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    Quick how-to: Perform a text-mode or command-line install

    To reduce the number of ISO tests required during each release cycle, the *buntu "alternate install" image was discontinued after Precise. The alternate install was based on Debian-installer (affectionately known as "d-i"), which provides many more options during installation than Ubuntu's Ubiquity graphical installer.

    Alas, the quality of Ubiquity appears to be decreasing with each subsequent release. Fortunately, building a system via the Debian installer is still possible, because the Ubuntu server images are built around d-i rather than Ubiquity. Browse to http://releases.ubuntu.com/, select your desired release, and download the "Server install image." Burn it to a CD-ROM or copy it to a USB drive, and then use this to boot your computer into the installer.

    I like to enable "expert mode" because it allows selecting a mirror; for those in the U.S., mirror.anl.gov is likely to be the fastest. Near the end, you'll be presented a list of server packages -- don't install any of these. Allow the installer to finish and reboot your computer. The next step is to clean up the minimal amount of true server-related stuff that's still remaining:
    Code:
    sudo tasksel remove server
    
    sudo apt-get purge $(dpkg -l | awk '/^rc/ {print $2}')
    (The second command purges configuration files not removed by the first one.)

    Finally, install the Kubuntu desktop:
    Code:
    sudo tasksel install kubuntu-desktop

    #2
    Originally posted by SteveRiley View Post
    Alas, the quality of Ubiquity appears to be decreasing with each subsequent release.
    You should see how terrible Anaconda from the Fedora camp has become. openSUSE has a powerful, feature rich installer but it isn't very user friendly at all. The Debian-installer is unquestionably the best installer out there.

    Comment


      #3
      Thanks SteveRiley, I referred to this when I successfully setup a dual boot environment with Windows XP and Kubuntu 12.04 LTS from a mini.iso. The hardware was old, so I used a non-pae kernel. There were some long scary moments with a blank purple screen, but I had to just wait them out and it eventually progressed to the next step. My monitor said "no connection" and turned off when I was installing the kubuntu-desktop. I waited an hour and then pressed the Num Lock key only to find the install had finished and the monitor had just turned itself off. This old computer will be a print server. It will also store some files. I'm pleasantly surprised. Kubuntu performs better than Windows XP does on that computer. All connected printers worked without issue. Parallel port printing was supported, so I should get to use my HP DeskJet 722C for at least three more years.
      sigpic

      Comment


        #4
        Originally posted by life0riley View Post
        I'm pleasantly surprised. Kubuntu performs better than Windows XP does on that computer.
        KDE is quite modular and Kubuntu's packaging reflects this. People who insist that KDE is "bloated" and "slow" are guilty of parroting outdated information. But even before KDE's code refactoring exercises, it was still slimmer than XP.

        Glad you got everything working.

        Comment


          #5
          Originally posted by SteveRiley View Post
          KDE is quite modular and Kubuntu's packaging reflects this. People who insist that KDE is "bloated" and "slow" are guilty of parroting outdated information. But even before KDE's code refactoring exercises, it was still slimmer than XP.

          Glad you got everything working.
          Actually, its just never been true at all. KDE3 vs Gnome2 had KDE with a far smaller install size, less silly dependencies. The desktop was a little monolithic but no more than pretty much any other desktop at the time.

          When KDE4 came out, it was very damn modular. It appears bloated because there are so many dependencies but in truth, many of the dependencies are smallish libraries therefore KDE is in fact less monolithic nowadays. It is a little messy and confusing but Frameworks 5 should simplify this further and silence any remaining criticism. To be fair, KDE4 was bigger than Gnome2 but KDE4 was the first of the next-gen desktops. When Gnome finally bumped up to 3 we all know how that went!

          KDE's biggest obstacle is the obnoxious fanboys in the other camps who keep repeating the same fallacious rhetoric. It is slowing starting to change but I still hear the same misinformation parroted all the time. The KDE community is the most accommodating, cooperative and amiable desktop community in the same vein that the Kubuntu community is quite possibly the best distro community.

          Gnome keeps screwing its users and breaking everything. The XFCE community is a quite obnoxious - honestly, XFCE is not as light nor as fast as they make it out to be. It is quite stable and can look respectable with a bit of effort. The Cinnamon camp are alright and very friendly to newbies but they are a little insular due to being *nearly* exclusive to Mint. The LXDE camp have merged with the Razor-qt and KDE camps which is great. Unity is getting more stable but the community has a their way or no way philosophy. That's pretty much all the "major" desktops.

