Ubuntu and Gateway FX

I have used ubuntu on my gaming desktop and older laptop, dell inspiron 1515. And the 8.10 ubuntu was exceptional and I love it.

But a a new Gateway 7805U owner, I am sorry to report that Ubuntu 8.10 will not work on this laptop. Why, I don't really know. I suspect it's the video card, Geforce 9800M GTS 1 GB DDR3 Vram, or the RAM DDR3. But I have tried and tried and have not been successful in installing and running ubuntu 8.10 on this FX.

FX 7805U spec for ubuntu enthusiast:

Processor Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor P8400 (2.26GHz, 1066MHz FSB, 3MB L2 Cache)
Operating System Genuine Microsoft® Windows Vista® Home Premium (64-bit) with SP1
Color FX Premium Design with brushed metal keyboard surround and high-impact composite finish
Memory 4096MB 1066MHz DDR3 Dual Channel Memory (2-2048MB modules)
Hard Drive 320GB 7200RPM SATA hard drive
Chassis Chassis with NVIDIA® GeForce® 9800M GTS Graphics with 1GB of GDDR3 Discrete Video Memory and Intel® PM45 Chipset
Adapter AC Adapter

Battery 9-Cell Lithium Ion 86.58 Whr (2.6AHr)
Digital Media Software Microsoft® Windows Media Player 11, Cyberlink® Power2 Go™, & Cyberlink® LabelPrint™

Display 17" High-Definition Widescreen WUXGA (1920X1200)
Expansion Slots ExpressCard™ Type 54
External Ports (3) USB 2.0, VGA Connector, IEEE 1394b, eSATA Port, V1.2 HDMI Connector
Keyboard and Mouse Full-Size Keyboard, Synaptics Touchpad with Vertical Scroll
Media Card Reader 5-in-1 Digital Media Card Reader (Memory Stick™, Memory Stick™ Pro, Multi Media Card™, Secure Digital™, xD-Picture Card™
Memory Capacity Maximum 4GB
Modem 56K ITU V.92 ready Fax/Modem (RJ-11 port)
Multimedia Buttons Illuminated Metal Precision-Touch Multimedia Buttons
Network 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet LAN (RJ-45 port)
Optical Drive 8x Multi-Format Dual Layer DVDRW and DVD-RAM featuring Labelflash™ Technology8

Web Camera 1.3 Megapixel Integrated Webcam
Weights 9.05 lbs. (4.11 kg) system unit only / 12.64 lbs. (5.73 kg.) box
Wireless Network Intel® WiFi Link 5100AGN 802.11a/g/Draft-N Wireless LAN


If anybody could think of a way to install and run ubuntu on the gateway fx, please let me know.

PS the CD live runs OK. Installation appears OK. But when reboot, hung up again and again.

 

I've had Ubuntu 8.10 installed on my 6831FX. Perhaps you can describe what happens that doesn't work, like where it gets hung up, what happens, etc...

I'm no Linux expert, and this may not be the best forum to ask for help, but there are a few very knowledgable people here that can hopefully help you out. But yeah, describe what happens and maybe we can figure it out.

 

works on a 7811 which is almost identical to that laptop.

 

I had the same issue with my 7811. It hangs on shutdown. Maybe there is a known fix.

In the end I just used 8.04 and manually installed the drivers.

 

I used both the 64bit and 32 bit ubuntu. Nothing doing. Hung up after the install was completed. As i said, this is for info only. I posted on the ubuntu forum about various subjects and have other machines running ubuntu right now.

something must have changed since the 7811X and the 6831FX.

The gateway 7505U is my new baby though.

 

Well if you figure out whats wrong with it, I would like to know the details of the fix as I'm about to put ubuntu on my 7805u as well for some Android development work (actually the primary excuse for me buying this lappy was due to the higher resolution ).

 

I posted at the ubuntu forum, but there is no solution for my particular fx problem. I used ubuntu on my older laptop and desktop with no problem.

