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[Wayan Vota]

I am here with Bryan Berry of OLE Nepal and we're talking operating systems on the XO.  He says that Ubuntu should boot on the XO.  I agree in the theory, but I have yet to see.

If you are intrepid and can get Ubuntu to boot and run on the XO, I have the fame and glory of a OLPC News post all about your efforts waiting for you.  Better yet, you'll have serious geek street cred and a hot XO laptop to boot (pun intended).

[Torokun]

This would be awesome...  I am thinking about getting an Eee PC to be my Ubuntu laptop... 

I do wonder what the performance will be like on OLPC though...

[con]

Xubuntu might be a better choice.

[jenpc]

Xubuntu might be a better choice.

Good point.  Fluxbuntu would be another option.  That's even lighter weight than Xubuntu.

[Bastian]

There is a version of debian "etch" with the Xfce desktop manager (http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/devel/2007-December/009026.html) running on the OLPC. Since (X)Ubunutu is Debian based it probably  is possible to get it running, too, but i doubt there is a simple way.

[Chuck]

The koolu machine (www.koolu.com) runs ubuntu. It uses the AMD Geode LX 800 --  a 500mz version of  the xo's chip -- with 512MB of RAM & 80GB hard drive so one might believe that  a version of Ubuntu on the xo is not a pipe dream. They have a video of it running sugar... the reverse should work...right?

[fang2415]

This sounds extremely doable to me; my primary machine is a '99 Thinkpad with a similar (possibly lower!) spec to the OLPC, and I run a stripped-down version of Ubuntu with no problems.

I usually do a network install similar to what's described at the slightly-out-of-date but still excellent guide at http://marc.herbert.free.fr/linux/win2linstall.html.  I use tomsrtbt instead of Windows to get the netboot image and lob it onto the hard disk somewhere -- obviously Sugar would work for that too.  Then I just do a server install, add IceWM and the packages for apps I want (xmms, abiword, etc.), and the system blazeth even on my ancient box.  For apps I sort of follow what Ubuntu Lite used to look like (http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-42873.html), although they seem to be doing other things these days, which might work too.

The bits that make me hesitate from leaping to try it right away are the partitioning and GRUB installation, since I'd like to be able to dual-boot with Sugar.  I assume this would need a developer key at the least, and I would want to make sure I knew how to reinstall Sugar in case it all goes wrong...

f2

[fang2415]

Whups, that's what I get for posting so late at night -- just remembered that without the SD card that I haven't yet bought, the XO only has a gig of storage...  I think my fresh Ubuntu install comes in around 1.2GB, so I can forget about a dual-boot with the XO disc alone.

Still though, might be possible to prune more packages from the install and get it down below 1G, or to boot Ubuntu with all or part of its filesystem on external storage.

f2

[stitch]

To those of you considering Ubuntu installs on the asus eee, the regular ubuntu 7.10 install works GREAT!!!

xubuntu does run faster, but the regular install with GNOME runs very fast with desktop effects and multiple desktops enabled,

I wish i had a second XO to run xfce on on though, a few have reported it running well.

You will be happy with an ubuntu eee if your willing to spend some time tuning the laptop up!

cheers!
chris

[xzela]

I plan on installing ubuntu on the XO this weekend (maybe even start on it tonight). My first attempt would be a complete install, wiping out Sugar in the process. If i can do it successfully without any serious problems, I'll them try the duel booting with Sugar.

A few problems I see for right now are:
1) Getting ubuntu to load from a USB storage device and making the XO boot from it. I found a HowTo which might install ubuntu from a USB drive, though I haven't tried this method so I'm not sure it will work.
-and

2) Cropping the size of ubuntu so it can fit on the 1GB flash drive. I plan on using the Alterate CD because you are given a choice on which packages you'll be installing. I've read that it's possible to install ubuntu on a drive that's 300MB (So the forums tell me).

So far, if I can overcome those problems it shouldn't be too hard, though, like any computer related problem there are always unforeseen issues.

I'll let you guys know what if i run into any problems and how I resolved them.

Wish me luck.

[moocapiean]

Good luck!

I've been trying for the past couple of hours to boot from Ubuntu on USB (installed using http://www.debuntu.org/how-to-install-ubuntu-linux-on-usb-bar, but with an Xubuntu 7.10 minimal ISO) and can't figure out how to get it to boot on my XO.  Although it boots fine on my regular laptop, when I try to boot it from my XO, it just hangs.

So, I wish you much luck!!

[xzela]

I'm also at that point. My USB version of ubuntu just hangs when trying to boot. Which is very strange because it works on normal machines.

I did find a guy who was able to create some sort of Slax Linux USB drive and make it bootable
http://tinypic.com/player.php?v=73c7d06&s=1
However, he wasn't very helpful when I asked how he made the XO boot off the USB. Though from my understanding he heavily modified that distro so it would work for the XO. He also told me he had to recompile the kernel, xorg, KDE, etc... just to get it working. But, again that's about all he told me. Though the video is proof that it can be done! We just need to make it easy somehow.

[GeoLeoX]

there are a number of tutorials over on pendrivelinux.com for several distros. flavors of ubuntu are heavily represented. since i haven't yet received my xo is it relatively easy to manipulate the bios to change the boot sequence (i assume that it boots from internal memory first)?

[Peter Ruhe]

I barely know what I'm talking about here, but I've read that the XO uses Open FirmWare (OFW), which is probably a lot different from the typical PC BIOS firmware.  So expect some trouble when trying to load a PC-oriented Linux distro onto an XO.

Think along the lines of persuading the XO to compile ALL of its own software, from the firmware thru the Linux OS and all the higher layers of software plus whatever apps you like.  Then prune the source code tree until you get a fiendishly efficient and fast and small distro for the XO.

Good luck everyone, I hope you get it all working by the time I get my own XO !

[moocapiean]

I barely know what I'm talking about here, but I've read that the XO uses Open FirmWare (OFW), which is probably a lot different from the typical PC BIOS firmware.  So expect some trouble when trying to load a PC-oriented Linux distro onto an XO.

Think along the lines of persuading the XO to compile ALL of its own software, from the firmware thru the Linux OS and all the higher layers of software plus whatever apps you like.  Then prune the source code tree until you get a fiendishly efficient and fast and small distro for the XO.

Good luck everyone, I hope you get it all working by the time I get my own XO !

I think you're right about the OFW being a problem since that's where I get stuck each time.  I manage to load the kernel and initrd, but when I try to boot off of them, it just sits there.

I'm wondering if the special hardware in the XO isn't supported by the kernel Ubuntu 7.10 come with.  When I played around with the OLPC kernel config, I noticed a few OLPC options that I've never seen before, so maybe it's not an OFW problem, but that the kernel panics.

Basically, I have no idea why I can't boot from my USB drive on the XO. I wish I could get some debugging information, but I'm not familiar with OFW and I can't find anything online about getting more verbose output.

Has anyone had better luck?