Archive for category Software Notes
Installing Ubuntu 9.04
Posted by cheshirekow in Software Notes on October 19, 2009
These are my install notes for installing Ubuntu 9.04 on a Dell XPS with two NVIDIA 7900 GS cards in SLI and three monitors. Some of this is quite specific to this setup.
I did a no-cd install using the method described here
To install ubuntu without an install CD, I used the net installer. This was done on a system currently using windows XP, that already had an additional partition for linux.
The first thing I needed to do is download the linux kernel and the net installer. These are in two files linux.bin and initrd.gz. I got them from
For future versions, replace “jaunty” with the nickname of the current distribution. After downloading these two files in windows, I placed them in C:boot. This directory didn't exist yet, so I created it.
The next thing I needed was a boot loader that will allow me to choose which operating system to boot into. I used the open source GRUB for windows. I got it from the sourceforge page at http://sourceforge.net/projects/grub4dos/. The installer wasn't necessary. Instead I downloaded the grub4dos-0.4.4.zip file from the download page http://sourceforge.net/projects/grub4dos/files/. Then I extracted "gldr" into "C:" and extracted "menu.lst" into "C:bootgrub".
Next, I opened menu.lst with a text editor (notepad++). At the very bottom I added the following
title Ubuntu Installer (hd0,1)
kernel (hd0,1)/boot/linux vga=normal ramdisk_size=14972
root=/dev/rd/1 rw
initrd (hd0,1)/boot/initrd.gz |
Note that the numbers above refer to the physical drive and logical partition, so this may change. Check the drive that you're working with.
The next thing I did was I edited boot.ini so that the windows boot loader would give me the option of loading GRUB instead of windows xp. To edit boot.ini run msconfig and click on the edit button for boot.ini. Then I added this line at the end
C:gldr="Start GRUB" |
Then I restarted the computer. It stopped after the POST and gave the option of booting into windows or GRUB. I selected GRUB and hit enter. When GRUB loaded I went down to the last optionm "Ubuntu Installer" and hit enter. It then booted into the Ubuntu Net Installer
The installer attempted to use DHCP to connect to the internet. It then asked for a hostname so I put in the static IP address for this machine.
In the last step of the installer it said something about "only the base system is installed" and it asked what other parts to install. I selected something and hit "enter" but that didn't select the item for install, it just advanced to the next step. Thus I ended up with a base installation and just a console prompt. So I installed the rest of the desktop OS with
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop |
Then I rebooted to get the desktop. When I was logged in, there was a little green circuit icon on the top right of the desktop. When I clicked this, it prompted me to install the closed-source nvidia drivers. I accepted that and rebooted. I had some problems with the multiple monitors though so I had to edit xorg.conf. Next time, don't reboot, but first open xorg.conf for editing.
sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf |
Then I opened a separate terminal and run
sudo lspci | grep VGA |
The first column of what prints out is the "Bus Id" and I used that in xorg.conf need that in a minute. Back in xorg.conf and I edited it as follows.
# nvidia-settings: X configuration file generated by nvidia-settings
# nvidia-settings: version 1.0 (buildd@palmer) Sun Feb 1 20:21:04 UTC 2009
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Layout0"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 1680 0
Screen 1 "Screen1" RightOf "Screen0"
Screen 2 "Screen2" LeftOf "Screen0"
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
EndSection
Section "Files"
EndSection
Section "Module"
Load "dbe"
Load "extmod"
Load "type1"
Load "freetype"
Load "glx"
EndSection
Section "ServerFlags"
Option "Xinerama" "1"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
# generated from default
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "auto"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
# generated from default
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "kbd"
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
# HorizSync source: edid, VertRefresh source: edid
Identifier "Monitor2"
VendorName "Unknown"
ModelName "DELL 2007WFP"
HorizSync 30.0 - 83.0
VertRefresh 56.0 - 76.0
Option "DPMS"
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
# HorizSync source: edid, VertRefresh source: edid
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Unknown"
ModelName "DELL 2007WFP"
HorizSync 30.0 - 83.0
VertRefresh 56.0 - 76.0
Option "DPMS"
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
# HorizSync source: edid, VertRefresh source: edid
Identifier "Monitor1"
VendorName "Unknown"
ModelName "DELL 2007WFP"
HorizSync 30.0 - 83.0
VertRefresh 56.0 - 76.0
Option "DPMS"
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "Device2"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
BoardName "GeForce 7900 GS"
BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
Screen 1
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "Device0"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
BoardName "GeForce 7900 GS"
BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
Screen 0
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "Device1"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
BoardName "GeForce 7900 GS"
BusID "PCI:6:0:0"
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen2"
Device "Device2"
Monitor "Monitor2"
DefaultDepth 24
Option "TwinView" "0"
Option "metamodes" "DFP-1: nvidia-auto-select +0+0"
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Device0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
Option "TwinView" "0"
Option "TwinViewXineramaInfoOrder" "DFP-0"
Option "metamodes" "DFP-0: nvidia-auto-select +0+0; DFP-0: 1600x1024 +0+0; DFP-0: 1440x900 +0+0; DFP-0: 1400x1050 +0+0; DFP-0: 1360x768 +0+0; DFP-0: 1360x768_60_0 +0+0; DFP-0: 1280x1024 +0+0; DFP-0: 1280x1024_60 +0+0; DFP-0: 1280x960 +0+0; DFP-0: 1152x864 +0+0; DFP-0: 1152x864_75_0 +0+0; DFP-0: 1152x864_70 +0+0; DFP-0: 1152x864_60 +0+0; DFP-0: 1024x768 +0+0; DFP-0: 1024x768_70 +0+0; DFP-0: 1024x768_60 +0+0; DFP-0: 960x600 +0+0; DFP-0: 960x540 +0+0; DFP-0: 896x672 +0+0; DFP-0: 840x525 +0+0; DFP-0: 840x525d70 +0+0; DFP-0: 840x525d60 +0+0; DFP-0: 840x525d60_0 +0+0; DFP-0: 832x624 +0+0; DFP-0: 800x600 +0+0; DFP-0: 800x600d60 +0+0; DFP-0: 800x600_75 +0+0; DFP-0: 800x600_72 +0+0; DFP-0: 800x600_60 +0+0; DFP-0: 800x600_56 +0+0; DFP-0: 800x512 +0+0; DFP-0: 720x450 +0+0; DFP-0: 680x384 +0+0; DFP-0: 680x384d60_0 +0+0; DFP-0: 640x512 +0+0; DFP-0: 640x512d60 +0+0; DFP-0: 640x480 +0+0"
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen1"
Device "Device1"
Monitor "Monitor1"
DefaultDepth 24
Option "TwinView" "0"
Option "metamodes" "nvidia-auto-select +0+0"
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection |
Then I needed to install flash in Firefox. I opened a terminal and typed.
sudo apt-get install flash-nonfree |
But then I needed to fix a few things because flash is buggy and closed source. I opened a terminal and typed the following.
# Flash also looks for /usr/lib/libesd.so.1
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/libesd.so.0 /usr/lib/libesd.so.1
# Flash expects /tmp/.esd/socket to exist.
sudo mkdir -p /tmp/.esd/
sudo touch /tmp/.esd/socket |
And this enabled sound in flash pages.