From 0 to Kubuntu in 1 day.
How I installed Kubuntu Linux on a laptop with NO cdrom or floppy drive.
WHY LINUX ON MY LAPTOP?
Wanted to install a Linux on my laptop for 3 reasons:
- the CRT on my Slackware desktop is killing my eyes;
- the whine of 3 hard drives (everything else I silenced as much as I could) was getting on my nerves and
- wanted to work on computer while lying in bed.
I am otherwise perfectly happy with only Windows XP on the laptop, but it makes it difficult to work on things like SuperKaramba applets, use Kopete or Kmail. I also want finally to get around to coding a small server-client command-line app for timeshifting/recording TV using the MPEG2-encoder/tuner on my desktop. Since that will likely be in C (which I am yet to learn) and will use Linux pipes, windows as a development platform was too difficult to digest. (I could also VPN, or NX to the Slackware box, but...)
CHOOSING THE DISTRO
1. "Just say no to RPM."
I consider my experience with RedHat version 5.x to 6.x a traumatic experience. If someone chose to plunge into what is commonly known as "RPM Hell" that was the right time and I was the person. Since then, the word "RPM" induces the same violin screeching noises one would hear in the "Psycho"s bathroom scene. I am afraid I will brake the screen if I see words "rpm" and "required dependencies" in same sentence.
Loosers: RedHat, Mandriva, (with great pain in my heart) Suse)
2. "Not Gnome-centric distro"
I see only one problem with Gnome as a central theme of the distro. KDE there Is usually poorly integrated and horribly put together. One example of that is KDE on Ubuntu (tried some time in beginning of 2005).
Loosers: (Fedora, Ubuntu)
3. "I want a working HAL"
I got tired of recompiling KDEBase to include HAL/DBUS on Slackware everytime I download new version of KDE. It is not difficult, but, very annoying.
Loosers: The only looser is my dear Slackware. (and, maybe Debian)
4. "I want to be in with the crowd"
It has to be a major distro. I want to see any bug I discover to ba already discussed and, possibly, solved on the forums by the time I am ready to post about it. In other words, I want biggest quality control crowd.
Loosers: all the relatively small, specialty distros.
5. "I want it to compile"
I want a distro that has relatively generic, not heavily altered libraries. In case you are wandering whoever tried the Linux distro Corel made once - that was I. In case you are wandering how long it lasted; it lasted until I tried to compile some generic KDE app against their heavily altered KDE sources.
Loosers: Linspire, and that other one, you know what I mean. (Slackware is Heaven in that respect)
6. "Hibernate!"
For heaven's sake! Please, let it hibernate (suspend2disk) without problems and my tweaking of it! (Now you know why letting SuSE rot was so painful of a decision)
7. "The Magician"
I want a distro that can install without significant pain on a laptop (Intel 815-based Sony) WITHOUT a cdrom drive or a floppy drive. For that, it has to have boot images able to do a network install. I would shrink windows partition myself. Install windows version of Grub. Get boot images and feed them to Grub. But, then, the disto is on its own.
Once I emerged from this maze, the only (very hesitant) answer was - Kubuntu.
THE DIRTY DEED
Shrinking the Windows partition. I am so glad I didn't have to do it. When I installed windows there I created 2 partitions for system and data. Today, this paid off.
Getting grub to install on Windows. Grub for DOS does not (and will never) work on NTFS partition with WinXP SP2 and up. As a result, the developer is dropping NTFS partition support altogether. Grub for Windows (WinGrub) interface is coo-coo. Until the day I tried to use WinGrub, I thought I can read English. Upparently, I can't. I don't know what I did, but after some error messages, and debacles, I found out that Grub was installed. Yes!!!!!
Getting images for Kubuntu network install is easy, they are on the CD I downloaded. What is not easy is to swallow the definition of network install per Kubuntu. Official word is - I need some special type of ftp set up on server, add dhcp server and make sure the laptop boots from that, and not DHCP server my router provides. Compared to that, going and spending $100+ on external USB CDROM looked much less painful, yet, I decided to see what happens with Kubuntu boot images when they DON'T find everything listed. That was a good move...
The laptop booted the Grub, Kubuntu install boot images, and after some prompts (one of which let me know that my Lan card was detected) I got to a screen that asked to add a source of a Kubuntu mirror. Yey! I saw the light at the end of the tunnel... a very long tunnel as I found out. Yet, FTP install with Kubuntu is possible.
Several prompts further (one of which complained that install cannot alter Grub settings on (NTFS) drive), install informed me that it's going to download/install. It finished that in several minutes... which struck me as odd. My connection is only 5 times faster than a modem, that can't be it. And, it wasn't.
