Ubuntu 8.04

[Andrew]

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/FromUSBStick

http://www.ubuntugeek.com/how-to-install-ubuntu-linux-from-usb-stick.html

You could try installing from a usb stick.

Or you could even install ubuntu to a usb stick.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=1873

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LiveUsbPendrivePersistent

Or maybe try downloading/burning from another computer source.

It is possible it is the older cd-rom on your laptop not able to find or read the cd properly. I have had problems on some of my computers (even new one) sometimes with it initially booting to the live cd options screen at first, but when I select to install/use live cd it is unable to load the OS. Not sure why. Randomly happens with any any distro.

I actually ran out of hard disk space last night when I went to bed and was converting mp3s. Need more space for linux :P

It´s actually using my swap right now.

For some reason audacity generated 16 gb in the .audacity1.3 folder. I not sure why it wasn´t deleting this info over time. I gonna have to look at options to see if there is one to stop autosaving stuff to this folder (which is not the output folder)

[D2k Sardaukar]

Thanks for the links. But I'm afraid I don't have a big enough usb stick. What about installing from the same harddisk? Or LAN?

I will try to download a different image, if I haven't already, and re-burn the cd. Probably with the new burner in a month.

I actually ran out of hard disk space last night when I went to bed and was converting mp3s. Need more space for linux :P

It

[Andrew]

Hmm, there is wubi that comes with a livecd which allows ubuntu to be installed on windows. Although I don't think it can install to its own partition.

http://wubi-installer.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wubi_(Ubuntu)

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/WubiGuide

Yes you could try downloading/burning the ubuntu alternate cd. It is slightly different method to install, although you end up with the same installation as normal live cd assuming you use all the defaults.

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

I know I can purchase a cheap 8gb usb stick for $25 CAD before taxes when it goes on sale and can get <2gb for $10.

Thanks, I'll make sure to change the option in audacity, or at least check the folder once in while to clean it (I figured it would delete those files after I was done editing the music and closed the program).

[Andrew]

Ubuntu 8.04.1 was released.

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-announce/2008-July/000112.html

In all, over 200 updates have been integrated, and updated installation

media has been provided so that fewer updates will need to be downloaded

after installation.  These include security updates and corrections for

other high-impact bugs, with a focus on maintaining stability and

compatibility with Ubuntu 8.04 LTS.

So it is good for people installing a new version of ubuntu. This way you don't have to download/install a couple hundred mb of updates.

I'll be updating my cd-rw discs with the updated versions over the week.

Will have to find time to backup my ntfs data partition and delete it moving the disk space to the windows partition and creating a /home partition for ubuntu.

[Andrew]

Using this ubuntu help document, I have started playing with emulators to run operating systems. Currently running xubuntu in virtualbox.

VirtualBox.

Hah, I installed xubuntu in the virtual partition. Pretty cool. Looks easy to test new operating systems out (specifically alpha/beta of new OS). Or to see what they look like without having to burn a cd and inserting the disk. Now I can browse the web and other stuff while my virtual OS is loading. :D

Now I definitely need to format computer and make ubuntu partition much bigger. Glad I got 3 gb of ram to easily give virtualbox lots (512mb).

Even better is with multiple desktops in ubuntu, I can make a virtual OS fullscreen in one desktop and have several OS running at once. Sounds great for troubleshooting issues with any OS.

[Andrew]

Well I broke my ubuntu install when I was trying to mount partitions (I tried making another linux partition, which worked but would not write to it, and prevented me from mounting ntfs data partition which was resized). I input something into fstab which made me lose permissions to do stuff. I was able to backup everything and then formatted the linux partitions. I took space from my ntfs data partition and now have / mountpoint having 20gb, and /home mountpoint having 40gb. Now I have lots of space for linux and stuff, and can format the OS while keeping my data in /home partition. :)

Ubuntu installed better than the previous times, instantly recognizing and mounting all partitions (no messing with fstab!). I was also having problems with my keyboard, it kept thinking I had an international version, but when I reset it to the proper one, it worked, but upon restarting computer it would go back to other version (made " ' difficult to type)

Wow my life sure is exciting.

EDIT:

Hmm, I didn't do anything, just rebooted and now for some reason the partitions don't automount, and are not listed in fstab... and apparently my / mount point is read only!?

