Installing Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala

This guide will walk you through the steps of installing Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala on you Dell Mini 9 & 10v and Vostro A90.

Known Issues:

• The Broadcom wireless card driver does not install correctly on the Dell Mini 9/10v and Vostro A90.
• The Dell Vostro A90's audio does not work out of the box

The fixes are at the end of the guide.

1. Download Ubuntu 9.10
- I chose to install the standard 32bit Ubuntu Desktop Karmic .iso
- Ubuntu Netbook Remix is broken, and I would advise against it if you are installing Ubuntu 9.10

2. Prepare Your Install Media
- I prefer to use my external DVD drive but you can also use a LiveUSB stick to install Ubuntu. Follow these directions for creating a LiveUSB image and check our usb flash drive compatibility list for recommendations on drives.

3. Boot Into Your Install Media


- By default the Mini 9/10v and Vostro boot from the hard disk first, you need to tell the mini to boot into your install media.
- Boot your PC, when the Dell splash logo appears hit the zero (0) key to access your one time boot list. Use the DVD/CD drive option if installing from disc or the Removable Devices option for a LiveUSB install.

4. Installing Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala
Step 1 - Choose Your Install Language


Step 2 - Choose Your Location


Step 3 - Choose Keyboard Layout


Step 4 - Partitioning the Disk

- There are three options for installing Ubuntu

1. If you plan on dual booting you may want to choose the Install them side option. A slider will appear and allow you to resize your partitions. This method is recommended for users that are uncomfortable with manually partitioning their drives but want to dual boot. Make sure to defragment your Windows drive before you install Ubuntu so you don't lose data.
2. Erase and use the entire disk is not recommended. If you plan on deleting the whole hard disk and not dual booting booting it is recommended that you partition the drive manual using the last option, it is easy and allows you to separate your /root and /home partitions. Doing this is great to protect against data loss if your install/upgrade goes bad later.
   
3. Specify partitions manually is recommended and not hard. The rest of the install guide will focus on it. It is the best way to install Ubuntu on your Dell Mini/Vostro.
   

- Ignore the /dev/mmcblk0p1 in the picture, it is my SD card. I had it in while installing to save screenshots on.
- Your Mini/Vostro hard drive will be /dev/sda


- Right click the partition to delete/resize it.
- Depending on your space you have some options/decisions.
- For this guide will will be preforming a clean install with a separate /root and home partition on a 8GB SSD.


- After freeing hard drive space for Ubuntu, right click your free space and select add to create a /root partition


- Your /root should be at least 2GB but realistically closer to 4GB to avoid future problems. The root partition is where the operating system and programs are stored. I chose to use half the size of my 8GB drive for my /root partition but could have safely went as low as 2.5GB - 3GB.
- 1GB = 1024 megabytes
- The /root partition type should always be primary, start at the beginning and its mount point is /
- The file system selection is up to you, Ext4 is recommended and the fastest. Other users prefer Ext3 for its rock solid stability or Ext2 because it does not journal. Journaling protects against data corruption in the case of a power failure or system crash but it also writes more frequently to the solid state disk. Most users will want to Use Ext4, it is Ubuntu's default section.


- Your Home folder will be the rest of your hard drive space. The home partition is where all your personal data and program settings are stored.
- The /home partition type is logical, should start at the beginning and its mount point is /home
- Again the file system selection is up to you, Ext4 is recommended.


- As you can see I split my 8GB drive in two, half for my operating system /root and half for my personal files and settings /home.


- After clicking forward you will see this pop message. This guide does not create a swap partition for Ubuntu. Swap is used by the operating system to store and retrieve data from secondary storage for use in main memory. It is not really need and if you don't have a large drive it is unnecessary.
- You can chose to go back and resize you partitions to create a swap partition. A 1GB swap partition is recommended, anything more would be overkill on a netbook.
- If you want to hibernate your Mini/Vostro you will need to create a swap partition.

Step 6 - Who Are You?

- Enter your information, user name and password.
- You can choose to encrypt your home folder. There is a slight performance hit if you choose to encrypt your home folder but it is negligible. I have two identical drives STEC SSD drives, one is encrypted and one unencrypted, I can not tell the difference between the two.
- Encryption is a good idea if you travel, are paranoid, or just don't want anyone accessing your files.



