The Linux Distro Thread (maybe)

[ej-solutions]

Thought I'd start this one off, rather than continue on another thread.

As a quick catch up for others:

Have a look at Unetbootin, as a means to try out different versions of Linux, without producing numerous coasters (unwanted CDs).
I haven't tried the method of installing to hard drive, only the USB flash drive method (so far).

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Just skimming the surface

Opinions/guidance expressed are intended to benefit the reader (mostly) but no responsibility should be assumed for the accuracy and no warranty is implied/expressed or given - so eBay may pull this post

[*scyllabub*]

Scylla, it's time to go back to basics. What are you actually trying to achieve? I know you want to do something with a PVR drive, but I'm not sure what. Start from scratch and detail what you have and what you want to do with it.

Grumps, I completely missed your post!

I suddenly remembered the MSI Wind U135 netbook which is mouldering here because of rattling on start-up.  It has Windows 7 Home Premium on it and is fully functional.  I thought it would save worrying about losing flash drives and labels peeling off if I siimply installed Linux on a spare bit of drive D (I always partition my drives into OS and data), then I'd be able to play with Linux as well as manage the PVR export drive.  So I partitioned D with Easeus, leaving a 40GB New Volume drive letter L for Ubuntu.

I have Ubuntu 11.04 .iso in a folder on D, together with "wubi" from here: http://www.ubuntu.com/download/ubuntu/windows-installer, and instructed wubi to install on L.

It was all going swimmingly until "error" as per log file attached as owt.txt above.

I cannot find out from Google how to check the boot sector protection as per Oxie's post.

[*scyllabub*]

Scylla - You are not alone.

Google:-

"An error has occurred setting the element data.The request is not supported."

Blimey, Oxie - there are posts on the Ubuntu forum unanswered since the beginning of last year 😮

[oxieman]

Scylla

Check last Post on this link:-

http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/mint-linux/173577-installation-error.html

Oxie...

[*scyllabub*]

I can't figure out which part of that post you are pointing me to, Oxie.  I cannot install on C (unless one can install 2 OSes on the same partition 😮 ).  Or are you suggesting I post my log file there, or add to the bug report?

Fick?  Me? 🙂

[old*angler]

unless one can install 2 OSes on the same partition 😮

Possible (I think - maybe - possibly) but not a good idea at all.

[*scyllabub*]

Hehe, I thought it would be out of the question 🙂

For OE:  This is my HDD setup on the MSI Wind which I want to install Ubuntu on, on drive L.  You will see that all partitions (except the 2 recovery partitions) are "Simple - Dynamic", whereas the equivalent partitions on my other net-notebook, Samsung X120, are "Simple - Basic".  How strange is that? ?:|

So I see why you were concerned about dynamic/basic but it's over my head.

[oxieman]

Scylla wrote - Or are you suggesting I post my log file there, or add to the bug report?

No, not at all, the bit of interest is this:-   "Surprisingly this error does not come if I install Ubuntu on My C Drive".

See Screenshot of Post #4

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Please don't get me into all this, I gave it up years ago when I retired.

Anybody remember 'System Commander'?   Now that did some nice little tweeks with the MBR - Or made copies and thew em all over the place, to the OS, .sys files etc and into memory -  No, don't answer that, bet some of the the other 'Old Gits' do but won't admit it. :^O  :^O

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OA - I think that is how (possibly) it was written and subsequently works/operates.

All good fun - If you have the time, now shall I try it on my XP PC ?

Answer - No, the C: drives not big enough, thank goodness. 😄

Got to go - Oxie....

[otherego]

Since WUBI installs as a Windows program, presumably it would be safe enough on C - presumably it lives in its own program folder.

I still believe that it's intended for trying out Linux, however - it seems to run within a sort-of virtual machine within Windows.

g-c - if I've got it right - this is no longer an adjunct to the video recorder thread. This one started here:

http://community.ebay.co.uk/topic/General-Technical-Issues/Safe-Shrink-Partition/2000050123

Scylla wants to dual boot Ubuntu with W7 (I think) on her netbook.

She's tried WUBI, and it's proving otherwise.