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
proc            /proc           proc    defaults        0       0
# /dev/sda5
UUID=6ce6ac51-a7bc-48fd-a058-2b4d50276bf9 /               ext3    relatime,errors=remount-ro 0       1
# /dev/sda6
UUID=d721b9d4-c8f2-48f8-9b29-be0bda7d6567 /home           ext3    relatime        0       2
# /dev/sda7
UUID=8824beb3-b4ca-469e-b4c7-4b541c23b050 none            swap    sw              0       0
/dev/scd0       /media/cdrom0   udf,iso9660 user,noauto,exec,utf8 0       0

fsck.ext3: Unable to resolve 'UUID=6ce6ac51-a7bc-48fd-a058-2b4d50276bf9'

EDIT:

Messed with fstab again and had to format. For now it looks like I will leave it alone and simply mount (by clicking on it from places menu) when I need to access those partitions.

EDIT:

got my ntfs partitions to automount when booting. expect me to edit this again saying I broke it ::)

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
proc            /proc           proc    defaults        0       0
# /dev/sda5
UUID=62fedb24-d2f8-4fac-a31b-f5f6a9ae9f60 /               ext3    relatime,errors=remount-ro 0       1
# /dev/sda6
UUID=520e5e08-8ba0-477f-8466-94ed8debc387 /home           ext3    relatime        0       2
# /dev/sda7
UUID=8824beb3-b4ca-469e-b4c7-4b541c23b050 none            swap    sw              0       0
/dev/scd0       /media/cdrom0   udf,iso9660 user,noauto,exec,utf8 0       0
#acer
#UUID=3ECC4745CC46F6A5 umask=002
/dev/sda2	/media/ACER	ntfs-3g	rw,user,exec,auto	0	1

#disk
#UUID=310448f61cf55b5b
/dev/sda3	/media/disk	ntfs-3g	rw,user,exec,auto	0	1

[Andrew]

It appears rsync is installed by default on ubuntu. I'm not good with command line interface so I also installed grsync from ubuntu repository.

Just copied my /home directory to my 4gb usb stick to test and see how it works. Once that worked (with some errors but apparently is normal, but still looks ok), I added a new file to my /home directory to see how it handles when syncing with a new file. Took about 5 seconds to sync with an additional 8mb video (most of that time I would attribute to the errors).

Looks promising. Sometime when a larger usb stick goes on sale I might just get one to backup stuff on my computer. I only need 14 gb for important stuff, and about 5 gb for non important stuff. So the cheap 16gb usb sticks for $20 sounds decent. Not the safest backup plan, but better than my current one which is to backup before format :P. rsync will allow me to sync/backup my files quickly.

[Andrew]

Well I finally learned how to make a small footprint version of ubuntu to run on old computers. So far I am only testing in a virtualbox, but almost ready to install on old computer. Only thing I have not figured out is sound (could be virutal problem although I have gotten sound to work with normal ubuntu distros in virtualbox), and havn't tried wireless (I'll need to remember how to use ndiswrapper).

I started with mounting the ubuntu 8.04.1 alternate cd in virtualbox. Then I went into command line interface install method.

Programs currently installed are:

firefox - what will be used all the time when computer is on

xfe - filemanager

mousepad - like gedit or notepad

conky - to monitor ram usage etc

gdm - so that when computer starts it logs directly to the desktop

idesk - program to put icons on desktop

pypanel - what the panel on bottom is.

obmenu - openbox menu editor

openbox - window manager

When it starts it uses only 30mb of ram (eventually reaches 50mb after opening/closing programs). I hope that with so little amount of ram being used, I hope this means more CPU can be used for firefox. I'm pretty sure it only has 820mb used of hard disk space, but I may have installed 100mb worth trying to get guestadditions and sound to work.

Or hopefully there are more lightweight ubuntu distros released to try out. Gonna download some tonight.

Attached is a screenshot of it running in virtualbox.

EDIT:

Now testing Ubuntulite live cd that was just released. Still not a final version but it uses minimal programs.

EDIT:

added ubuntulite screenshot. it only uses 48mb upon startup. And looks a lot better than my custom version :P

EDIT:

Canonical’s Ubuntu Linux Tops 8 Million Users

[Andrew]

Yesterday Ubuntu Intrepid 8.10 RC was released.

I tried the beta live cd but internet did not work so I waited for the RC. From what I could tell the RC live cd worked great, so I installed it and formatted over Hardy.

So far Intrepid is much better than Hardy for me. Here's some reasons:

1. newer software: software that I use often that has been updated include conky, audacious, GIMP, and VLC along with everything else. Sadly no openoffice 3.0, but it can be installed if needed.