What I got installed was just the base libs, system execs, config files and vi. (the official text editor of people who like doing thing in the most absurd, dificult way, like brushing their teeth by pushing the arm through their ass.) Because of this, I couldn't add "Universe" tree of packages to my APT sources until I managed to run KWord. For the sake of people like me, I wish Midnight Commander would become a standard part of base install. Why, oh, why does it have to be in the (optional) Universe tree?
Well, I sorta know my way around APT, and found APTASTIC (or whatever its name is) by accident. Eventually I clawed my way up. My only wish there was a "whole-damn-functioning-system-with-all-usual-kde-parts" simulated package that I could just APT and go have a lunch. Instead, I had to list'n'apt hoping the dependencies will be drugged in. (Somehow I ended up with Emacs installed, but not Juk, or Kpackage. I feel RPM-Hell-like induced hysteria is creeping in)
Nevertheless, the pain of installation is behind me. Hibernate (suspend to disk), wireless card, and many other things still don't work, but I'm happy I can post this story from it already.
In the retrospect
May be I should have spent some money on a shrink to help me get over the RPM phobia and installed OpenSuse instead. But, I think I had enough install excitement this month.
EDIT:
Several days later, I did install OpenSuse. It was suggested that OpenSuse "is Very Laptop." After using it for several weeks, I can't agree more. EVERYTHING works. Hybernate, Wireless PCMCIA card, power management. I will see how Suse handles what on apt-get-enabled platforms is called "--dist-upgrade" If it's anything as flawless as on Slackware, I am paying for a commercial Suse package and overwriting the Slack.
WHY LINUX ON MY LAPTOP?
Wanted to install a Linux on my laptop for 3 reasons:
- the CRT on my Slackware desktop is killing my eyes;
- the whine of 3 hard drives (everything else I silenced as much as I could) was getting on my nerves and
- wanted to work on computer while lying in bed.
I am otherwise perfectly happy with only Windows XP on the laptop, but it makes it difficult to work on things like SuperKaramba applets, use Kopete or Kmail. I also want finally to get around to coding a small server-client command-line app for timeshifting/recording TV using the MPEG2-encoder/tuner on my desktop. Since that will likely be in C (which I am yet to learn) and will use Linux pipes, windows as a development platform was too difficult to digest. (I could also VPN, or NX to the Slackware box, but...)
CHOOSING THE DISTRO
1. "Just say no to RPM."
I consider my experience with RedHat version 5.x to 6.x a traumatic experience. If someone chose to plunge into what is commonly known as "RPM Hell" that was the right time and I was the person. Since then, the word "RPM" induces the same violin screeching noises one would hear in the "Psycho"s bathroom scene. I am afraid I will brake the screen if I see words "rpm" and "required dependencies" in same sentence.
Loosers: RedHat, Mandriva, (with great pain in my heart) Suse)
2. "Not Gnome-centric distro"
I see only one problem with Gnome as a central theme of the distro. KDE there Is usually poorly integrated and horribly put together. One example of that is KDE on Ubuntu (tried some time in beginning of 2005).
Loosers: (Fedora, Ubuntu)
3. "I want a working HAL"
I got tired of recompiling KDEBase to include HAL/DBUS on Slackware everytime I download new version of KDE. It is not difficult, but, very annoying.
Loosers: The only looser is my dear Slackware. (and, maybe Debian)
4. "I want to be in with the crowd"
It has to be a major distro. I want to see any bug I discover to ba already discussed and, possibly, solved on the forums by the time I am ready to post about it. In other words, I want biggest quality control crowd.
Loosers: all the relatively small, specialty distros.
5. "I want it to compile"
I want a distro that has relatively generic, not heavily altered libraries. In case you are wandering whoever tried the Linux distro Corel made once - that was I. In case you are wandering how long it lasted; it lasted until I tried to compile some generic KDE app against their heavily altered KDE sources.
Loosers: Linspire, and that other one, you know what I mean. (Slackware is Heaven in that respect)
6. "Hibernate!"
For heaven's sake! Please, let it hibernate (suspend2disk) without problems and my tweaking of it! (Now you know why letting SuSE rot was so painful of a decision)
7. "The Magician"
I want a distro that can install without significant pain on a laptop (Intel 815-based Sony) WITHOUT a cdrom drive or a floppy drive. For that, it has to have boot images able to do a network install. I would shrink windows partition myself. Install windows version of Grub. Get boot images and feed them to Grub. But, then, the disto is on its own.
Once I emerged from this maze, the only (very hesitant) answer was - Kubuntu.
THE DIRTY DEED
Shrinking the Windows partition. I am so glad I didn't have to do it. When I installed windows there I created 2 partitions for system and data. Today, this paid off.