- This is the final check list before hitting install. Make sure everything is correct and begin the installation.


- Reboot the machine so we can fix the wireless card driver and the audio on the Vostro A90.

5. Install The Broadcom Wireless Card Driver
- Usually installing the proprietary Broadcom wireless driver in Ubuntu is handled with couple mouse clicks by the Hardware Drivers (aka jockey-gtk). But Karmic has shipped with a bug that makes jockey unable to recognize the card and install the driver.

- First connect to the internet via a wired connection.
- Then go to Synaptic Package Manager (System>Administration>Synaptic Package Manager)
- Click the Reload button in the upper left corner of Synaptic to refresh your repository index.
- Then reinstall the bcmwl-kernel-source package


- Click to enlarge

OR: after connecting to the internet via a wired connection in a terminal type:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get --reinstall install bcmwl-kernel-source

-reboot the machine, afterwards you will see the drive installed and working.


6. Fix the Audio on the Dell Vostro A90
- You need to add a line to your /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf file
- In a terminal type:

sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf

- then add this to the bottom of the alsa-base.conf file:

options snd-hda-intel model=dell

- then reboot the machine for the changes to take effect.

Have a question or problem that this article doesn't cover? Ask our Ubuntu Mini 9 Google Group for help.

Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex on the Dell Mini 9

Installation
An installation guide can be found here and help creating a LiveUSB drive here.
Intrepid installs without sound working. It's a simple fix that involves adding a line to your alsa base-file. Instructions can be found at the end of the end of the installation guide. All other hardware installs without any problems.

A lot of readers have had problems installing Ubuntu on their netbooks because of incompatible USB flash drives. Please consult our USB Flash Drive Compatibility List if you are having problems installing Ubuntu. Many installation problems are due to incompatible flash drives.

Wireless
Works out of the box. I decided to enable the proprietary Broadcom STA wireless driver from Hardware Drivers manager (found under System>Administration>Hardware Drivers) and was connecting to various wireless points without any trouble.
*New users are having trouble with enabling wifi. Make sure your wifi is turned on. Turn it on in Windows or in the BIOS.

Netbook Remix
Installs without a problem. Instructions on how to install and configure it can be found here.

Compiz-Fusion
The Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 950 supports 3D out of the box and Compiz works much better than I expected. I hate that Compiz tries to loads on startup even when using the netbook-laucher. It's an easy fix. You do not want Compiz loading when trying to use Netbook Remix.

To get the most out of Compiz install the advanced configuration tool.
In a terminal:

sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager

Media Codecs
Ubuntu will install the proper codec when you try to open an unsupported file. Most codecs can be installed this way. I prefer to install them all at once. A guide for the all major codecs can be found here and encrypted DVD playback and w32codecs here.

Ethernet
No problems with connecting to the web or my router.

Brightness & Volume
Brightness and volume keyboard shortcuts both work with any extra configuration.

Suspend & Hibernate
Suspend works incredibly well. I suspended my computer over and over without a problem.
Hibernate will not work if you do not have a swap partition.

Video Out
Works out of the box, you won't have to edit your xorg.conf file.
Video out while loading Grub has a tendency to jitter, but once the Ubuntu splash screen comes up video corrects itself.

Bluetooth
My mouse and headset connected without a problem.

Web Camera
Works out of the box with no setup. To test it I installed Chesse, the Gnome webcam application. When you first run Cheese it might be slow or choppy, turn the resolution down (found under Edit>Preferences).

To install cheese
In a terminal type:

sudo apt-get install cheese

Card Reader
Works out of the box. Secure Digital High Capacity, SD 2.0 also works.

Sound
Ubuntu 8.10 installs without sound working. Instructions can be found at the end of the end of the installation guide to enable sound.

Battery
I'm getting around fours hours a charge. I'm surfing the net, watching videos, using Bluetooth and keeping my screen relatively bright.

Overall:
Installation could not be easier. Once the sound issue was fixed everything simply worked.

Have a question or problem that this article doesn't cover? Ask our Ubuntu Mini 9 Google Group for help.