found here.

[edit] Kernel

The stock Arch kernel works just fine.

A working custom kernel configuration with tuxonice patches applied can be found here.

[edit] Networking

[edit] Wired

Works out of the box. The BCM5906M uses the tg3 (Tigon 3) kernel module which was loaded automatically for me. If it doesn't, try loading it manually with:

modprobe tg3

[edit] Wireless

[edit] Broadcom Corporation BCM4310 USB Controller

Download the for the device here. There is also another file named R17492 instead. Don't download this file, it is the vista version of this driver and did not work for me.
You'll need unzip to unpack the .exe file and ndiswrapper to use it, so go ahead and install via pacman:

pacman -Sy unzip ndiswrapper

Go to where you downloaded the driver and run the following commands:

mkdir driver
unzip -d driver/ Dell_multi-device_A17_R174291.exe
cd driver/DRIVER_US/

These commands will extract the .exe file into it's own directory and place you in a subdirectory named DRIVER_US. Next, run:

ndiswrapper -i bcmwl5.inf
ndiswrapper -l

If you did everything correctly, the output should read something along the lines of:

bcmwl5 : driver installed
	device (14E4:4315) present

[edit] Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection

 pacman -S iwlwifi iwlwifi-4965-ucode

Will install the drivers for Wireless. Make sure to add iwl3945 to the modules array in your /etc/rc.conf. I am using the networkmanager daemon with very few problems.

[edit] Modem

I have not tried the modem to see if it works. I know that the 1420N (Pre-loaded with Ubuntu) has drivers for it but I don't know if the code for that is open or not. More to follow.

[edit] Xorg

Will post xorg.conf soon

[edit] Webcam

Install uvc from the community repo, and add your user to the video group

  pacman -S linux-uvc-svn

There is currently a problem with the version of gstreamer included with Arch so anything that uses gstreamer to get video will fail. But applications like Ekiga and Skype will work just fine.