P-6860FX Linux Users Please Help

Hey guys I'm thinking about installing Linux on my 6860, I am just looking for some recommendations as to which versions may or may not run better and be more compatible with the 6860. I'm really between Ubuntu and Fedora, but as I'm not really familiar with the whole Linux world I'm still open to suggestions. Thanks

Oh and by the way I'm looking to dual boot Linux and Vista because I need Linux for its simplicity in coding (I'm in school to become and Electrical/Computer Engineer).

 

Well, I find PCLinux or Mandriva or SUSE 11 all good on my T61.
If you are in doubt try a live CD of your linux choice and see if it works with your system.

You could also install VirtualBox on your Windows Box and run Linux in that without having to worry about whether it will work, or not.

Plenty of options to try.
The Linux Distributions I have recomended work really well for me and are all GIU, no Command Line (unless you want).

Cheers

Malai5

 

Also is it possible to dual-boot on my RAID array without having to reinstall Vista? I currently have only the one 640Gb partition.

 

Yup, you can easilly dualboot.
Im currently dualbooting with Vista x64 and Ubuntu!

Works like a charm.

 

Thanks Phasio, which version of Ubuntu are you using? Also did you just follow the guide in the Linux subforum or is there another way? Thanks again.

Also, what is a good partition size for Ubuntu? I've got a 640Gb RAID array to work with....

 

Ok I am currently running off of the Live CD I created. I free up about 100Gb from my RAID array via the Vista partitioning tool. If I just go ahead and install Ubuntu will it wipe my Vista installation?

 

Make sure you shrink your Vista Partition to make some space for the Linux OS. And then I think there is an option which is in the lines of "Use the largest continous free space" or something similar to that.

Either shrink the Vista Partion on Windows Disk Management Option or you can use the Gnome Partition Manager in Ubuntu's LiveCD.

 

It says how do you want to partition disk:
the before bar is completely grey
the after bar is completely blue and says 100% ubuntu under it
but for means of partitioning i have 2 options:
Guided
SCSI1 (0,0,0) (sda) - 320.1 GB ATA WDC WD3200BEVT-2
SCSI2 (0,0,0) (sdb) - 320.1 GB ATA WDC WD3200BEVT-2
or
Manual

please someone with the knowledge help me! i don't want to go through the vista installing process and all my stuff again.

 

Linux and RAID is a pain. It is probably best to break up the RAID. Otherwise look into dmraid. It is probably best to clone your Vista in case anything goes wrong.

 

If you're new to Linux, I definitly reccomend starting out with ubuntu. I'm using intrepid ibex, and nearly everything for the 6860fx works straight after the install. I've used both ubuntu and kubuntu and both are very nice. I tend to lean towards kubuntu now, because I like the KDE interface, but most will probably be using ubuntu.

 

I used the Alternative Install because it supports RAID.

Okay... might results = epic fail. I installed ubuntu on the 100GB partition that I freed up from my RAID Array. Continued to install GRUB(it noticed Vista on the prompt for install), everything appeared to be great, install complete. Upon reboot it popped up with the pick your OS screen, listing Ubuntu, Ubuntu recovery, ubuntu, ubuntu recovery, ubuntu memtest. No Vista. I used the Vista recovery disk to see if the other partition was still there and it is. Anyone have any idea if it is possible to boot from that windows partition, everything seems to be intact, just something wrong with bootability.

 

everyone who might be interested in dualbooting ubuntu :

Use wubi-installer ! http://wubi-installer.org/

I would have posted this earlier, but I simply forgot

 

Vista is there mate, you just have to add Vista on the GRUB Loader.
Read up on this site:
http://www.pro-networks.org/forum/about78184.html

 

I did a clean wipe and now have everything working Thanks to those who helped.

 

What Linux distro are you using?

And were you able to get the media bar working?

When i ran Ubuntu (before my RAID) i got everything working except the media bar... never could figure it out.

 

Everything seems to be working aside from the media bar. Fine by me though I don't really ever use it.

 

oh ok, i thought you had figured out the secret to getting it to work.

Oh well, i just hated having to constantly adjust the volume on the desktop (as the sound drivers weren't the best with ubuntu and tended to overpower the speakers)

Other than that i loved linux and probably would have kept it if i could have been bothered to make it work with my raid. But now as i'm using 523gb of my Array i dont really have much room to deal with it now. I'll have to wait until i can snatch up the 500GB 7200rpm drives around xmas

 

I just thought I'd add that Ubuntu has a problem with Load Cycles with the stock HDD on the P-6860 (as well as many other HDD's). My 6860 was definitely effected by it. There is a fairly simple fix for it though which can be found on the Ubuntu forums.