2. compiz works great. It doesn't use nearly as much CPU as it did in Hardy. I can now have it enabled with AWN and a bunch of other stuff. Playing a video and and doing the "cube" shows no slowdown.

8.10 final will be released on Halloween.

I'm testing the "dust" theme (have to get from synaptic). Here is what it looks like

[Khan]

Man I wish I could get my ubuntu looking as nice as yours andrew. Mine looks like the genetic leftovers. :(

[Andrew]

To get it to look like mine, assuming you are using intrepid (should wait a week to get final version) is very very easy.

1. remove bottom bar. You can move the taskbar/icons/workspace switcher to the top bar (right click on top bar and "add to panel").

2. system->administration->synaptic->find: community-themes (includes dust theme I am using. New Wave is supposed to be good). check to install. Also find AWN (avant window navigator), install it.

To enable AWN when computer starts go to system->preferences->session->add: Name:AWN (or whatever) command: avant-window-navigator

AWN is a great app launcher and can replace a traditional window list (running programs) in taskbar. Think of it replacing quicklaunch icons and the taskbar for windows (or doing the same as OSX dock) and also being able to do much more.

Once community theme is installed system->preferences->appearance->theme->select Dust (may have to click customize to make sure dust options are selected).

Install firefox theme for dust. It can be found here

To get the conky (sys info right side of my screenshot)

open synaptic and look for conky. install it. Download and extract my .conkyrc file into your /home folder (it will be a hidden file so press ctrl+h to see it). go to system->preferences->sessions->add conky (name: Conky command: conky). And it should show when you restart computer.

Best place to get ideas for conky is here and at conky website. People have conky showing their current song playing, or calendar, or weather and some other stuff.

The media player I use for music is audacious (can find in synaptic, it is best winamp clone).

My desktop looks like crap compared to the stuff other linux users make. At ubuntuforums.org go to the monthly sticked screenshot thread here.

Hmm, I just realized that dust theme looks really good when browsing dune2k since forum has dark background as well. Time will tell if I like the dark themes.

conkyrc.zip

[Khan]

You forgot the first step of getting a computer with more computing power than an American high school student has in his brain. Heh, clever.

[Andrew]

It has been released

http://www.ubuntu.com/

Gonna download the desktop version tonight. Still have the problem with ntfs partitions (power went out while using windows, so it messed it up), so I will have to format my RC install.

Think I'm gonna try xubuntu on the old computer.

[Andrew]

I was having problems with wireless on my ubuntu 8.04.1 and winxp, for some reason it would only sometimes connect and would have to restart in order to connect. I think it must be due to interference or something, but it is weird because it was working for 6 months just fine.

I just spent 3 hours getting Puppy Linux working on my old computer. I figured out wireless, installed firefox 3.0.3, flash, numlockx etc. It is very fast, I have it setup to load the OS into ram, with it's own partition for files and stuff (I think). It takes 51 seconds to load to the desktop with a working wireless connection.

I kinda messed with the MBR (grub). It loads windows xp partition if chosen, and it loads puppy linux, but it did not detect ubuntu OS properly (the partition is still intact).

When first testing puppy linux, I had the livecd running, with an old usb memory stick being used to keep my preferences etc when I rebooted. Eventually I was comfortable enough to attempt to install it. I first tried installing to an empty ntfs partition (it is possible to put it to a fat/ntfs parition to boot like livecd). Then I messed up the MBR. So I then did a full install and formatted the ntfs to ext3. This did not work either :P. So then I reinstalled using frugal install (putting image on ext3 partition). I then created my user preferences file, and made that a 512mb file and put on ext3 partition. MBR (grub) worked once I read the manual and edited it properly.

So the way it works now, is it has an OS image that is around 2-3 files sitting on my ext3 partition. This gets loaded into ram. I then have a user settings/preferences (changes made to OS, additional programs/files), as a single file also on my ext3 partition. This loads as well (I think read/write to the file, not loaded into ram).

For whatever reason ubuntu/xubuntu 8.10 will not even get to the desktop of my old computer, it just gives lots of errors while loading the OS. So I'll be skipping 8.10 on the old computer.

EDIT:

Looking at my usb stick, the puppy linux OS image is 91mb. I made my preferences on the usb stick 128mb, which appears to have expanded to 153mb (usb stick is only 256mb). The recommended size is 512mb for user space, which I did on the ext3 partition. Says I have 430 mb left. The size can be changed at a later time.

