Xubuntu 9.04 Jaunty

Hi all,

Just thought I'd pass on that xubuntu's new jaunty release ( http://xubuntu.org/news/jaunty/release ) installed fine on my 8 gig SSD AAO last night and everything works straight out of the box.

Well, I say 'box' but actually I used unetbootin to make a USB stick, and then did a net install - there is no box to work straight out of.

Nice distro, I'm using it now to post this.

Note: The install takes quite a long time as it contains a lot of software, all of which is good.
Note ll: You may think the sound is not working, but you just need to open the mixer and switch it on. Dunno why it is off by default. Everything else, WiFi etc. was working immediately.
Note lll: I haven't tried the side card slots as I don't use cards and have none here to try.
Note llll: The install takes 2.4 gigs, and I have also a 300 and something meg swap, leaving plenty of free space to play wth.

I'm impressed!

Cheers,

M.

 

I'm not an expert here, but you can research further.
Flash memory should not use a journal file system (use ext2) and there should be no swap file either, both intended not to wear out your flash memory.
I believe these considerations are incorporated into Ubuntu UNR which is designed for 'netbooks' and you may choose your favourite Desktop Manager.
I have it installed on my AAO and it works fine, I had to search this forum for the Skype Audio settings to get it going.

 

AAO's will be long, long, long, looong obselete and forgotten about before anyone here ever needs to even begin to think about their SSD 'wearing out'.

 

How did you get your WIFI to work? I currently have the UNR loaded and wanted to see if there was a large speed difference with Xubuntu, but when I loaded the Xubuntu I couldn't get the WIFI to work. I am running the 8gig SSD with an upgrade in the ram. Was there a proper walk-through that you were able to find?

Thanks in advance,

MoeJoe

 

Hi,

My WiFi worked straight away. I hadn't messed about with any of the UNR type distros before, though, I just did a net install of Jaunty base and then loaded xubuntu right over the top. Everything just worked immediately (and still does - no problems whatsoever and i have it running, and in use, about 16 - 20 hours every day).

Mine is also an 8 gig SSD and I have one gig ram (the ram was already installed in mine).

Maybe wipe yours and start again doing the same thing as I did above. Keeps it nice and simple and it just, as they say, works.

Good luck!

M.

 

Hi there, i am using also Xubuntu 9.0.4, and love it! I have the wifiled working by using the backport-modules.
The sound is a strange thing, why put it off by default?????
I am having 2,5 hours off online working, then the battery is empty.
I am trying to figure out how to get to the settings of the touchpad, the default isn't what i like.
Bootup times: 40 sec untill working wifi.

 

Having played around with Ubuntu over the weekend, installed to an 8gb SDHC, and leaving 2.5gb of available space, I'm experimenting with Xubuntu on an 8gb USB stick.

WiFi worked immediately, but (as with Ubuntu) the traffic indicator LED doesn't flash. I've been trying on and off to solve this (very minor) problem with both versions, and I'm wondering if anybody has gotten it to work, how. I have downloaded both standard updates and the backport modules, which I have been told fix the LED problem, but not for me.

 

A swap file probably isn't necessary if one has 1gb or more of RAM; I've never seen it access the swap file.

Xubuntu definitely takes less disk space than Ubuntu, but it also doesn't include Open Office. Overall, I think I like the UI choices better in Ubuntu than in Xubuntu -- either is infinitely better than Linpus.

 

Have you done a full cold reboot of the machine rather than just a restart? I think that sorted out the wifi light for me.

I also checked the backports box in the 'sources' configuration screen (System-->Software Sources).

M.

 

I just double-checked that I included jaunty backports, and I have powered down -- still no wireless LED. I can live without it.

Install and partition went very smoothly (except that the first time I didn't recognize how to assign a specific amount of space to the Linux partition, so I had to do it over, with 36gb for Linux and 2gb swap space). Both Windows and Ubuntu are running smoothly from the HDD.

 

my kernel fixes this

 

Or update to the 2.6.30 kernel, since the WiFi Led patch for the Ath5K driver has made it upstream into that kernel release.
http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v2.6.30/

Procedure to add a PPA to your updates can be found here :
https://help.launchpad.net/Packaging/PPA

 

Thank you. How do I upgrade to a new kernel? Or is that implied in the PPA instructions?

