Difference between revisions of "Installing Ubuntu on a ThinkPad 750P"

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==Introduction==
 
==Introduction==
This is an experiment to get my 750P running a modern Linux distribution. It may fail. Read on.
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The plan is to get my 750P running a modern Linux distribution. I haven't yet found a way, but I have a few more ideas. Feel free to edit this page if you find a method that works. --[[User:Whizkid|Whizkid]] 23:34, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
 
 
==Preparation==
 
Start by installing Debian Woody. Instructions are on this site. I did this because I found other instructions not to work on the 750P for a variety of reasons.
 
 
 
You'll have to be careful about partitioning because you'll be required to perform a chroot during the migration. This means you need a partition that will host Ubuntu. Here's my partition table for my 5.1GB disk:
 
hda1    ext2    227MB
 
hda2    swap    200MB
 
hda3    ext2  4600MB
 
 
 
I used hda1 as the only partition for Debian, leaving hda3 unmounted. Hda3 will be the home for (X)ubuntu and then hda1 will become /boot.
 
 
 
Keep in mind that the 750P does have an 8GB BIOS disk limit. That means any partition you boot from should reside entirely below that 8GB boundary. Once Linux boots, however, you should be able to use larger drives. I have used drives up to 20GB in my 750P.
 
 
 
==Start==
 
Start the machine and log in as the root user.
 
==Prepare the Target==
 
If needed, format the target partition. Mount that partition somewhere handy. Here's what I did:
 
mkfs -t ext2 /dev/hda3
 
mkdir /mnt/target
 
mount /dev/hda3 /mnt/target
 
==debootstrap==
 
Ubuntu is based on Debian. They also make a very nice Debian package that will migrate your Debian system to Ubuntu. Go get the latest package ending with '''all.deb''' from this site:
 
http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/d/debootstrap/
 
As of this writing, that file is '''debootstrap_1.0.7~gutsy1_all.deb'''. Wget is handy for this. Run '''apt-get install wget''' if you don't have it. Install that package:
 
dpkg -i debootstrap_1.0.7~gutsy1_all.deb
 
Wget may rename the file to change the tilde character to %7E. You can leave it that way.
 
If you get dependency problems, install those dependencies using '''apt-get install x''' where x is the missing dependency. Apt-get will automatically try again to install debootstrap. Only '''binutils''' was missing on my system. Next run your new package. Please look for a mirror that's close by. Note the directory in the command must contain a '''dists''' subdirectory.
 
debootstrap gutsy /target http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu
 
This step will take some time. You can monitor progress in another console with top, df, du and other tools.
 
 
 
  
 
[[Category:750]] [[Category:750Cs]] [[Category:750C]] [[Category:750P]]
 
[[Category:750]] [[Category:750Cs]] [[Category:750C]] [[Category:750P]]
 
  [[Category:Ubuntu]]
 
  [[Category:Ubuntu]]

Revision as of 01:34, 11 December 2007

Contents


Introduction

The plan is to get my 750P running a modern Linux distribution. I haven't yet found a way, but I have a few more ideas. Feel free to edit this page if you find a method that works. --Whizkid 23:34, 10 December 2007 (UTC)