 

I was looking for How to install Ubuntu 8.10 at P-6860FX with RAID storage. Finally I succeeded installation after working on for a couple of hours.
First, you can look at the original HOWTO manual at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/FakeRaidHowto#Troubleshooting:%20User%20Contributions, As you might see, P-6860FX is slightly different from the environment of the URL. So If you are installing Ubuntu 8.10 64bit on P-6860FX, try what I did. I hope this helps.

# Boot the Live CD
# Enabled the community content
# Opened terminal
# "sudo apt-get install dmraid"
# "sudo modprobe dm-raid4-5"
# "sudo dmraid -ay"
# "cd /dev/mapper"
# Check for existence of my raid 'isw_dgjcdfjaia_SPARK' by running "ls" (SPARK is name of RAID when I create the RAID at BIOS level)
# "ls -l /dev/mapper"

total 0
crw-rw---- 1 root root 10, 60 2009-02-10 09:09 control
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 254, 0 2009-02-10 09:09 isw_dgjcdfjaia_SPARK
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 254, 1 2009-02-10 09:09 isw_dgjcdfjaia_SPARK1

# "sudo fdisk -l /dev/mapper/isw_dgjcdfjaia_SPARK

Disk /dev/mapper/isw_dgjcdfjaia_SPARK: 320.0 GB, 320079134720 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38914 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xdd8de479

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/mapper/isw_dgjcdfjaia_SPARK1 * 1 35247 283121495+ 7 HPFS/NTFS

* In my case:
o isw_dgjcdfjaia_SPARK1 was existing Windows partition. (You may see different)

# Started Ubuntu installer "ubiquity"
# In the installer, it saw the raid volume. Told it to do the 'guided' partitioning on the raid volume and create partitions on the existing free space.

# After partitioning, I got following
# "sudo fdisk -l /dev/mapper/isw_dgjcdfjaia_SPARK
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/mapper/isw_dgjcdfjaia_SPARK1 * 1 35247 283121495+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/mapper/isw_dgjcdfjaia_SPARK2 35248 35309 498015 83 Linux
/dev/mapper/isw_dgjcdfjaia_SPARK3 35310 38416 24956977+ 83 Linux
/dev/mapper/isw_dgjcdfjaia_SPARK4 38417 38914 4000185 82 Linux swap / Solaris

# "ls -l /dev/mapper"
total 0
crw-rw---- 1 root root 10, 60 2009-02-10 09:09 control
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 254, 0 2009-02-10 09:09 isw_dgjcdfjaia_SPARK
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 254, 1 2009-02-10 09:09 isw_dgjcdfjaia_SPARK1
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 254, 2 2009-02-10 17:10 isw_dgjcdfjaia_SPARK2
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 254, 3 2009-02-10 17:09 isw_dgjcdfjaia_SPARK3
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 254, 4 2009-02-10 09:09 isw_dgjcdfjaia_SPARK4

# Under advanced, told it not to install grub(Uncheck installer).

# After install, the "/target" mount point was "busy" so re-booted the LiveCD and re-ran steps 1-8 so could add dmraid to the installation and manually install and configure grub. Keep running steps 1-8 until get it right.
# "sudo fdisk isw_dgjcdfjaia_SPARK" and do a list to see how the partitions were setup.

* In my case:
o isw_dgjcdfjaia_SPARK2 was added as the /boot partition.
o isw_dgjcdfjaia_SPARK3 was added as the linux partition.
o isw_dgjcdfjaia_SPARK4 was added as the swap partition.

