Installing Linux on the HP a1250n

If anything can go wrong, it will. Notice that these notes are very old. It is much easier now that Ubuntu has been upgraded and supports all of this hardware, and XP now has built in options to write to a CD-ROM.

This document describes the following:

• System Backup
• Making an Ubuntu Linux CD
• Partitioning the drive to support Windows XP and Ubuntu Linux
• Installing Linux for the HP a1250n PC
• Changing the boot menu order
• Configuring Linux for the HP a1250n PC
• ATI Video
• SMP
• Playing music
• Copying files between the Linux and Windows XP NTFS partitions

I always like to use free versions rather than trial versions, so whenever possible that is what I did. In most cases I used Google to search the internet.

System

• Athlon64 x2 processor
• Motherboard: MSI MS-7184, Socket 939, Northbridge ATI RS482, Southbridge ATI SB400, HP name: AmethystM or AmethystM-GL6E
• 250GB SATA drive
• ATI Radeon Xpress 200 Series integrated video

• 9.68 GB used on C:
• 8 GB Recovery partition

Burn to CD

So instead I tried downloading some tools from the web. First I tried Alcohol120% (a trial version), but this program only partly installed and then crashed during the install. I tried installing again, and it said some drivers were already installed, so it couldn't be installed again. There didn't appear to be an uninstaller either.

I started to download Nero, but it would have taken too long since the install is so large. So instead I searched using Google for "ISO CD Rom" and found a Wikipedia article with a link referring to free burning from Windows. This link ponted to the free Iso Recorder version 2 from isorecorder.alexfeinman.com/isorecorder.htm. The surprising thing is that after downloading, the installer indicated that the Alcohol120% drivers were already installed, and asked if they should be cleaned up. Pressing Yes, cleaned up the Alcohol120% installation! After the Iso Recorder is installed, right clicking on the iso file in the explorer will display a menu item to "Copy an image to CD". This program worked, but I didn't change the default speed (40x) under the Properties button, which caused some trouble as described later.

Repartition

A Linux distribution requires a separate disk partition from the Windows partition. In addition, the NTFS Windows partition was taking the full disk size, so making a new parition requires resizing the Windows partition so that it is smaller. Most Linux distributions will repartition and resize partitions as part of the installation. The original partitioning was as follows.

• 8.6 GB Windows restore partition
• 241.4 GB NTFS Windows partition
• 8.2 MB Free (Note MB, not GB.)

I inserted the CD-Rom and booted the Ubuntu. This loaded all drivers correctly, and brought up the disk partition screen. I tried to manually partition, so that I could get the following:

• 8 GB Windows restore partition
• 120 GB NTFS Windows partition
• 32 GB Fat32 exchange partition
• Remaining Linux Ext3 partition
• Linux swap partition

• 8 GB Windows restore partition
• 120 GB NTFS Windows partition
• Remaining Linux Ext3 partition
• Linux swap partition

Resizing the NTFS Windows Partition

I found a note that described how to resize NTFS for a dual boot Windows system, and it indicated that the Knoppix live CD had a newer version of Ntfsresize than was in Ubuntu and would resize. I downloaded Knoppix at www.knoppix.org. Knoppix booted great and running the partitioning is easy. I found the notes at "Ntfsresize Frequently Asked Questions" at mlf.linux.rulez.org/mlf/ezaz/ntfsresize.html.

• Boot from the media and hit when you see the message "Boot:".
• Click the "K" menu in the bottom left corner.
• Click the "System" menu.
• Click the "QTParted" which is a graphical, user friendly partition editor.

Then I found that in Windows, chkdsk fixed the problem. Just run Start/All Programs/ Accessories/Command Prompt, or Start/Run and enter command.exe. Then run chkdsk /f. You have to reboot into Windows, and after this, the Ubuntu resizer worked fine. If the boot of Ubuntu gives the error "no root filesystem", edit the desired partition and fill "Mount Point" to "/ - The root file system".

Corrupted Windows

Then I tried Iso Recorder at 4x. This time I ran Check CDRom before installing, and it showed the CD as 100% ok. It got through the base install very quickly and successfully since the CD was not retrying with errors. Then I let the boot loader overwrite the disk by answering yes to, "Install grub to master boot record." I pressed Yes to accept the defaults on the display options screen. Make sure to remember your user name and password.

Changing Boot Menu Order

	cd /boot/grub
	cp menu.lst menu.bak
	sudo nano grub/menu.lst

	# This entry automatically added by the Debian installer for a non-linux OS
	# on /dev/sda2
	title		Windows XP Media Center Edition
	root		(hd0,1)
	savedefault
	makeactive
	chainloader	+1

	## ## End Default Options ##

	cd /boot/grub
	cp menu.bak menu.lst

I expect that the next version of Ubuntu will fix all of this in Aprix of 2006. I am also not playing video games with high requirements, and when I make a PVR, I don't plan to use the built in video much, although this may change.

Video Configuration

The Ubuntu 5.10 is named Breezy. An older version of Ubuntu is named Hoary. The 8.16.20 drivers are shipped with Breezy. The new drivers that are used here are the 8.20.8 drivers.

Unix/Linux Commands

	sudo nano etc/X11/xorg.conf

Video Solution

The solution was found on an unofficial wiki at wiki.cchtml.com/index.php/Ubuntu_Installation_Guide, although this internet guide is not written for the AMD 64. I have modified the important parts and shown it here. For the standard HP hardware, the following is ok. If you have additional hardware, read warnings from above link about the fact that running the following will remove support for some hardware.

