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Installing Linux Without CD/USB
by Simon Royal 05 Aug '10

05 Aug '10

Hi Well, I got my ThinkPad 240X and after a bit of a struggle got the drives partitioned and XP Home installed, all without a CD drive or floppy drive for this machine and it doesnt boot from USB. Long story, but it involved taking the drive out and copying install files across via another laptop. In terms of speed compared to the ThinkPad 600, 600E and Umax I had, this is very quick. XP rips along, but it has no Linux installed at present. My next trick is to get Linux installed and this is where you guys come in. I would like to install Linux Mint LXDE or possibly Xubuntu. How can I do it without a CD drive, without being able to boot via USB and without messing up my Windows installation? I have partitioned the drive. I have XP installed on one, a small one containing the XP installer files which could easily be replaced with the Linux install files, plus a spare partition ready for Linux. So any advice on how to do it. I have googled it and there are plenty of different ways although a lot of them assume you can boot via USB. Simon Royal --- Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - LowEndMac: http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum - Skype: Simon-Royal. --- IBM ThinkPad 240X running Windows XP & Apple iBook G3 running OSX 10.4.

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Re: [ALUG] Installing Linux Without CD/USB
by Simon Royal 05 Aug '10

05 Aug '10

Marcus I looked at Wubi earlier. I got the impression it would install Ubuntu just like any other Windows app a bit like virtualisation rather than a seperate bootable linux on a seperate partition. I will give it another look. Simon ---------------------------------------- > Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2010 13:57:21 +0100 > Subject: Re: [ALUG] Installing Linux Without CD/USB > From: runlevelten(a)gmail.com > To: simonroyal(a)live.co.uk > > Hi Simon, > > Try Wubi. http://wubi-installer.org/ > > I recently used this in similar circumstances and it went fine. - You > can download the iso to the machine and use that without burning it to > a CD, then run the installer from your windows desktop. > > Another thing you can do is a manual frugal install of puppy by > copying some files into a directory on the windows root - which isn't > perfect but results in a distro that may be appropriate for your > hardware, and really quite snappy. Instructions on their website > (somewhere I don't have bookmarked) - a search for "manual frugal > install" should do it. > > Good luck!

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Re: [ALUG] Installing Linux Without CD/USB
by Marcus Harris 05 Aug '10

05 Aug '10

Hello Simon, Try Wubi. http://wubi-installer.org/ I recently used this in similar circumstances and it went fine. - You can download the iso to the machine and use that without burning it to a CD, then run the installer from a "windows" desktop. Another thing you can do is a manual frugal install of puppy by copying some files and creating a directory on the "windows" root - which isn't perfect but results in a distro that may be appropriate for your hardware, and really quite snappy. Instructions on their website (somewhere I don't have bookmarked) - a search for "manual frugal install" should do it. Good luck!

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Copying SD cards
by Chris Walker 04 Aug '10

04 Aug '10

Apologies if this appears twice - I posted it to the wrong address, having already posted it using the wrong email address! I've copied one 2GB SD card to another 2GB card using the dd command (having copied it to the hard drive as an intermediate step). The original card will load up in the desired device - a TomTom sat nav but the second card won't. Is there any way for me to check that the cards are the same? Also, and I realise that it's a bit OT here (although the TomTom is a linux device!) but does anybody have any ideas what might be wrong with the card? -- __ __| |_ __ __ .----------------------------------------------. / _/ _` \ V V / | mailto:cdw_alug@the-walker-household.co.uk | \__\__,_|\_/\_/ |______________________________________________|

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Awaiting My 240X
by Simon Royal 04 Aug '10

04 Aug '10

Hi Thank you all for your advice and I did take it on board. However, I needed a laptop now and it did only cost me £15. I am awaiting the arrival of a ThinkPad 240X. It is a P3 500mhz model, so not too bad spec and better than my previous ThinkPad and the Umax. It will suffice for now. I dont need to shell out any money on it, I have any additional upgrades I need for it in my spares box. I will begin saving for a newer machine, probably a netbook of some sort. At present I only have my phone for web and emailing so I needed a laptop quick. I have a hard drive pre loaded with XP and Linux Mint LXDE so I will be up and running pretty much straight away. Simon --- http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum. (Sent using Sony Ericsson P990i).