It looks as if she might be unable to rework the partitions to accommodate Linux as the disk has become a dynamic disk.

None of the rest of us can figure out the significance of that.

I suspect the two options left are:

Try installing WUBI where it would prefer to be installed and live with the poorer performance etc of WUBI compared with a true dual-boot Ubuntu installation or:

Try converting the hard drive back to a basic disc. Doesn't look easy; it might be easiest to reinstall. (>>>>>>>>>>>>scuttles for shelter.)

Either way, of course, any useful data would need to be safely backed up before proceeding.

[*scyllabub*]

Thanks OE :-x

Quote OE:

Since WUBI installs as a Windows program, presumably it would be safe enough on C - presumably it lives in its own program folder.

I still believe that it's intended for trying out Linux, however - it seems to run within a sort-of virtual machine within Windows.

Well I never! 😮  How interesting!  Funnily enough, when I was trying to install Puppy with Unetbootin it would only offer me C.

Quote OE:

Try converting the hard drive back to a basic disc. Doesn't look easy; it might be easiest to reinstall. (>>>>>>>>>>>>scuttles for shelter.)

Either way, of course, any useful data would need to be safely backed up before proceeding.

There's not a lot of data to worry about.  Reinstalling might be a long-winded nuisance though - the netbook was originally W7 Starter which I upgraded to Home Premium.  Then there's all my essential freebies.

I'll see what else comes up re converting dynamic to basic (if dynamic is agreed to be a problem).

[*scyllabub*]

Got fed up with no-one helping me so I thought "nothing ventured, nothing cokt up" and had a re-read of Wubi instructions and realised I'd got it all wrong.  So have installed Ubuntu with it on my every-day Samsung X120's C drive, no harm done but I cannot continue to use it unless I can:

Can get full-screen display (it's only about two-thirds at the mo)

Disable touch-pad

Set Shift key to release Caps Lock (ie, act like a normal typewriter)

Having trouble posting this because I keep touching the touchpad accidentally 😞

Any advice on how to achieve above mods please? 🙂

[grumpy-cook]

Your screen size is graphics driver related. I'm not familiar with Ubuntu (I tried it briefly a few years ago), but you could try setting the resolution to something different - I think there should be a setting somewhere like System > Preferences > Screen Resolution. If this doesn't help then you are going to have to start delving into the actual graphics driver.

You may also find some way of disabling the touchpad under System > Preferences > Mouse.

[*scyllabub*]

My problem was that I couldn't find System in this Ubuntu - I'll try again later, don't want to boot out of Windows for a while 🙂  I may have trouble getting directions for this because I don't suppose anyone else has got Ubuntu installed in a Windows folder on C 😐

[otherego]

I had trouble with Ubuntu recently, when it ran slower than a slow thing in treacle on my horrid inexpensively acquired Toshiba L100. For various reasons, I suspected a graphics problem.

After a couple of updates, it sorted itself out - so I assume some driver problem resolved itself. It might be worth updating it more than once to see what happens.

I can't remember whether the improvement only happened after I enabled the Medibuntu repository (unlikely), but that might be worth a try, too. I have to look it up every time:

http://medibuntu.org/

gives more gen about Medibuntu. Look under the Repository Howto tab for details respecting enabling it.

More on the touchpad here:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SynapticsTouchpad

- much as g-c suggests.

Ubuntu often offers to install non-free drivers - might be worth searching for this function - if it doesn't appear on the desktop, it'll probably be under something like System> Administration > Hardware Drivers. It'll probably only offer something really helpful like a driver for the dial-up modem, though. More here:

http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/nvidia

if you happen to need an Nvidia driver.

These helpful folk offer scripts to find and install drivers - used it some time ago with AntiX and can't remember the details, but it worked:

http://smxi.org/site/smxi-story.htm

http://smxi.org/

Funny, I don't hugely care for Ubuntu. I admire and respect their ethical stance and all they do for Linux, but just as one's friends who never do anything wrong are really a bit of a PITA, so I find Ubuntu's dedication to avoiding non-free stuff can make life a little trying at times.

