My Jackalope jogs jauntily again!

In my last post I had vented my disapproval at Ubuntu 9.04 being not up to scratch. But I really wanted to use this latest version of my favourite distribution. So I thought of an alternate way to install it onto a flash drive without creating any new partitions. I have a 4 GB Buffalo flash drive, which is quite ample for a default Ubuntu install. This is how I accomplished it:

1. Install Ubuntu inside Windows using WUBI:

a. Choose ‘Install inside Windows’ option:

b. Set the size of the install to a capacity that is less than your flash drive. My drive can hold 4 GB, so I chose 3 GB:

c. The installation process will begin, and after it ends, reboot your PC.

2. After reboot, choose Ubuntu from the boot menu. Then Ubuntu will install on to the loopback device. (The space you allocated during install has been used to create a virtual loopback device that Ubuntu will use as a hard disk partition.)

3. After installing Ubuntu, reboot with a Linux Live CD(which includes gparted) inserted in the drive, and then insert the flash drive in which you intend to install Ubuntu.

4. Run gparted. This is used to edit partitions. Format your flash drive using NTFS. Then set the boot flag active.

Note: This can also be accomplished by the HP Windows Format Utility for USB Drives on Windows.

5. Copy the following files to your flash drive:

boot.ini

NTDETECT.COM

ntldr

wubildr

wubildr.mbr

ubuntu – folder

6. Edit the boot.ini file:

Original file:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
C:wubildr.mbr = "Ubuntu"

 

Modified file:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=C:wubildr.mbr
[operating systems]
C:wubildr.mbr = "Ubuntu"

This makes sure that your flash drive has only Ubuntu, and it’ll boot into Ubuntu on any computer.

7. In your flash drive, navigate to  ubuntudisksbootgrub and open menu.lst with a text editor. Search for the string root=UUID , and change all occurrences from root=UUID=<some_number> to root=LABEL=USB.

8. Now reboot your system off the flash drive, and Ubuntu will be up and running!

9. Install a few necessary packages, I chose to install: Adobe Flash player, plugins for proprietary media formats (restricted packages) and Eclipse. You can install as many packages as you want, which of course depends upon how large your flash drive is.

10. Now you have  a portable computer that you can use on any PC without needing to fear about privacy or security.

 

Adapted from : http://www.pendrivelinux.com/move-wubi-ubuntu-install-to-an-external-usb-drive/

Linux outgrows itself!

A few moments before I began typing this, I checked out the Ubuntu Free CD request page to see if I could order Jaunty Jackalope (that’s the code name for Ubuntu 9.04) which was released yesterday. Lately my torrent client has stopped working since I bought a new router, and I did not want to increase the load on HTTP/FTP servers. So I went to the Ubuntu Free CD Request Page, to see if I could order a CD online. Surprise, surprise! The site was offline and this was what I beheld:

Ubuntu's Free Media Page Offline!

Now this is the first time I’ve seen this page taken offline. So it’s clear that Linux, specifically Ubuntu is making a dent in the mainstream desktop OS market, which has till date been monopolised by, you know what that thing is, yeah, Windows. A major story that has been making news this week is the dip in sales for the Redmond based Microsoft, the big daddy of software manufacturers. This can be due to fall in PC sales, but another factor that may go neglected is that Linux based operating systems such as Ubuntu have been replacing Windows slowly. They may never overtake Windows in the desktop space, but they present an alternative, free to tweak as far as you take it, to Windows.

I’ve been using Linux on my PC for the past three years now. The first distribution I tried was openSUSE 10.1 in September 2006. I was amazed at the eye candy and the speed. Yeah, it was cooler than Vista or Aero, and ran on a quarter gigabyte of system memory! I’ve since used many other distributions, but the images of my PC performing faster than I could ever dream of, and those marvellous visual effects, will remain etched in my memory for long. I can’t say Linux is perfect, though. Out of the box (as soon as you install it and run it the first time) many essential features may be unavailable. These are mostly audio-video support, driver support (that’s no more an issue now, Vista is worse than Linux in device support) and some small quirks (such as where the hell is office!). But these do  not bother me at all. I’m patient enough to download and compile/install all these packages. Many are not, so I suggest you take a look at Sabayon 4.0(I’m using it right now, and its a breeze to install. Only quirk for the new user: compiling from source, although many packages are available as binary installers these days.) This is an awesome distribution, breezy and easy to  use. I wish there was more awareness about this alternative to Windows, so that people who cannot afford the money to buy shareware could benefit from this new wave. Yeah, for the cost of a Windows licence(5000+ rupees) one can feed a child for two months. So I think this is the time for a new revolution to make knowledge accessible to all.