EDIT:

of course after it was used for a couple hours, and then shutdown, the auto shutdown stops working. Have to press the button now to complete the shutdown. wtf?

EDIT:

a quick google and I added acpi=force to menu.lst puppy entry and it now shutsdown properly.

EDIT:

Today forum members reached 700,000. 1 year ago they had 425,000, so they gained 275,000 this past year.

[Andrew]

After 2 hours I got Music Player Daemon (mpd) and Sonata working. This was my third or fourth try in a year or more. I went to #mpd on irc and got help there. Turns out I needed to install another piece of software (paprefs) check a couple options, then in mpd.conf add pulseaudio setting. Apparently all ubuntu people are screwed when it comes to trying to get mpd working because of these two things.

Now with mpd working, I can play all my music through terminal or about a dozen other GUI programs (I use sonata). I have mpd info showing up in my conky file on the desktop, so no need for GUI frontend visible.

MPD uses up barely any resources (I can't find it in system monitor). It is a daemon that runs in the background. The frontend GUI of Sonata uses 20mb (but it's not needed to listen to music). Although with sonata running the gnome keyboard shortcut keys for play/pause etc work. So I'll have it running but minimize to tray.

Even if I close or open sonata (apparently even if it crashes), the music keeps playing flawlessly, since sonata is just a gui frontend.

Good thing about MPD is that if you have networks, you can stream music from other computers. Say you have a multimedia box/computer. You could connect to it to play/stop music. So say have a desktop sitting around with your music, and you are on your laptop, control music from laptop that is playing on desktop.

Glad to have figured out how to get mpd working. :P

EDIT:

something really stupid I should have figured out a long time ago (never bothered), is to add stuff to

right click desktop->create document

It only shows empty file.

The trick to getting other programs in there is to create templates. A quick google and I found the answer.

Add Your Document Templates to GNOME

I've added OOo writer and calc so far.

[D2k Sardaukar]

That dust style looks on the screenshots very nice. Too bad there isn't one for Vista and FireFox.

Oh, the old laptop still doens't have Ubuntu. I tried a lot, but it somehow keeps giving errors. I will look into it one more time and post the error messages and more info, if you don't mind.

Virtualbox is a nice program, got it also running on Vista.

[Andrew]

You may want to try puppy linux for your laptop. It works good for older computers. I got it running on my old computer to simply use firefox and wireless. The live cd is only 100mb.

With trying another distro you can at least rule out whether the linux kernel is causing problems, or if it is only ubuntu related.

Dunno if wacom tablet works (this thread shows some working). I think it is possible to run blender.

The download links are a bit confusing (dunno why they put seamonkey in filename).

The one I got is direct download link

You can install firefox 3.0.3 (it comes with seamonkey), but have to find it. If you need it let me know I remember the links.

[Khan]

My laptop displays an IDE#1 Error when booting and then it boots to Busybox. FSCK comes up with no errors and it boots fine when I exit Busybox. Weird but as long as it works I won't ask too many questions.

[D2k Sardaukar]

I had those SQUASHFS errors and I tried reburning the RW and reburning RW and even md5 checks, nothing worked. The puppy one did however work. I did not get it..

Than I found a Sony DVD lying around which had some minor scratches and burned the iso to it and it worked. :D

Stupid (Philips) CD-RW's are just bad quality.

[D2k Sardaukar]

Double post  :O

I'm happy Ubuntu finally works, but I have a small problem. The videocard on the laptop is an old ati mobile thing and althought the special effects can even work in Ubuntu the scrolling in FireFox is still slow(jaggy/annoying). I think it needs a different driver or package or whatever it's called in Linux/Ubuntu.

The dust theme also works, looks nice, but I cannot get Aurora working, needs GTK 2.10 which I don't get installed ...Argh.

Also, the colouring is completely off. I have a nice photo with fresh green plant colours on it (wonderful on the main PC) but on the laptop it's a sad grey/brown colour plant...

I did find this: http://ole.tange.dk/linux/problemer/medion-9783/

That's my laptop and it tells something about which vid and other drivers to use, but I have no idea how to install them. Where can I find info about this "compiling, console, config, run" stuff I don't get, but is required to get something done in Ubuntu/Linux.

[Andrew]

Slow firefox scrolling was normal for my intel g965 under previous versions of ubuntu. It was somewhat fixed for 8.10 release for my video card. Although it looks like sometimes flash causes massive CPU usage in firefox even when not scrolling.

The eyecandy may not work great on older processors/videocards.