Mint takes care of much of that, and remains my favourite - although PCLinuxOS is rapidly threatening that position. g-c always said how easy it was; i just couldn't get it to play properly. Then one day it just worked, and it's just worked on several installations and reinstallations since.

Excellent driver support - beats Mint hands-down, I think.

Are you using the latest Ubuntu with the new (Unity?) desktop? I thought it looked quite nice, but haven't installed it on anything yet. And not quite sure yet how to navigate it - probably easy enough.

Hope you're having fun, Scylla. One of the nice things about Linux is there's none of that activation nonsense - just get on and install, remove, reinstall, replace, or whatever you want to do.

[*scyllabub*]

When I installed Wubi/Ubuntu I didn't get a screen to choose graphics, language, etc, like you do when you install with Unetbootin on a dedicated partition.  It's just a folder on C:

(Remind me to find out what "MGtools.exe" is all about - I never save exe files to C ?:| )

[*scyllabub*]

(Remind me to find out what "MGtools.exe" is all about - I never save exe files to C ?:| )

's OK, it's a Major Geeks antimalware thingy and it's supposed to be there.

[otherego]

Goodness, but this thread has slipped down the pages - swamped in all sorts of strange threads.

Scylla, how's the WUBI installation going? Just mentioned on another thread that you're the current WUBI user here - hope that was OK.

Be really interesting to hear whether you got it working as you want it - as you know, I rather gave up on it - but might persevere again some time.

I'm still battling with slow loading internet pages on some of the Linux machines. Looks as if I'm going to have to bite the bullet and try NDISWrapper to incorporate Windows wireless drivers - especially on the Toshiba L30 and L100 (I'm never buying another Toshiba L- anything.)

The other computers seem to have improved. I thought pages were loading more reliably because I'd reduced the MTU from the default 1458 (which, incidentally, proved the optimum using the tests suggested by o*a on a Windows box) to 1358.

I'm back to the original setting, though, as the snag seems fairly intermittent. (Except on the plaguey Toshibas.) I wonder whether it could be something as simple as the almost five-year-old Netgear router being on its way out?

Rebooting the router frequently results in improved page loading for a while (more noticeably than usual.)

Perhaps Linux machines are the canaries in the coal mine where impending router demise is concerned.

Otherwise - I'll go back to g-c's suggestion and try NDISWrapper - never used it before, believe it or not. Stand by for more dumb questions re Linux network drivers (did I mention the fault occasionally shows on ethernet too? - I'm beginning to wonder about the trusty router.)

[*scyllabub*]

Dear oh dear oh dear, anyone would think they've got router problems, the time it took this panel to load X-(

Scylla, how's the WUBI installation going? Just mentioned on another thread that you're the current WUBI user here - hope that was OK.

Be really interesting to hear whether you got it working as you want it - as you know, I rather gave up on it - but might persevere again some time.

(I'm speaking here as if I've never said anything about it in this or any other thread, as I simply cannot remember and I'll get digressed if I try to check up.)

The actual installation was a piece o' cake, I saved both Wubi and Ubuntu 11.04 in a folder on D:\ and executed Wubi and got a seamless install.  Now I have an Ubuntu folder in C:\ and when I boot up you'd think I had a "normal" dual boot system, the two OSes are there to choose from.

However, I couldn't find system settings to enlarge the display area (it's about two-thirds full size, which is rather small on an 11.6" netbook) and to disable the touchpad, which comes alive in Ubuntu even tho it's disabled in Windows7.  When typing, my trailing thumbs cause havoc if the touchpad is active.

I was thinking that if anyone here was half a man (not you, dear OE, I know (or think) that you don't have a Windows machine hanging around with space for Ubuntu on C:\ ) they'd duplicate my experiment and find the systems settings for me X-( 😉

There is no Ubuntu support for ole ladies,

Signed:

Twitter 'n Bisted 😉

PS: How does one take screenshots of the boot screen?  Does it have to be done with a camera?

[otherego]

Joys of an obsessive personality (and just look at the time - thank goodness I don't have to be up today.)

As briefly as possible...

I've an old Toughbook CF-27, with no optical drive.

