[MLUG] successful Xubuntu installation

[Mike Miller <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

The desktop installer was buggy, so it took me about 8 tries to get it 
right.  Maybe the alternative installer would have worked better, but I 
did get this one to work.  The workarounds aren't hard once you know what 
they are.  After I got it all figured out (that took a day or so), the 
total time to do the installation was probably about 1 hour, but only 
about 30 minutes of my time was needed.

I was installing Xubuntu as the sole OS on an Intel Compaq machine that is 
a few years old.  This is what I did to get it to work:

(1) Use gparted live CD to partition the HDD:

http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php

I made a 500 MB partition for linux-swap and the remaining volume went to 
an ext2 partition.  If I used ext3 instead, the installer crashed.  When I 
used gparted within Xubuntu to partition, it crashed the installer.  This 
is why I am recommending the gparted live CD.

(2) Reboot with the Xubuntu CD in the CD drive.

(3) Wait for the desktop to appear (could take a few minutes).

(4) Turn off the screen saver (I was told it can cause problems).
	(a) right click on desktop and wait for a menu to appear
	(b) choose "Settings" in the menu and "Settings Manage" under that
	(c) click on the Screensaver icon
	(d) in the upper right "mode" menu, choose "Disable Screensaver"
	(e) click the 'x' in the upper right of the windows to kill them

(5) Right click the Install icon on the desktop and choose "Execute" from 
the menu that appears (normal clicking or double clicking the icon did not 
work for me).

(6) Follow the simple instructions until you get to the partitioning stage

(7) In the menu for the partition manager choose "manually edit" and click 
"forward" until you get to the menu for mounting.  Leave the check marks 
on for "Reformat?" in your HDD partitions.  This must be done because of a 
bug in the installer.

(8) Let the installer do the installing.  It will take a while (30 minutes 
for me).

(9) You can choose to restart when it has completed, but for me it did not 
restart correctly and I had to power down.  When I turned the power back 
on it booted normally and the system looks fine.


So far it is looking great.  The network is working.  I'm glad I did it.

But I'll say this:  If they really want this thing to take off and they 
want ordinary people to use Ubuntu, they *really* have to make the 
installation work as well as they possibly can.  The installer does a 
great job of getting things working, but it is way more bug-ridden than it 
should be.  The bugs are not just annoying and they would definitely stop 
many people from completing the installation.

Mike

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