Installation

First we followed the guide to create a USB flash drive for booting UNR. For older Ubuntu OS version, such as 8.04, we could follow http://ubuntuliving.blogspot.com/2008/11/usb-creator-for-hardy.html to install the usb-creator.

After the USB flash drive is created, we plug it into the new netbook, power on the netbook, and hit F2 (or whatever key for entering BIOS setup), and change the disk sequence to the USB drive first.

The installation was very smooth.

Step 1. Assign static IP, gateway, broadcast, etc

Edit the file

/etc/network/interfaces

and change as below (say you want to assign static IP to eth0):

There is a small tool called Imagemagick that helps to convert PDF file into JPEG. Just install it:

# aptitude update
# aptitude install imagemagick

Then run the command "convert":

$ convert abc.pdf abc.jpg

That's it. Very simple.

The entire process of upgrading Ubuntu from 6.06 LTS to 8.04.2 LTS was very smooth. After upgrade, the screen is brighter, and the sound quality is much better. Below are a few unexpected, and how I solved them.

SMP support

After the upgrade, the kernel recognizes only one CPU. Searching for "smp" in "Synaptic package manager" resulted only the older kernel for 6.06. The Ubuntu supported hardware page stated that you have to build your own kernel.

When I ran "/sbin/ifup", or "/sbin/ifdown", or "/etc/init.d/networking restart", I got some error message like

Ignoring unknown interface eth0=eth0.
Ignoring unknown interface eth1=eth1.
Ignoring unknown interface eth2=eth2.
Ignoring unknown interface ath0=ath0.
Ignoring unknown interface wlan0=wlan0.

http://www.netbsd.org/docs/network/dhcp.html tells you the how-to.

In Ubuntu:

Create a file /etc/dhcp3/dhclient-enter-hooks, and add the following content:

make_resolv_conf() {
          echo "do nothing with resolv.conf"
}

then edit your /etc/resolv.conf to the content of your heart, then restart your network.

Note: This article is related to installing VMware Server 1.x on Ubuntu, with kernel 2.6.24-x.

Install and Setup VMware Server

After you downloaded the VMware Server package, and run vmware-install.pl, it will ask you to run vmware-config.pl. Run that script and you will most likely encounter some module problem. If you do, then download vmware-any-any-update-116 (or newer version) from Peter Velichkov's Blog. Then run the runme.pl found the in vmware-any-any-update-xxx package. Then reboot your Ubuntu.

After many kernel upgrades, the /boot partition might run out of spaces. Here is how to remove some older kernel images.

Method 1 - Use Synaptic Package Manager

This should be the easiest way. Start your Synaptic Package Manager, and search for 'linux-image' and 'linux-header'. Uninstall the images and headers that you don't want anymore.

Method 2 - Use apt-get

If you prefer command line operation, this is how you can do it:

This is the notes taken when I installed and configured the Ubuntu 6.06LTS (Dapper).

Useful references:

• http://www.beginningubuntu.com/dapper_tips.html
• http://linuxhelp.blogspot.com/2005/12/essential-house-keeping-in-ubuntu....
• http://www.goitexpert.com/entry.cfm?entry=ubuntuguide (Ultimate UBUNTU Linux Optimization and Tweak Guide)