Running the following will overwrite the /boot/grub/menu.lst file. Therefore it is best to back it up using

	cd /boot/grub
	sudo cp menu.lst menu.bak

Remove Breezy's included drivers if they are installed:

	sudo bash
	apt-get remove xorg-driver-fglrx
	apt-get remove fglrx-control
	apt-get remove linux-restricted-modules-$(uname -r)
	dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg #select the "ati" module

Reboot.

The results of booting show up in the var/logs/Xorg.0.log file.

Download the ATI driver installer at support.ati.com. This link can be found under http://www.ati.com/support/driver.html. Select drivers for Linux x86_64, and then "Motherboard with ATI graphics". Create a download directory. You can either use Create Folder inside of Ubuntu or mkdir in the command shell. Change to the download directory. Make sure that you have the universe and multiverse repositories enabled before doing these steps.

Get the build tools and ATI files. The first time I did the install, the older AMD files were released. Skip this and use the newer section below.

	sudo bash
	apt-get install gcc-3.4 module-assistant build-essential 
	apt-get install fakeroot dh-make debconf libstdc++5 gcc-3.3-base
	sh ./ati-driver-installer-8.20.8-amd64.run --buildpkg Ubuntu/breezy
	dpkg -i ./xorg-driver-fglrx_8.20.8-1_amd64.deb
	dpkg -i ./fglrx-control_8.20.8-1_amd64.deb
	dpkg -i ./fglrx-kernel-source_8.20.8-1_amd64.deb

	sudo bash
	apt-get install gcc-3.4 module-assistant build-essential 
	apt-get install fakeroot dh-make debconf libstdc++5 gcc-3.3-base
	sh ./ati-driver-installer-8.21.7-x86_64.run --buildpkg Ubuntu/breezy
	dpkg -i ./xorg-driver-fglrx_8.21.7-1_amd64.deb
	dpkg -i ./fglrx-control_8.21.7-1_amd64.deb
	dpkg -i ./fglrx-kernel-source_8.21.7-1_amd64.deb

	sudo bash
	module-assistant prepare
	module-assistant update
	module-assistant a-i fglrx

	sudo aticonfig --initial

You may get an error, "Duplicate symbol, rol_long". To fix this, comment out the Load "int10" line in the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file by nano and entering the following on the line.

	#	Load  "int10"

	fglrxinfo
		display: :0.0  screen: 0
		OpenGL vendor string: ATI Technologies Inc.
		OpenGL renderer string: RADEON XPRESS 200 Series SW TCL Generic
		OpenGL version string: 1.3.5519 (X4.3.0-8.20.8)

 	glxgears -iacknowledgethatthistoolisnotabenchmark
		6122 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1224.335 FPS
		6481 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1296.102 FPS
		6480 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1295.965 FPS

Acceptable Video Solution
Edit the video configuration using:
	sudo nano etc/X11/xorg.conf

Use arrow or paging keys to find Section "Device".  Change the line
	Driver	"ati"

to:
	Driver	"vesa"


Then press Ctrl-X to exit, which will prompt for the file name.  Just press Enter.



Symmetric Multi Processing (SMP)
The default Ubuntu install does not enable the dual core processor of the 
AMD64 X2.  To enable this, use the Synaptic package manager and download
linux-amd64-k8-smp.  This will overwrite the /boot/grub/menu.lst file, so back
it up first.

To view the CPU status in Ubuntu, select Applications/System Tools/System Monitor.
Select the Resources tab, and there should be both a CPU1 and CPU2 listed for
the CPU history graph.




Playing Music

To rip a CD, insert the audio CD and a ripper will load automatically.  This
will create .ogg files which is a free format.

When opening a music file, the error "Totem could not start up".  "The
video output is in use by another application", is displayed.  When starting this from
a terminal, the message, "(totem:9766): Gtk-CRITICAL **:
gtk_accel_label_set_accel_closure: assertion
`gtk _accel_group_from_accel_closure (accel_closure) != NULL' failed", was
displayed.

For music files, there is another player already installed on Ubuntu that
is accessible by right clicking on the music file.  This player allows
selecting and playing many songs easy.

To get Totem to work, on the Ubuntu menu, run System/Preferences/Multimedia Selector, and on
the Video Tab, there are selections for Default Sink.  Changing this to
"XWindows (No Xv)", allowed the Test button to work correctly, and also
gets Totem to work.




Copying files between the Linux and Windows XP NTFS partitions

In Windows XP, I downloaded the explore2fs program from 

http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/explore2fs.htm. This program works
great to read files from the Linux partition.

To be able to read the Windows NTFS partition from Linux do the following.
In Ubuntu Linux windows, edit the etc/fstab file. Start an editor by selecting the
Places menu and selecting Desktop.  Then click the square in the top left corner
that has a $lt in it.  Then click to show the contents.  Click on etc, then click
scroll down past the directories and click on fstab.

Put a comment character "#" before the existing dev/sda1 line, and add a new line
as follows.
	dev/sda1 /media/windows ntfs nls=utf8, umask=0222   0   0


If you make a mistake, boot the Ubuntu recovery boot menu item.  Then use
	sudo nano /etc/fstab

to change back to the original.


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