          Anyways, I got carried away. Have an exam in a few hours so consider this post me blowing some steam off.

          Comment


            #6
            Another benefit of good and extensive libraries (like qt and kde libs) is that the apps using those libraries are more light weight (and the code in the libs is loaded into memory only once)...While kde initially seems to eat a fair amount memory (the libs must be loaded), the apps you start generally take less memory and start faster because the code in the libs is already available (this of course applies only to software that uses those libraries [kde/qt apps]).

            Comment


              #7
              Originally posted by life0riley View Post
              ...The hardware was old...
              How much RAM has it, please?

              Regards, John Little
              Regards, John Little

              Comment


                #8
                It has 2GB (2 X 1024 MB) PC2700/DDR333. Both slots are filled. The system board is a MSI 845GE MAX.

                The details are on post #30 of this thread.
                List your mobo
                sigpic

                Comment


                  #9
                  Originally posted by life0riley View Post
                  It has 2GB (2 X 1024 MB) PC2700/DDR333. Both slots are filled. The system board is a MSI 845GE MAX.

                  The details are on post #30 of this thread.
                  List your mobo
                  Yes, I looked at those details closely, and was surprised the RAM wasn't mentioned. I've tried running Kubuntu with 1 GB (850 MB after the video reserved some) and I didn't like it, and there's two old boxes in the extended family creaking with Win XP and your box had me thinking maybe kubuntu would do.

                  Regards, John Little
                  Regards, John Little

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Hmmm. I cut the memory off when I posted. I'll have to look at that post.

                    OK. The memory is listed now. I'm still working on getting lm-sensors configured correctly.
                    Last edited by life0riley; Jan 23, 2014, 12:38 AM.
                    sigpic

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Originally posted by life0riley View Post
                      I'm still working on getting lm-sensors configured correctly.
                      Install it, run sensors-detect, and let it finally add the modules it wants. Is this not working for you?

                      Comment


                        #12
                        I tried that and it didn't work.

                        I'm afraid I'm missing something obvious here.

                        This is what I got.
                        Code:
                        $ sudo sensors-detect
                        # sensors-detect revision 5984 (2011-07-10 21:22:53 +0200)
                        # System: MICRO-STAR INC. MS-6580
                        
                        This program will help you determine which kernel modules you need
                        to load to use lm_sensors most effectively. It is generally safe
                        and recommended to accept the default answers to all questions,
                        unless you know what you're doing.
                        
                        Some south bridges, CPUs or memory controllers contain embedded sensors.
                        Do you want to scan for them? This is totally safe. (YES/no): 
                        Module cpuid loaded successfully.
                        Silicon Integrated Systems SIS5595...                       No
                        VIA VT82C686 Integrated Sensors...                          No
                        VIA VT8231 Integrated Sensors...                            No
                        AMD K8 thermal sensors...                                   No
                        AMD Family 10h thermal sensors...                           No
                        AMD Family 11h thermal sensors...                           No
                        AMD Family 12h and 14h thermal sensors...                   No
                        AMD Family 15h thermal sensors...                           No
                        AMD Family 15h power sensors...                             No
                        Intel digital thermal sensor...                             No
                        Intel AMB FB-DIMM thermal sensor...                         No
                        VIA C7 thermal sensor...                                    No
                        VIA Nano thermal sensor...                                  No
                        
                        Some Super I/O chips contain embedded sensors. We have to write to
                        standard I/O ports to probe them. This is usually safe.
                        Do you want to scan for Super I/O sensors? (YES/no): 
                        Probing for Super-I/O at 0x2e/0x2f
                        Trying family `National Semiconductor/ITE'...               No
                        Trying family `SMSC'...                                     No
                        Trying family `VIA/Winbond/Nuvoton/Fintek'...               Yes
                        Found `Winbond W83627HF/F/HG/G Super IO Sensors'            Success!
                            (address 0x290, driver `w83627hf')
                        Probing for Super-I/O at 0x4e/0x4f
                        Trying family `National Semiconductor/ITE'...               No
                        Trying family `SMSC'...                                     No
                        Trying family `VIA/Winbond/Nuvoton/Fintek'...               No
                        Trying family `ITE'...                                      No
                        
                        Some systems (mainly servers) implement IPMI, a set of common interfaces
                        through which system health data may be retrieved, amongst other things.
                        We first try to get the information from SMBIOS. If we don't find it
                        there, we have to read from arbitrary I/O ports to probe for such
                        interfaces. This is normally safe. Do you want to scan for IPMI
                        interfaces? (YES/no): 
                        Probing for `IPMI BMC KCS' at 0xca0...                      No
                        Probing for `IPMI BMC SMIC' at 0xca8...                     No
                        