The link you gave, he has info about the xorg.conf which is from 2002-2003 xorg has changed much since then and I doubt that will work great (since drivers would have changed by now).

If you open up synaptic (system->admin->synaptic) and search for radeon, the drivers should be installed. For whatever reason they are installed on my computer.

Will finish replying later, just saw a mouse run across my bedroom 3 feet from where I sit. That is what is making noise at night. GRRRR

EDIT:

Took bedroom apart. No sign of mouse >:(

EDIT:

Go to

system->admin->hardware drivers

Show anything there? It doesn't for me, I think that is where you can install proprietary drivers (or see if any are running).

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

Search google for your hardware and ubuntu and see what results there are.

something like this or this or this

If your video card is this, the first M6 listed and was released in 2001, I would definitely turn off eye candy as you would be wasting massive CPU etc on it.

I think the fact that you got compiz working ok is very good news :P But I'd disable it.

Link to what aurora you are talking about?

Odd that colouring is off. Could be a graphics problem. You might want to try asking at ubuntuforums.

Can you upload a small part of what the image looks like, and take a screenshot of your desktop when the image is open (to show the colour differences?)

EDIT:

Today I finally got the courage to install openoffice 3.0 on ubuntu 8.10.

Here is an easy guide to doing it. OOo3 is not officially supported, but it seems to work. Ubuntu is apparently putting it in backports (an unsupported but official repository) in December.

There were 101 updates and around 200mb to download to get OOo3 working.

EDIT:

Ok I see what you mean by aurora. It is not needed for dust theme as far as I know.

I don't know much about compiling/console/config/run. Most is simple once you find out how someone else did something.

I know some basic command line stuff, but only with stuff I normally edit/run.

Such as:

sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf <--edit xorg, but not needed to edit xorg unless you know what you are doing. The only edit I have is to enable the extra buttons on my mouse. And I only know what to put in because someone else figured it out on ubuntu forums a long time ago for my specific mouse. Possible to edit for any other mouse.

sudo gedit .conkyrc <--edit conky config file (see conky website for variables)

killall -SIGUSR1 conky <--restart conky. Good when editing the config file and want to see the changes without having to restart computer.

sudo gedit /etc/fstab <--to edit what partitions and stuff gets loaded. Do not edit unless you know what you're doing or else might have to format (or load live cd and manually edit fstab from there)

sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst <-- useful when you want to change grub order, or change default countdown timer (10 seconds is too long for me). Or change the default selection to start. Also used to have to edit it to remove older kernel entries.

EDIT:

Ha, the mouse was on the bed when sleeping. So now I know where it is and mouse traps are set. Hopefully no way out. If mouse traps get nothing tomorrow, then sending the barn cats after it.

[D2k Sardaukar]

I'll see if I can get a different driver for the vid, but I'm having a hard time getting something to work.

I have put an attachment showing the different colours. Of course it's an old screen, but in XP the colours were better than this.

Thanks for the help so far.

[Andrew]

Hmm, I've done some searching, but not much good showed up.

Linux color management - the interesting section is monitor calibration and profiling, which is what I would think needs to be done.

Like somehow tell the monitor to brighten or be more colorful (I guess kinda like on monitors when you go into settings on the OSD).

monitor calibration???

I tried searching google using

ubuntu laptop monitor calibration

[Andrew]

Here's a screenshot of my ubuntu desktop. interfacelift.com had some good wallpapers released recently so I ditched the Intrepid default wallpaper.

I never thought of using 64bit OS really. Hopefully I try it when 9.04 is released. Should be more software supporting it. I think the only software not natively supporting it is flash and some other non-opensource stuff.

To install Google Earth I used this tutorial. Basically enable medibuntu repository.

Google earth does not work good with compiz enabled. I think because of my hardware. With compiz turned off google earth works fine. Although while messign with it after install it hard locked my computer (unresponsive to anything but power button).

[Andrew]

Last night I spent several hours trying to get my scanner to work. Today I figure it out!

Last night I was able to get it to work, but it only worked from command line using

pixmascan ~/Pictures/scan.tif -1

I had to compile my driver and install it.

But I wanted it to work with xsane GUI, as command line is boring.

So I went to here and reailized I had to compile the libsane-pixma file, then copy/paste it to the /usr/lib/sane/ folder for xsane to use it. Ubuntu was using the default pixma that came with it and I don't think it worked.

EDIT:

Updated screenshot. Since the other one I got weather conky working (bottom right). I am also now using cairo dock instead of AWN. It has more options and more visually appealing.