# "sudo mkdir /target"
# "sudo mount isw_dgjcdfjaia_SPARK3 /target"
# "sudo mount -t ext2 /dev/mapper/isw_dgjcdfjaia_SPARK2 /target/boot" (if you make a separate partition for /boot)

# copy configuration files
# "sudo cp /etc/apt/sources.list /target/etc/apt"
# "sudo cp /etc/resolv.conf /target/etc"
# "sudo cp /etc/hosts /target/etc/hosts"
# "sudo cp /etc/network/interfaces /target/etc/network"

# "sudo mount --bind /dev /target/dev"
# "sudo mount -t proc proc /target/proc"
# "sudo mount -t sysfs sys /target/sys"
# "sudo chroot /target"
# "apt-get update"
# "apt-get install dmraid"
# "apt-get install grub"
# "mkdir /boot/grub"
# "cp /usr/lib/grub/i386-pc/* /boot/grub" [for i386 Ubuntu installs]

* or use: "cp /usr/lib/grub/x86_64-pc/* /boot/grub" [for 64-bit Ubuntu installs]

# "grub --no-curses"
# "device (hd0) /dev/mapper/isw_dgjcdfjaia_SPARK"
# "find /boot/grub/stage1" [use "find /grub/stage1" instead if you have a /boot partition] and make a note of the partition it finds, you will use that below a few times.
#

"root (hd0,x)" (substituting the results of the previous step for x)
# "setup (hd0)"
# "quit"
# "update-grub" and said yes to creating new menu.lst file.
# "nano /boot/grub/menu.lst"
#

Changed the '# groot=(hd0,0)' to '# groot=(hd0,x)' (using the partition you found earlier, again).
# Changed this in the boot entries below also.
# Added the Windows boot entry.

* title Windows root (hd0,0) # use the correct partition for Windows, of course chainloader +1

# Changed the delay to '30' and commented the 'hiddenmenu' option.

* Noted that savedefault was set to false.

# Added for the Windows Vista between "recover mode" and "memtest86+"
-------------------------------------
title Windows Vista Ultimate 64 SP1
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1
-------------------------------------
# Save and exit nano.
# "update-grub" and kept the local file.
# Reboot and verify both Ubuntu and the existing Vista partition boot.

seungweon@spark-nb:/boot/grub$ ls -/dev/mapper
ls: invalid option -- '/'
Try `ls --help' for more information.
seungweon@spark-nb:/boot/grub$ ls -l /dev/mapper
total 0
crw-rw---- 1 root root 10, 60 2009-02-10 09:09 control
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 254, 0 2009-02-10 09:09 isw_dgjcdfjaia_SPARK
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 254, 1 2009-02-10 09:09 isw_dgjcdfjaia_SPARK1
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 254, 2 2009-02-10 17:10 isw_dgjcdfjaia_SPARK2
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 254, 3 2009-02-10 17:09 isw_dgjcdfjaia_SPARK3
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 254, 4 2009-02-10 09:09 isw_dgjcdfjaia_SPARK4
seungweon@spark-nb:/boot/grub$

Good Luck!!
spark.

 

After gettign 500gb 7200rpm drives (though after xmas as my original guess was) I no longer need to RAID to get everything i want out of my machine.

But its great to know that its possible with Ubuntu. I might just get rid of Windows completely though so a nice 1tb ubuntu disk would be really nice

+rep

 

I've tried many different distros and I've noticed that the ones that have worked the best for me have been Fedora 10 and Ubuntu 8.04. I've tried the newer version of Ubuntu but for some reason I'm having some wireless issues that didn't exist before. Fedora 10 ran beautifully. the only reason I don't still have it is because I was doing some web server stuff and I could get past the file permission issues for some reason. As far as speed, I've noticed that out of the ones that I've tried, Fedora 10 has been the fastest. Next was Ubuntu 8.04. The ones that I've tried are Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSuse, and 64 Studio. I've tried a couple others but couldn't get them to start the x-server b/c of the graphics card. Didn't feel like going through a bunch of crap to get it working. I've also tribooted with xp, vista, and ubuntu. Currently, I'm running vista and ubuntu, but would like to go back to fedora 10.

 

8.04 does indeed run nicely on the machine (espically after you update the video drivers to the 180's)

I keep wanting to try 8.10, for all of the new stuff, but i still havent been able to convince myself.

I'm really waiting for 9.04 so i can swap over to ext4 for my file system to speed things up alot more. (come on april 23)

I've pretty much given up on windows. I still have a 320gb Hard drive that has it on there, but usually that just sits on my shelf. I'm struggling to become a full time penguin and i'm getting there... i just wish sins of a solar empire would create a linux version... the only bloody game i have that wont play And i'm not sure about paying for credgra...

 

I've actually just downloaded Arch and Sorcerer and am fixing to try those. I want to be a programmer and I think it would be neat to either develop things for linux in my spare time, or if I'm bold enough I think it would be nice to start trying to develop my own distro (way way way on down the line though )