                        Some hardware monitoring chips are accessible through the ISA I/O ports.
                        We have to write to arbitrary I/O ports to probe them. This is usually
                        safe though. Yes, you do have ISA I/O ports even if you do not have any
                        ISA slots! Do you want to scan the ISA I/O ports? (yes/NO): 
                        
                        Lastly, we can probe the I2C/SMBus adapters for connected hardware
                        monitoring devices. This is the most risky part, and while it works
                        reasonably well on most systems, it has been reported to cause trouble
                        on some systems.
                        Do you want to probe the I2C/SMBus adapters now? (YES/no): 
                        Using driver `i2c-i801' for device 0000:00:1f.3: Intel 82801DB ICH4
                        Module i2c-i801 loaded successfully.
                        Module i2c-dev loaded successfully.
                        
                        Next adapter: NVIDIA i2c adapter  (i2c-0)
                        Do you want to scan it? (YES/no/selectively): 
                        Client found at address 0x50
                        Probing for `Analog Devices ADM1033'...                     No
                        Probing for `Analog Devices ADM1034'...                     No
                        Probing for `SPD EEPROM'...                                 No
                        Probing for `EDID EEPROM'...                                Yes
                            (confidence 8, not a hardware monitoring chip)
                        
                        Next adapter: NVIDIA i2c adapter  (i2c-1)
                        Do you want to scan it? (YES/no/selectively): 
                        
                        Next adapter: NVIDIA i2c adapter  (i2c-2)
                        Do you want to scan it? (YES/no/selectively): 
                        
                        Now follows a summary of the probes I have just done.
                        Just press ENTER to continue: 
                        
                        Driver `w83627hf':
                          * ISA bus, address 0x290
                            Chip `Winbond W83627HF/F/HG/G Super IO Sensors' (confidence: 9)
                        
                        To load everything that is needed, add this to /etc/modules:
                        #----cut here----
                        # Chip drivers
                        w83627hf
                        #----cut here----
                        If you have some drivers built into your kernel, the list above will
                        contain too many modules. Skip the appropriate ones!
                        
                        Do you want to add these lines automatically to /etc/modules? (yes/NO)yes
                        Successful!
                        
                        Monitoring programs won't work until the needed modules are
                        loaded. You may want to run 'service module-init-tools start'
                        to load them.
                        
                        Unloading i2c-dev... OK
                        Unloading i2c-i801... OK
                        Unloading cpuid... OK
                        
                        maintenance@family-pc:~$ sensors
                        No sensors found!
                        Make sure you loaded all the kernel drivers you need.
                        Try sensors-detect to find out which these are.
                        $
                        sigpic

                        Comment


                          #13
                          Did you actually load the module suggested by sensors-detect ("w83627hf")
                          "sudo modprobe w83627hf"

                          Since you added the module automatically to /etc/modules, it should also be loaded if you reboot.

                          Comment


                            #14
                            The system needs to load the correct module -- which, in your case, is w83627hf. You need to either reboot, or run the indicated command (using sudo).

                            Code:
                            Monitoring programs won't work until the needed modules are
                            loaded. You may want to run 'service module-init-tools start'
                            to load them.

                            Comment


                              #15
                              I ran the indicated command.
                              Code:
                              $ sudo service module-init-tools start
                              module-init-tools stop/waiting
                              $
                              I also tried rebooting and still get "No sensors found".

                              I looked at /etc/modules to what I have. It looks like I loaded the module three times.
                              Code:
                              $ cat /etc/modules
                              # /etc/modules: kernel modules to load at boot time.
                              #
                              # This file contains the names of kernel modules that should be loaded
                              # at boot time, one per line. Lines beginning with "#" are ignored.
                              
                              loop
                              lp
                              
                              # Generated by sensors-detect on Thu Jan 23 22:57:41 2014
                              # Chip drivers
                              w83627hf
                              
                              # Generated by sensors-detect on Thu Jan 23 23:14:43 2014
                              # Chip drivers
                              w83627hf
                              
                              # Generated by sensors-detect on Thu Jan 23 23:46:25 2014
                              # Chip drivers
                              w83627hf
                              $
                              This may take some work. I can start a new thread in an appropriate section of this forum if necessary.
                              sigpic

                              Comment

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