Linpus transfer from AA1 110 to 150

I posted this question on another forum, but there doesn't seem to be much activity there. I have a dead Linux AA1 110, but I also have a 2gb USB recovery disk (created from the optical disc that came with my AA1), as well as an 8gb backup USB, made with the aa1backup utility from Macles*. The 2gb USB recovery has not been tested; the 8gb backup had been used to restore to my old AA1 before it died. I'm trying to determine if it's possible to install Linpus on an SD card, or on a replacement SSD, so that I don't lose the Windows XP install that comes with the AA1 150.

Inconclusive results so far. I restored the contents of the 2gb recovery USB to an 8gb SD memory card on an AA1 150. According to the restore software, the process was successful and ended normally. However, when attempting to boot from the SD card, a blue Acer splash screen appears, but nothing else happens. The "Padlock" light above the keyboard flashes, but the disk activity light does not. After 5 minutes of waiting, no boot. I tried this three times before giving up.

I don't want to buy the AA1 150 if I'm going to be stuck with Windows only. Ideally, I'd like to be able to boot from a 16gb SD card or the HDD, but my experiment with an 8gb card isn't encouraging so far. I have found a Patriot 32gb SATA 2.5 form factor SDD for a reasonable price, which I could use to replace the 160gb HDD that comes with the AA1 150, but I'm reluctant to buy it and the computer without assurance that I can actually install Linpus on the SDD and boot the thing. I have a full backup USB made with aa1backup (from Macles*) which I have used to do a restore on my old AA1 110, so I know it's good. However, I'm reluctant to use it on a demo machine at a dealer because it looks like it just restores automatically to the HDD, without offering any choices.

So far, I haven't seen anything from Acer suggesting that they sell the AA1 150 in the USA with Linpus pre-installed. Has anybody actually succeeded in installing Linpus from an AA1 110 on an AA1 150? Am I overlooking some small, but critical step?

 

I've taken a Linpus image (I assume it was from an A110, not sure) and installed it on my 120 GB HDD. It was messy. Basically, you have to mount the Linpus filesystem contained within your backup file and copy everything to an appropriately-formatted (I used ext3) partition on your hard drive. I have a separate boot partition on my hard drive where I had to set up grub to point to the new Linpus installation. If you don't have this, you'll need to install grub on your HDD and reconfigure grub.conf appropriately.

Are you sure you want to keep Linpus?

 

Yes, I do want to stick with Linpus, at least to start, because there seem to be subtle hardware issues with other distributions.

I'm still trying to figure why I haven't been able to create a bootable SD card, as that is probably the simplest option, if I can get it to work (and if the speed is comparable to an SDD).

 

A bootable SD card is only possible with the 10.1 inch and possibly the 11.6 inch (I haven't heard about the 11.6 inch booting from the SD card reader but for the 10.1 inch I have done it myself).

 

I believe the only way to get a boot off an SD card on the AOA110 or AOA150 is to place the SD card in a USB card reader. Once that's done, the procedure for making it bootable should be similar to the procedure one uses to (manually) copy Linpus to a fresh partition.

 

I have seen the light, and it is Ubuntu, so I give up temporarily on Linpus. Using UNetbootin and a Linpus Linux 1.0.21e.iso, I repeatedly failed to get a bootable USB with two different flash drives, and with the 8gb SDHC card. But, using ubuntu-9.04-desktop-i386.iso, as a starting point worked perfectly on the first try -- including booting from the 8gb SDHC card, which has about 4.6gb of free space. The only "minor" problem at this point is that wireless connections don't work...

I would still like to be able to create a bootable USB with Linpus. If anybody has a Linpus iso image from an AA1 150 that they would be willing to share with me, please send me a PM.

I haven't yet attempted to install Ubuntu on the HDD because I haven't been able to create a recovery DVD using the Acer Recovery app. I have a borrowed USB Teac DVD drive, which Windows reads just fine (Music CD), but when I try to "Create factory default disc" the recovery app says "Unable to detect a writable optical drive." I'm reluctant to muck with partitioning and other things until I have a backup. Ubuntu install appears to repartition a Windows HP automatically. Is this really so? Safe? Any gotchas? It's hard to believe that the Ubuntu 9.04 installation process is so easy! I found a very clear step-by-step guide at: http://apcmag.com/how_to_dual_boot_wind ... htm?page=1