[LinuxBIOS] Dell Inspiron 6400

[Nistur]

Hi, I'm new to this so be nice to me. I've been tempted in, amongst 
other things, by the supposed fast booting. Unfortunately I don't have 
an officially supported board.
http://www.hardware.info/en-US/productdb/bGRkZJiTmJHK/viewproduct/Dell_Inspiron_6400/ 

 From the above link, and other knowledge of my laptop I found:
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo - 1.6GHz
Northbridge: Intel 945PM
Southbridge: Intel ICH7M

On the site it claims that Dell get all their laptops made by either 
Quantas or Compal. I don't know if this is out of date, but following 
links told me to run dmidecode, which claims I have a motherboard, 
chassis etc made by  Dell.

I do not yet know anything about Super I/O or my current BIOS as google 
has brought up little and I'll have to take the screwdriver out again. 
Your FAQ also asks for lspci output which I will add at the end.

I was wondering how feasable this would be on my laptop. My laptop 
doesn't have a floppy drive so I can't even hope to reflash the BIOS if 
everything goes pear-shaped can I? Or will a USB Floppy work even with a 
dud BIOS?

I have already told my LUG about this and a few are very interested.

Thanks in advance
Nistur

[nistur at minas-morgul ~]$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/PM/GMS, 943/940GML 
and 945GT Express Memory Controller Hub (rev 03)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/PM/GMS, 943/940GML 
and 945GT Express PCI Express Root Port (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High 
Definition Audio Controller (rev 01)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express 
Port 1 (rev 01)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express 
Port 4 (rev 01)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI 
Controller #1 (rev 01)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI 
Controller #2 (rev 01)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI 
Controller #3 (rev 01)
00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI 
Controller #4 (rev 01)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB2 EHCI 
Controller (rev 01)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev e1)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GBM (ICH7-M) LPC Interface 
Bridge (rev 01)
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801GBM/GHM (ICH7 Family) SATA 
IDE Controller (rev 01)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) SMBus Controller 
(rev 01)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc M52 [Mobility 
Radeon X1300]
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4401-B0 100Base-TX 
(rev 02)
03:01.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Ricoh Co Ltd R5C832 IEEE 1394 Controller
03:01.1 Generic system peripheral [0805]: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C822 
SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Host Adapter (rev 19)
03:01.2 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C843 MMC Host Controller (rev 01)
03:01.3 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C592 Memory Stick Bus Host 
Adapter (rev 0a)
03:01.4 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd xD-Picture Card Controller (rev 05)
0b:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG 
Network Connection (rev 02)