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Compaq CQ5306uk - good bet for Ubuntu?
by Mark Rogers 03 Aug '10

03 Aug '10

I need a new PC for work use. I'm looking at: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/186618 which is: - Core-2 Quad Q8300 - 4GB RAM - Intel GMA X4500 graphics, onboard sound (not sure what chipset, presumably something from Intel) Anyone have any good reasons why this would be a bad bet for Ubuntu? Should I go 32-bit or 64-bit install? Usage is day-to-day stuff (web browsing, email, etc) but also running virtual machines would be good (using VirtualBox). Seems like a good price for the spec (<£350+VAT) but no point if I'm going to have to problems with it. Any good partitioning suggestions for its 1TB drive? -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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Gnome Panel Problem!
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 02 Aug '10

02 Aug '10

Hi Folks (apos for X-posting!) I've hit a problem with the gnome panel. The top panel on the desktop is the Menu Bar. This is OK. The bottom one is where the problem is. Normally, this shows the "workspace switcher" with a little box for each workspace; switch by mouse click or Ctrl-Alt-Arrow. No problem with that bit. It also used to show, for each window that is open in the current workspace, a rectangle with part of the window title in it. If you click on one of these, the corresponding window is minimised; click again, and the window reappears. I don't know what this feature is called. Every time you open a new window, a corresponding rectangle appears; when you close the window, the rectangle dispperas. Suddenly, without warning, this latter feature has disappeared! I have tried right-click + "add to panel" but cannot find anything that corresponds to it. I want to restore this feature. Can enyone tell me where to look? With thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 01-Aug-10 Time: 20:41:59 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Used PC hardware for sale (running Debian)
by mick 31 Jul '10

31 Jul '10

I have recently replaced/upgraded some of my kit and I now have two older machines surplus to requirements. Before I advertise on e-bay (or cheapcycle) I thought I would offer then to ALUG members. The machines are both full tower systems and have new clean installs of Debian 5 desktop. (Before OS installation both machines were DBAN'd so I'm reasonably comfortable that I am not leaking any private information.) Specs are: Machine 1 ECS P4M800 PRO motherboard Pentium 4 650 (3.4GHz dual core) 2 Gig DDR2 RAM 1 DVD writer (with integral additional 2 USB ports and multicard reader) 2 * SATA Disks (1 at 200 Gig, 1 at 320 Gig) ATI Radeon 9550 Graphics card 1 additional PCI 10/100 ethernt card Machine 2 MSI 7253 Motherboard AMD Athlon 64 3500+ 2 Gig DDR2 RAM 2 * DVD writer 2 * IDE disks (1 at 150 Gig, 1 at 250 Gig) Nvidia Geforce 7300 graphics card 1 additional 802.11 PCI wifi card Neither machine is blindingly fast by current standards, but either would make reasonable second use desktop machines or file/print/web servers. I am asking £75.00 for machine 1 and £65.00 for machine 2. Mick --------------------------------------------------------------------- The text file for RFC 854 contains exactly 854 lines. Do you think there is any cosmic significance in this? Douglas E Comer - Internetworking with TCP/IP Volume 1 http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc854.txt ---------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: [ALUG] ThinkPad 240X & Compaq Armada M300
by Wayne Stallwood 31 Jul '10

31 Jul '10

On 31/07/10 15:39, Simon Royal wrote: > My ThinkPad and Umax both ran XP and Linux Mint LXDE at a reasonable pace even with their low specs and low RAM Heh, I think we might have different expectations when it comes to a machine running at a "reasonable pace". Personally I don't consider XP (with antivirus and being used for anything other than looking at the desktop) usable below 512MB and certainly wouldn't want to spend much time on anything with less than 1GB...on any Processor. Maybe I am just getting old and impatient :)

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ThinkPad 240X & Compaq Armada M300
by Simon Royal 31 Jul '10

31 Jul '10

Hi I am looking at two laptops, finishing today on eBay. The two models above. They are both similarly specced, both feature external optical drives, both max at the same amount of RAM. Does anyone have any experience with these and Linux? Ive used Linux on another older ThinkPad and it was pretty easy. Im not sure of the Compaq Armada M300. Any help? Any suggestions? Simon --- http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum. (Sent using Sony Ericsson P990i).

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