Its BIOS doesn't provide for booting from a USB drive (and yes, it does have a USB port - 1.1, but better than nothing.)

PLOP (wonderful name) on a boot floppy could see both an external CD-ROM and a unetbootined flash drive - but despite much messing around with its settings, I never got further than a brief flicker from the CD's light, or the flash drive, followed by that infuriating blinking white cursor on a black screen.

So, this is what I did.

Used unetbootin to install AntiX to a conventional hard drive in an external hard drive enclosure.

Fitted the hard drive to the old Toughbook.

Started the Toughbook, and Antix ran beautifully as a - I don't know - live internal drive, or something.

Connected another hard drive in the external drive enclosure to the USB port.

Installed AntiX from the unetbootined drive in the computer to the drive in the external enclosure (which it saw as /dev/sdb.)

Shut down on completion (instead of rebooting) and swapped the drives - ie the drive from the external enclosure now went into the computer.

Started it with the aid of a SuperGrub2 floppy. Fiddled and swore. Found AntiX still has a menu.lst file in GRUB. Changed anything that said sdb to sda, and anything that said HD1,0 to HD0,0.

Rebooted.

Ta dah! I'm now typing from it.

AntiX found my no-name-brand PCMCIA wireless card; CENI proved more intuitive than I'd remembered it (it looks after networks), and IceApe (anti's preferred browser - sort of SeaMonkey) connected no problem. The usual Mozilla add-ons seem to work - no sign of Sync, which may be a good thing.

So - one way of installing Linux to an old machine with no internal CD-ROM and which refuses to boot from an external CD-ROM or flash drive, even with PLOP's aid.

Bit fiddly, and took several attempts - but in the end, the process outlined above was about it.

All one needs is: a spare computer, a spare laptop hard drive, and external hard drive enclosure, and a SuperGrub2 floppy (must be others, too.)

At the moment, it's using 122MB out of 247 RAM, and a few kb of swap - so a good candidate for trying the slow CF card I bought - should run with no swap.

And the Toughbook is so slow to start with - mighty 300MHZ CPU... (Apparently that was to avoid having to fit a fan and cooling vents, which a more powerful CPU would need.)

Amazingly, it loads eBay and other pages. Very slowly, but it does it. Which is more than the wretched Toshibas. And despite about 53% signal strength.

Time to sleep; otherwise I'd be so cheerful with this little success that I'd even have removed Linux from one of the dual booted machines and tried Wubi. Sorry, Scylla - don't think the euphoria's going to survive a night's sleep...

Have you tried updating Ubuntu? That solved a graphics driver problem for me once, without my even trying. I assume it is up-dateable. Try running Synaptic, perhaps, if there's no update manager visible in that version. Or perhaps open a terminal and try sudo apt-get install update. (I think. Tis late.)

[grumpy-cook]

Very nice OE, you deserve a medal for working all that out and successfully getting it working.

[grumpy-cook]

I was just prompted to mention this by EJ's remark on the "Rescue a destitute board" thread.

This weekend I've installed a NAS at a local architect's practice which I've looked after for years. The server I built for them nearly 10 years ago is still going strong, but has run out of space - the whopping big (then) pair of 120Gb hard drives in a mirrored array is now full of their client and CAD drawing files. I could have put in bigger drives, but messing about with mirrors is not straightforward so I talked them into a NAS as a more robust solution.

I'm quite impressed by what we got (I've not dealt with one before). I bought a Buffalo job for just over 100 smackers - pair of 500Gb drives, which I set up as a mirror again, in a box about the size of a compact toaster. I'm not sure which distro its OS is based on - you configure it through a web interface - but it's impressive. Apart from using it as a file server as we are doing, it has a web server available, a media server, bit torrent and a print server. It has a backup system built-in too. Through USB port you can attach an external hard drive or a printer. As well as normal file access on the office LAN you can provide secure remote access through a web interface.

Installing it was a piece of cake. I preconfigured it and then called in on friday and hung it on their network. Over the weekend I've remoted in to the server and copied all their data across. When they return on Tuesday I'll just get them to re-map to their folders and off they go.