Getting grub to install on Windows. Grub for DOS does not (and will never) work on NTFS partition with WinXP SP2 and up. As a result, the developer is dropping NTFS partition support altogether. Grub for Windows (WinGrub) interface is coo-coo. Until the day I tried to use WinGrub, I thought I can read English. Upparently, I can't. I don't know what I did, but after some error messages, and debacles, I found out that Grub was installed. Yes!!!!!
Getting images for Kubuntu network install is easy, they are on the CD I downloaded. What is not easy is to swallow the definition of network install per Kubuntu. Official word is - I need some special type of ftp set up on server, add dhcp server and make sure the laptop boots from that, and not DHCP server my router provides. Compared to that, going and spending $100+ on external USB CDROM looked much less painful, yet, I decided to see what happens with Kubuntu boot images when they DON'T find everything listed. That was a good move...
The laptop booted the Grub, Kubuntu install boot images, and after some prompts (one of which let me know that my Lan card was detected) I got to a screen that asked to add a source of a Kubuntu mirror. Yey! I saw the light at the end of the tunnel... a very long tunnel as I found out. Yet, FTP install with Kubuntu is possible.
Several prompts further (one of which complained that install cannot alter Grub settings on (NTFS) drive), install informed me that it's going to download/install. It finished that in several minutes... which struck me as odd. My connection is only 5 times faster than a modem, that can't be it. And, it wasn't.
What I got installed was just the base libs, system execs, config files and vi. (the official text editor of people who like doing thing in the most absurd, dificult way, like brushing their teeth by pushing the arm through their ass.) Because of this, I couldn't add "Universe" tree of packages to my APT sources until I managed to run KWord. For the sake of people like me, I wish Midnight Commander would become a standard part of base install. Why, oh, why does it have to be in the (optional) Universe tree?
Well, I sorta know my way around APT, and found APTASTIC (or whatever its name is) by accident. Eventually I clawed my way up. My only wish there was a "whole-damn-functioning-system-with-all-usual-kde-parts" simulated package that I could just APT and go have a lunch. Instead, I had to list'n'apt hoping the dependencies will be drugged in. (Somehow I ended up with Emacs installed, but not Juk, or Kpackage. I feel RPM-Hell-like induced hysteria is creeping in)
Nevertheless, the pain of installation is behind me. Hibernate (suspend to disk), wireless card, and many other things still don't work, but I'm happy I can post this story from it already.
In the retrospect
May be I should have spent some money on a shrink to help me get over the RPM phobia and installed OpenSuse instead. But, I think I had enough install excitement this month.
EDIT:
Several days later, I did install OpenSuse. It was suggested that OpenSuse "is Very Laptop." After using it for several weeks, I can't agree more. EVERYTHING works. Hybernate, Wireless PCMCIA card, power management. I will see how Suse handles what on apt-get-enabled platforms is called "--dist-upgrade" If it's anything as flawless as on Slackware, I am paying for a commercial Suse package and overwriting the Slack.
posted by Daniel "Suslik" D. at 6:48 PM
3 Comments:
there's no such thing as rpm hell anymore. every rpm distro out there has it's way of solving dependencies for you (yum, yast, urpm, smart, etc). these may not be perfect (problems always arise if you install packages from incompatible sources), but neither is apt.
now if your coming from slackware, i think you'd be better off using fedora. both debian and suse do a lot of things it's own ways, which i didn't see that much with fedora (you'll have to tweak kde settings a lot though... they ship the most horrible kde setup i've seen).
anyway, kubuntu it's not that bad either and if you already managed to install a decent system (the default -and mandatory- install is pretty useless) you have already solved the biggest problem with it.
regards,
sergio.
2 Days after writing this blog entry I just fdisk'ed the Kubuntu and installed OpenSuse 10. I realized that:
(1) RPM dependency hell can easily apply to all packaging systems that resolve dependencies, and
(2) the philosophy of Debian/Ubuntu of braking all packages into many tiny pieces is annoying.
(3) Kubuntu is nowhere near laptop-ready.
I got the "Internet Install CD image" for OpenSuse. Extracted initrd and linux images out of it and fed them to Grub. Entered local Suse mirror when install asked and the went to sleep. Approximately 1.5 GB later, I had a completely working system. Wireless PCMCIA card (Dlink, Prism chipset) works. Hibernate works. Everything I expect to be in KDE is there.
There is one new problem now, though. Suse (OpenSuse) is so well assembled, every time I use it, I have an urge to pay for it.
I'll see how it goes from here, but at this point, I am seriously thinking about buying the next major Suse release and putting it on the desktop (over the Slackware).
Hmm...if your CRT is tough on your eyes, it´s not the CRT as a concept that´s failing. More likely just your CRT is worn out, or just need focus adjustment. Laptop/TFT will actually never deliver as sharp & crisp picture as a CRT!
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