Installing Ubuntu on CF-28, problems

I probably should post this in the Linux section but thought I'd ask here first.

Anywho,...
I've been trying to get a couple of 28's to load up Ubuntu 8.10 but its not working.
I am dual booting these, XP works fine.

First, I tried the new 8.10 liveCD's into other machines (desktop and an HP laptop)
I had zero problems which prompted me to try it in the toughbooks.

Ok, After the initial install, and after the login all I got was a flashing black screen with
an "X", nothing I could do would get me out of it., even several reboots I which I had to remove the power to reboot.

After scouring the Ubuntu forums it was suggested that I try the ALT install
so I did, I did get past the flashing black screen and I am able to log-in however,
I am greeted with nothing but a brown screen with a busy round cursor.
Nothing again will get me past this, no CTRL+ALT+F2 or anything.
I must remove power to reboot.

I am thinking about installing 8.04.1 over it , But was wondering if anyone on here has
tried it. I really dont want to go to far into old distro's as I want the new features of course. But will if I must.

Anyone here experienced Ubuntu or Kubutu on the 28's?

 

Marconi... Welcome to the Toughbook/Panasonic forum!

Somewhere... There is a "how-to" on just this item.... Look for Threads as well as member siggys to find it. I KNOW that your answer is here... Unfortunately... I am Linux illiterate... Something I hope to cure within the next few months....

 

This thread might at least point you in the right direction, or give you a network of people that play with unix/lenox on toughbooks.

 

Hi Toughbook

Yep, I went thru all the theads I could find.
Most delt with earlier distro's. Thanks

I'm just getting into the Linux eviroment thru the introduction of Ubuntu.
I have also tried Kubuntu as well . All of this has been on desktops
where I have been successful.
So now I'm trying to get the 28's to accept it.

I have a bad feeling I will be having to wait till it matures a bit more as
my time is valuable. I was just hoping someone else has gone thru the paces
might have some insight.

I may just have to be happy with Puppy Linux or just wait.
I thought it'd be cool to have another OS other than MS to play with
while portable.
I love my Toughbook, As you can see, I've packed it up following
yours and others direction and its working great.
I figure if I can get this solved, I can give back to all of those who have helped me get this far.

Thanks Doobi, I seen that thread, It was that one that had me thinking that I might have to roll back to 8.04, I've seen that listed in some of the sigs.
I wonder if they got most of the bugs out it. Thats why I tried 8.10.
Maybe I should just go ahead and load that over this new (bad) one.

 

I would say first not to use the 8.10 release, it is not a stable long term release and has tons of issues with the 28's. I am staying with 8.04 for now. Tried 8.10 and tons of trouble - and I don't have time to help chase down bugs. I love Ubuntu but I would leave 8.10 for the geeks. 8.04 should load no problems. I load up quite a few Toughbooks for Dual Boot and the best results come when I have the HD pre partitioned before running the install disk. I have not had much luck with trying to do the partitioning at the same time as the install, just my 2cents.
have fun -

 

Ah Cool...Thanks Mega-Man

That looks like what I'm gunna have to do here as well.
I'm not having any luck getting 8.10 to run on these 28's at all.

Did you use the standard install or the ALT distro?

 

Nothing special - just regular release. Again best result I have had is to have the HD already portioned. If I could also suggest setting up your HOME folder in a separate partition of it's own. This makes changing or upgrading your kernel much easier as all your doc's, programs & setting are saved in your home folder that is on its own so you don't have to start from scratch when you reload you kernel. This can be done after install but much easier to do from the start. With this said 5 0r 6 gigs will be fine for you root system, mine is showing 3.2G for my root partition. Let me know if you need any more info on this setup - have fun

 

Thanks Mega-man

I'm typing on from a 28 on Ubuntu 8.04 now...
I did use the 8.04 alt , all went well.
Had to take a bunch of downloads and added many apps.
Works a treat, I will make note of the Home folder partition.
I found a quick way to manipulate using the easy using BootitNG.
So far all seems to be working well except for the finicky Wlan but its working fair
will need to work on that some more.
Anyhow,Thanks for all your help.

 

Just an update.

I was having issues with the 28 freezing up randomly a few times
so I had to remove Compiz and all of its components, that seems to cure that.

Next I will add Modly's mods for the touchscreen and Mega-Mans edit to xorg.conf for the missing pointer.

Later I will try and figure out why my wireless does not want to work with more than one WEP AP site , so far to change to another site, I must delete the first one to be able to use another. It may be because the two linksys wireless routers I have here (one is a 'G' the other is both "A" and "G" ) so that makes three sites that use the same key/passphrase but different SSID's, Open sites are no problem.

This is fun, Glad I'm on vacation