Installing Ubuntu-12.10-desktop-i386

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StevieT

706 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 34

#115156 15-Mar-2013 16:52

Hi there,

I have an old machine with an ethernet cable, a CD drive, 2x 1.0 speed USB ports, 70GB hard drive and 256MB of RAM.

Currently it has Windows XP installed on it.

I am trying to install ubuntu-12.10-desktop-i386. I extracted and placed the necessary files onto a USB stick using Universal USB Installer. Going into boot settings, I can boot from the hard drive, floppy drive, CD drive or network adapter.

I tried to install whilst within Windows XP off the USB stick, but was told to reboot (but am not sure if I reboot it will start to read off the USB stick). So I tried placing the USB files onto a CD-RW only to find out that in total the files equate to over 700MB and the CD can only handle 650MB.

I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to get Linux onto this machine. Any suggestions? Perhaps run the installer within XP and reboot and see if it starts to read off the USB stick before the boot order set (current 1: CD drive, 2: Hard drive, 3: Floppy Drive, 4: Network Adapter)

Many thanks for any assistance!
Stevie

wongtop

569 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 50

#782392 15-Mar-2013 17:10

It doesn't look like a CD image is available for 12.10 anymore. If it won't install off the USB stick (i.e. the computer won't boot off a usb) and you really want 12.10, then you might have to get the 12.04 CD image, burn it to CD, install 12.04 and then upgrade to 12.10.

kama

30 posts

Geek
+1 received by user: 1

#782445 15-Mar-2013 19:26

Put plop on a cd, boot it. It could boot the usb drive.

http://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager/index.html

tmadden

97 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 3

#782498 15-Mar-2013 21:10

The minimal installation CD is much smaller and only contains the core files. The rest of the installation is downloaded from the internet. I'm not sure if this is for 12.04 or 12.10 though. I haven't used one of these for a few years but they used to have the advantage of allowing you to install custom software rather than just what 'comes on the disc'.

edit - There are links to 8.04, 10.04, 10.10, 11.04, 11.10, 12.04 and 12.10 on there in 32bit and 64bit.

zANavAShi

119 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 17

#782505 15-Mar-2013 21:30

StevieT: I have an old machine with an ethernet cable, a CD drive, 2x 1.0 speed USB ports, 70GB hard drive and 256MB of RAM.

Here lies your first problem. You won't be able to get ubuntu 12.x running on those specs, it's become quite the greedy resource hog compared to earlier releases.

My personal recommendation would be to find an earlier release version of ubuntu to play around with. Other geekzoners will likely reccomend a different and smaller flavour of linux, but I can share from my own learning curve that Ubuntu is a more gentler distribution to begin with if you are brand new to the linux world and it's also been my experience that it always worked right-out-of-the-box on older PC's I have tried it on (which has never been the case for me with other linux flavours and older hardware)

Next thing, do you know if your CD is bootable? A Live CD would be a much easier way to get things going for you for several reasons - firstly there is a chance your old PC might not be capable of booting from USB, and even in the off chance that it is, a USB v1 would take a month of sundays to get loaded (as if loading on USB v2 wasn't slow enough already). I am assuming the CD you are using is only 650Mb because it is a re-writable, but none of the Live CD versions will fit on that so you are going to require a 700Mb CD non-rewritable and there's no getting around that I am afraid.

My recommendation for a distribution that is the most recent one I believe will cope with your hardware is v10.x. I started my own ubuntu journey on Maverick Meerkat on a Dell Mini netbook and it ran quite well. It will also give you a peek at the very early and leaner Unity desktop which has also become somewhat of a hog in later ubuntu releases. Also, the netbook version was highly optimised for lower resource computers.

So this one is my pick for you:

http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/releases/maverick/ubuntu-10.10-netbook-i386.iso

The ubuntu community are extremely well supported with user guides and help forums, but here is your first place to visit:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation

For what it's worth, I am typing to you now on my trusty wee Dell Mini 9 which had 1GB RAM when I first dipped my toes in the water - currently running Lubuntu 12.10, but the Meerkat is where I fell in love with linux.

Good luck, keep us posted with your progress, and may the source be with you

I'm out of my mind right now... please leave a message after the shriek...

zANavAShi

119 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 17

#782509 15-Mar-2013 21:41

Oh DUHH, I just read your post more thoroughly and realise I have addressed some things in my reply that you had already stated that you knew and I directed my advice to you as if you were a very new noobie. I apologise for that Steve, but will leave my previous reply intact as wrote in case it's of assistance to other readers who are less savvy then you obviously are. Cheers!

I'm out of my mind right now... please leave a message after the shriek...

tmadden

97 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 3

#782511 15-Mar-2013 21:46

Another thing you could try in relation to your limited hardware is using an Ubuntu flavour with a lighter desktop environment like Lubuntu for example, or Linux Lite which is a NZ based unofficial Ubuntu spin.

Dell

Shop now for Dell laptops and other devices (affiliate link).

zANavAShi

119 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 17

#782516 15-Mar-2013 21:52

Oooh, Linux Lite sounds interesting... do you have a homepage link for that please?

I'm out of my mind right now... please leave a message after the shriek...

tmadden

97 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 3

#782521 15-Mar-2013 22:00

Sure. https://www.linuxdistrocommunity.com/download.html

It's maintained by a fellow GZer who is also an active member of the Linux Distro Community forums and Steam group.

zANavAShi

119 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 17

#782525 15-Mar-2013 22:15

I'm out of my mind right now... please leave a message after the shriek...

tmadden

97 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 3

#782529 15-Mar-2013 22:34

No worries. I'd be interested to know how you get on with it as I'm about to do up an old Pentium D and put Linux Lite on it to run a media centre.

zANavAShi

119 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 17

#782537 15-Mar-2013 22:48

I'd enjoy it if you started a new topic about your adventures with that. My current pet project has been messing about with homebrew firmware on an AndroidTV box I bought a few months ago, but boredom is setting in due to not being able to mess about with the hardware side of things as well. I am about to retire my trusty old dual-cpu CAD box and was mozzying around the tv-tuner section on pricespy wondering if I might rebuild it as a pvr. Might toss LL on my spare Mini 9 over the weekend and take it for a spin. Cheers for the ideas :o)

I'm out of my mind right now... please leave a message after the shriek...

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StevieT

706 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 34

#782564 16-Mar-2013 07:14

I managed to extract and burn the alternative version from this webpage: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/lubuntu/releases/12.10/release/. I await till this afternoon whether I can successfully boot from the CD.

zANavAShi

119 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 17

#782594 16-Mar-2013 08:57

StevieT: I managed to extract and burn the alternative version from this webpage: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/lubuntu/releases/12.10/release/. I await till this afternoon whether I can successfully boot from the CD.

Congrats to that, but it will not solve the issue of your lack of hardware specs. You need to use a lower-resource ubuntu version. Linux Lite is looking like another good option.

I'm out of my mind right now... please leave a message after the shriek...

tmadden

97 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 3

#782619 16-Mar-2013 10:43

Ubuntu no longer lets you choose xterm as a log in option any more either so if you do proceed with the default Ubuntu version you'll need to drop out to the shell to install a lighter desktop environment. Even in Unity 2D you'll have a less than pleasant experience. sudo apt-get install xfce should give you a better time with Ubuntu but doesn't look nearly as plush. I can't remember if it works with compiz or not.