Let me know how you make out. Could be there is a difference between machines.

 

My suggestion:
Download and burn a CD of the Ubuntu 8.04.2 32 bit x86 .iso.
Try to boot in live CD mode. If it gets stuck, try again,
but press F6 and add "acpi=off" at the end of the line that appears.
I was having similar problems (HP G70-246US) and the acpi=off trick worked for me. In my limited experience, 8.10 is not as polished as
8.04. I had intalled 8.10 (64 bit) on the HP above, but had several
issues with it and decided to try 8.04 instead.

 

Hey Husky,

As a recent 7805 owner and Ubuntu fan, I too ran into the same problem with Ubuntu 8.10 64 bit installation.

My Wireless did work with the Live CD though...

Even when trying to boot in Kernel Recovery/Safe mode, it still failed to boot. FYI: It stopped with a line about a SCSI drive.

I got lucky and got it to work though.

So, I thought that I would make the effort to post my accidental fix in the hopes that it might help others.

I was going to uninstall GRUB and Ubuntu, but to do that I needed a Vista boot disk to run the "fixmbr" utility to get rid of the GRUB bootloader. I am not sure if that would have actually worked though...

So, I pop a vista installation disk in the DVD drive, then reboot.

I got distracted and came back to my lappy 10 minutes later to see that Ubuntu has loaded successfully.

WTH?!?!

So, I reboot again to make sure I'm not seeing things.

It asked to hit enter or any key to boot from the CD/DVD drive and I let it time out again.

Then the Grub bootloader screen came up and it then booted successfully into Ubuntu.

I tried it again without the bootable CD in the drive, and it failed to boot again.

So, re-inserted the CD, rebooted, Ubuntu loaded and I then promptly got the 250mb worth of patches installed. It applied a new kernel during the patch.

Removed the Vista CD, Rebooted and Presto!

Ubuntu works flawlessly now.

 

I have a vista 32 bit dvd wonder if that would work. My 7805 does not come with a 64 bit vista disk or any disc. Let me understand this, you boot with the cd/dvd vista in the dvd player, wouldn't it boot vista since it's the cd/dvd boot priority over the hd? and if I set the hd as priority why would the cd make any difference? I am fairly certain that the vista dvd will boot up and will not time out.

I am really hoping to get ubuntu on this 7805 since it's my new and preferred machine right now.

erp194, thanks for posting your experience. I know I can get the wireless to work if I can get into ubuntu.

If you can clarify your exact steps I would reall appreciate it.

 

I used a Vista 32 Bit Home Premium disk...I suspect that any bootable disk that causes the system to prompt for a boot will work though. My BIOS settings are factory default. I didn't change a thing there.

Step0: Have Ubuntu installed with Grub bootloader...
Step1: Put Vista 32 disk in CD drive
Step2: Reboot system
Step3: Let system timeout on "Boot from CD/DVD"
Step4: Boot Ubuntu via Grub
Step5: Patch Ubuntu when it loads
Step6: Remove Vista 32 CD
Step7: Reboot
Step8: ????
Step9: Profit! Well..Hopefully you will be enjoying Ubuntu in all it's goodness.

 

Thanks again.

My problem is ubuntu lockup after install and reboot. The only way I can get out of the lockup was to pull the battery and power plug.

It seems to me there is a problem with the windows boot loader. I hesitate to create a partition just for ubuntu because of potential MBR conflict with Vista64 which I really need.

 

I was hoping my info would help you out, but maybe I just got lucky?

However; here is a bit more detail.

My Installation is:
Partition 1 = Gateway Recovery Partition
Partition 2 = Vista64
Partition 3 = 100meg Ubuntu 8.10 64 Bit
Partition 4 = 4 Meg Swap for Ubuntu

After the initial Ubuntu Installation, the Grub bootloader would come up, but upon selecting Ubuntu...boot up would freeze. I had to hold the power button down until system shut off.

Restarted system, then selected the 2nd Vista/Windows boot option. Initial boot back into the Vista64 partition caused Vista to perform a check disk, but original Vista64 flawless after that.

Ubuntu would not boot though.

Did what I described in the previous posts and Ubuntu and the original Vista now works in the default Ubuntu "dual boot" grub configuration.

 

You are lucky and good. LOL.

I suspect it's the bootloader fault, either grub or win bootloader or both. My froze solid after install.

There is a Super Grub Disk, that I might try. I just have too much invested in my apps in vista and really cannot afford to lose them that's why I am being extremely cautious. I do have an extra hd for storage that's where ubuntu will go next.

Grub uses a file menu.lst to boot. It's a txt and very small file.

I wonder if you can send me that file here using my handle. It should be just a couple lines showing the boot sequence. Vista does not use NTDLR (XT) any more, it uses something called BCD to boot which requires a new learning curve of editing for me.

My Live CD works great, based on what you mentioned, I also got the wifi to work with the CD. So I know that hardware is compatible. I also know that my install wubi is not as elegant as a stand alone install.

 

omg.....just change the SATA preference in the BIOS to IDE and install XP, Ubuntu, etc...

Thank you and have a good night

 

Ok I'm getting lost in all of this. Does anyone have a straight forward way of getting Ubuntu and Vista (64) onto the 7805u.

I called Gateway and they wouldn't supply a Vista disc, only a recovery management disc which I can make anyways.

So if I ever want to format incase there is a problem the only way I can get vista back is the management disc which I'm not sure if it will erase Ubuntu or only format the Vista/Recovery Partitions.

I have no Vista Disc and Vista (64) is on it currently. How can I
(A) Get a Vista Disc
(B) Install Ubuntu (obv download CD, but how to install it)

 

I'd say Ubuntu works flawlessly on my gateway with sun virtualbox that i got. Do let me know if you guys are new to this. Its actually a virtual machine. Try it out on that( i mean install ubuntu on virtualbox) b4 you guys are satisfied and want to really install it. I've installed Windows 7 , Ubuntu 8.1 and Open Solaris(didnt like this one at all due lack of updates) using Virtualbox and all i can say is Ubuntu just works perfect when compared to others. Would love to try Mac OS X now.

 

Your problems are likely not due to the nVidia GPU, your RAM, or whether or not you are using a Vista boot DVD. If this is the thread you've posted to over at the Ubuntu User forums, what might be going on isn't easy to figure out from the information supplied (both in this thread and the Ubuntu user forum thread). Both the Ubuntu forum poster, and yourself, seem to be suggesting that after installing Ubuntu 8.10, you reboot, the Grub bootloader loads, and then Ubuntu is selected as the boot option. Then the Ubuntu kernel begins to load and at some point during this process, the system hangs. That would suggest that it isn't MBR, Grub, or bootable CD related.

You might want to consider first making sure you have the latest BIOS installed on your laptop and then try installing a newer Ubuntu release, like 9.04, as it may be better configured, out of the box, to support your laptop hardware. For example, the Ubuntu user forum thread OP provides information that suggests that something weird is going on with the optical drive/driver. This may be addressed in the newer Ubuntu release. This post by another NBR forum user posted in this thread, describes a successful 9.04 installation on this laptop. There's another user who posted to this thread their success at installing PCLinuxOS 2009.1 on this laptop as well.

So a Linux installation on this laptop should definitely be doable.

Good Luck..

 

Windows is stupid and won't see the Ubuntu partition, it will restore just to the ntfs partition

Has the OP tried Ubuntu 9.04 beta? It's stable, and might work better with bleeding edge hardware. My DELL Precision in sig is quarky that way, but any of the 'buntu's run excellent....and Slackware too

 

works just fine on my 7811... there is a chink in your armor somewhere.. i'd start completely from scratch if i were you.
new iso new disk, new partitions etc.