Convert Microsoft to LINUX: Ubuntu Debian
This section will feature info on the latest Ubuntu and Debian Linux Distributions.
Installing Debian
The Debian live CD is very similar to Ubuntu. Ubuntu is actually based on Debian. When you install Debian, it will default to ext3 for partitioning the files. Ubuntu is now at ext4. Debian is very conservative but stable. Also, what I like about Debian, is it leaves out all the Gnome 3 Desktop and Ubuntu One stuff which can be dificult to work with. I love the light desktop which is very low in memory consumption and disk space usage.This is the same as I mentioned in the Freebsd web page.
Similar to the other distributions you can use the
dd if=/home/victor/download/debian-Xfce4-iso of=/dev/sdb bs=4M
mentioned below for the Ubuntu install to burn the image on a USB stick.
I chose the live CD iso with the Xfce4 light desktop interface for
a total of 808 Megabytes.
Note, there is a bug in the install if you burn the
cdrom onto the USB stick with unetbootin. The install program still thinks you are looking for
a real CD so you have to fake it out by choosing the expert install and selecting:
go to an executable shell ash
You need to then type:
mount /dev/sdb /cdrom
and then you can continue with the install.
Note, it also forces you to install the bootloader, but do not worry about it. Be sure not to write the boot MBR record if there are other operating systems present and then you will be ok. I choose for safety to have a partition for the / (root) a second for the /home and a third for the Linux swap.
Troubleshooting Debian Installs
You may find after installing Firefox and Flash, that your sound card is not
detected. Here is how to remedy that:
less /proc/asound/cards
Type the previous in the command line. To see a listing of your sound card.
Then type:
sudo alsactl init
You may get a message like:
Unknown hardware: "HDA-Intel" "Realtek ALC1200" "HDA:10ec0888,10438357,00100101" "0x1043" "0x8357"
Hardware is initialized using a guess method
Now your hardware should work.
Also periodically you would want to change the password with:
passwd username
Enjoy!
Installing Ubuntu
The 11.10 Ubuntu is the best thing yet. I put it on my ASUS 900HA
Netbook and it worked fine out of the box. Note you will probalby have to
put it on a USB flash drive, also known as a stick.
To create a USB Stick from a CD or DVD ISO image use:
dd if=/home/victor/downloads/ubuntu-live-11.10-iso of=/dev/sdb bs=4M
Note, that is sdb not sdb1. Once you use sdb1 you are putting it on a
partition of the USB and that confuses the heck out of the bootloaders
out there. You will get errors like:
"isolinux.bin install missing or corrupt"
"There is no CD in drive 1"Go to a terminal prompt and type:
It takes a little getting used to the newest interface on 11.10. I recommend avoiding the software
installer and doing all the installs the usual way at an xterm with:
sudo apt-get install firefox
as an example. I just wanted to install the latest Adobe Flash 11 Plugin and it kept forcing
me to use the Ubuntu Software center. Instead I downloaded the tarball for Linux and did this:
cd ~/.mozilla
mkdir plugins
tar -zxvf flash-player-11.gz
Do the previous in a /tmp directory and then cp the file libflashplayer.so which will
be at the top level to the .mozilla/plugins directory as in:
cp /tmp/flashplayer-11/libflashplayer.so ~/.mozilla/plugins
Note, you have to click on the upper left hand corner icon in Ubuntu 11.10 to get to the
applications menus for running programs. You can then drag them on to the menu bar on the
left column.
In order to be able to view commercial videos please click this link. Note if you want to use an external video, just follow the standard procedure. Click on Display under Preferences. Do not check the mirror and choose your appropriate resolution for your external monitor. Note, the ASUS card can not do more than 1024 X 768 so I stuck with this resolution.
Troubleshooting Ubuntu Install
Sometimes you may get a file system check errors such as unattached inode xxxxx . In this case reboot again, this time picking recovery mode . It will fail after a while with the file system check and then bring you to a # root prompt. Here type fsck /dev/sda1 or whatever device it is failing on. You can also type fsck all by itself at the prompt. It will make a few passes, when it asks you to fix the unattached inode, that is connect it to the "lost and found", just type y for yes or hit return. When you reboot after this, everything should be fine. Let me know via my email if you ever have any other problems.
For those used to a MAC, Ubuntu feels very much like a MAC.
You do not automatically get root privileges. To do root level commands,
you use the sudo command. i.e.:
sudo su root
You are now root and can type exit when you want to return to being your normal user. Ubuntu automatically detected all firewire devices on
all three platforms. This is a tremendous advantage meaning that I do not
have to upgrade to Leopard to see my external DVD firewire burner. I
find the Ubuntu operating system certainly as good as the MAC. It also sees
my Hewlett Packard Scanjet fine. Be aware that on the MAC hfsplus is
the prefered file system. This also known as extended MAC file sytem and
comes with your MAC. Your MAC can also multiboot and while in Ubuntu you can
see all your MAC partitions and files. If you are installing both on a MAC,
create two hfsplus partitions first. Install Ubuntu to the first partition and
MAC OS X to the second partition. Lastly note, Ubuntu comes in two GUI
environments. Kubuntu gives you the KDE desktop and Ubuntu
gives you the GNOME desktop.
Note, there is one bug in Feisty Ubuntu on a PC (i386) laptop install. It messes up the video resolution so it is stuck at 800 x 600. Here is how to fix it:
- Install the newer Intel drivers. These are not installed by
default and they should be.
-
sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-intel
- It asks if you want to replace the old drivers. Yep, you sure do.
Then run the xserver video autodetect thingy:
-
sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg
-
Choose all the autodetected and default settings it offers, with these exceptions:
-
At one point it asks about allocating system memory to the video card, making specific mention of the the i810. I'm not sure if it made any difference, but I set this to 64000 KB.
- When it lists the resolutions you want enabled MAKE SURE your monitors native solution (in my case 1024 x 768) is checked.
- Now you must reboot.
Many thanks to Filippo Guglielmetti for providing this solution on an Ubuntu forum. Note, if you want to just use the xorg.conf file I have and take a chance please follow intructions at /etc/X11/xorg.conf on my commands link.
Here is my Ubuntu Netbook Desktop for your viewing pleasure:
