Installing Xubuntu 7.10 on the Norhtec MicroClient Sr.

So for the last couple of days I have been preparing and installing Xubuntu 7.10 on my MicroClient Sr.

I had a similar idea to Nicolas314 over on the forum in that I planned to install by using a USB key, because the MicroClient doesn’t have an optical drive. The basic idea of this process is that (using another computer) you make your USB key bootable by using SYSLINUX, and then copy the contents of the Xubuntu install CD to the USB key. The MicroClient then boots from the prepared USB key in the same way as the standard Live CD install. Once the desktop is reached the installation to Compact Flash/Hard Drive can proceed as usual.

My experience of this process went as follows (using my desktop PC running Ubuntu 7.04 and a 2Gb generic USB 2.0 key):

• I decided to follow the instructions on this process in the Ubuntu documentation – Installing Ubuntu from a Flash Drive.
• I tried to use the automatic preparation script (“Preparing the Flash Drive using isostick.sh”) but this failed to produce a bootable USB key, so I decided to try the manual method (“Preparing the Flash Drive manually”).
• I installed the syslinux and mtools packages as instructed and the ran syslinux on the USB key. A file called ldlinux.sys was created on the USB key.
• I then copied all of the files from the Xubuntu 7.10 Live CD to the USB key.
• All files from the directories “isolinux” and “install”were then copied to the USB key root directory, along with files “vmlinuz” and “initrd.gz” from the “casper” directory.
• I ignored the next step in the instructions because I couldn’t find the necessary directories to rename (“Move dapper to stable”).
• I then renamed the file “isolinux.cfg” to “syslinux.cfg”.This was then edited using gedit as described in the instructions.
• I then removed the USB key from my desktop PC and plugged it into the MicroClient Sr.
• If you are planning to install to a Compact Flash card (like me), you may need to go into the BIOS of the MicroClient and set the boot order. I think the way that the USB key is set-up by SYSLINUX means that it gets detected as a hard drive rather than as a removable drive. I think this also depends on the capacity of the USB key (big ones >1Gb? get detected as hard drives.
• Set the BIOS to boot first from the USB key and then restart. The usual Live CD boot process should now take place.
• Once the Xubuntu desktop is reached, start the install process, selecting the appropriate Compact Flash/Hard Drive for installation.
• When the installation finishes (takes about 30 minutes or so), restart the MicroClient, remove the USB key, set the boot order to be Compact Flash/Hard Drive first, and restart. The MicroClient will now boot into Xubuntu!

The next thing I did once Xubuntu was up and running was to install the updates from the repositories. There were 140Mb of updates to be added. The download was painless and fast (8Mbit ADSL) but the install of the updates was quite slow, taking about 45 minutes.

After a restart (kernel updates?), I decided to look at the video drivers. Xubuntu had decided to use the VESA generic drivers which meant that display and video were a little slow and messy. The MicroClient Sr. has the VIA CX700M video chipset. The drivers for this are Unichrome II (I think), so the open source version of these is the Openchrome project. According to the site, ubuntu has a package (xserver-xorg-video-openchrome) for these drivers which I installed.

This is where things went wrong.

While installing the openchrome package, apt said that it would remove 2 other packages (xserver-xorg-video-all and xserver-xorg-video-via I think…). I said OK. After apt had finished I went to the Display settings and changed the driver to the openchrome one. Bad move! I restarted and Xubuntu immediately said there was a problem, asking me to change the driver. I did so (back to VESA) but the desktop came up severely distorted. I tried rebooting into failsafe mode and removing the openchrom package but this didn’t make any difference. Eventually I elected to simply re-install Xubuntu from USB again!

I now have a functioning system again, using the VESA video drivers. A re-think on that particular part is required…

Using the Xubuntu desktop on the MicroClient is fine for most tasks like web browsing, word processing etc. I can imagine things might get a little slow if you try and multi-task while playing video or doing image editing, but other than that it is fine.

Will post more when I have explored some more…