 

Nicely documented site. However, I ran into one problem:

I don't see an options file in /etc/modprobe.d:

Code:

libssd@libssd-AA1:/etc/modprobe.d$ ls
alsa-base.conf          blacklist-firewire.conf     blacklist-oss.conf
blacklist-ath_pci.conf  blacklist-framebuffer.conf  blacklist-watchdog.conf
blacklist.conf          blacklist-modem.conf        libpisock9.conf

What next?

 

Hmmm. I tried adding

options snd-hda-intel model=acer-aspire

to the end of alsa-base.conf, then rebooted. I'm now seeing this on boot:

[ 1.8028121] intelfb: Video mode must be programmed at boot time.
modprobe: FATAL: Could not load /lib/modules/2.6.28sickboy-kuki/modules.dep: No such file or directory.

Several common problem suggestions, then:

ALERT! /dev/disk/by-uuid/50d2e8a9-804e-4bf-b327-703dffea867c does not exist. Dropping to a shell!

Power switch didn't get me out of this, so I unplugged the battery, and restarted from generic Ubuntu, then restored the old grub menu.lst (after saving off the sickboy version first).

I don't see any uninstall option in the sickboy package installer. Can I just go in at command line and delete all the files it lists under the Included Files tab? Or, better to just let this sleeping dog lie?

Although more complicated, I think I'll go with the PPA approach.

 

OK. I went to http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v2.6.30/ and clicked on the link to linux-image-2.6.30-020630-generic_2.6.30-020630_i386.deb

Firefox suggested opening with GDebi Package Installer, which makes sense. However, the package installer warns:

After googling for "linux-generic meta-package" I found an answer that relieved my concern, and went ahead with the install (what the heck, I don't have any significant data in my Linux partition, and can always re-install/reconfigure Ubuntu, if necessary -- all this is an opportunity to learn).

Woo hoo! The wifi indicator LED flashes now! Suspend by closing the lid still doesn't work, but progress is incremental.

Now that I am running kernel 2.6.30, is there anything I should be aware of when running the Update Manager?

 

Fort the Ubunut mainline PPA kernel you don't need to follow the PPA adding instructions.
Just download the following files :

linux-headers-2.6.30-020630_2.6.30-020630_all.deb
linux-headers-2.6.30-020630-generic_2.6.30-020630_i386.deb
linux-image-2.6.30-020630-generic_2.6.30-020630_i386.deb

Then install them with dpkg in the above order.

You can do all in one go with the following commands pasted into a terminal :

Code:

wget [url]http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v2.6.30/linux-headers-2.6.30-020630_2.6.30-020630_all.deb[/url] && wget [url]http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v2.6.30/linux-headers-2.6.30-020630-generic_2.6.30-020630_i386.deb[/url] && wget [url]http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v2.6.30/linux-image-2.6.30-020630-generic_2.6.30-020630_i386.deb[/url] && sudo dpkg -i linux-headers-2.6.30-020630_2.6.30-020630_all.deb && sudo dpkg -i linux-headers-2.6.30-020630-generic_2.6.30-020630_i386.deb && sudo dpkg -i linux-image-2.6.30-020630-generic_2.6.30-020630_i386.deb

If you at a later date wish to remove the 2.6.30 kernel, you can do it through Synaptic, aptitude or dpkg.

 

Since I only downloaded and installed linux-image-2.6.30-020630-generic_2.6.30-020630_i386.deb, and everything seems to work, what purpose do the two linux-headers files serve?

I'm not trying to avoid extra steps; just trying to understand what's going on. If they're essential, I assume that following your instructions, ending with re-installing linux-image-2.6.30-020630-generic_2.6.30-020630_i386.deb will do the trick.

 

Linux headers are used when you compile something against the kernel, and must match the kernel in use. If you are using DKMS modules (Extra modules for various hardware, which must be compiled to fit the kernel version in use, such as the Acerhdf fancontrol kernel module), o any other out-of-kernel driver module, you need to have the kernelheaders installed. Both the _all package, and the arch specific i386 package.

If you think you aren't ever going to have to compile an out of kernel module, you don't need the kernelheaders, but I'd still recommend installing them.

 

Thanks for the explanation. The likelihood of my compiling my own Linux kernel is vanishingly small. :roll: