Upgrading to Ubuntu 7.10 (Hard disk based upgrade)

I had installed 7.06 and used for around 4 months. It was the first time have used on Linux outside the fedora world. I found it great and had reviewed it earlier. It was my time to catch on the Ubuntu 7.10 band wagon and i did it just 2 days after the release. Since then i have been testing my way in this Ubuntu land.

Today, i am sharing the iso image based upgrading, using my hard disk to upgrade. The steps for the upgrade are as follows:-

1. Download the Ubuntu alternate CD
i downloaded the ubuntu-7.10-alternate-i386.iso image


2. Keep the iso on your unused partition

When i say unused partition, i mean any disk partition which would not change during the upgrade process. In my case, i used my windows partition which i mounted read only (ntfs) in Ubuntu 7.06.


3. Back up all necessary data.


4. Mount the iso image.

I kept the iso image on my windows partitions and mounted the iso image from the same.

>mount -o loop ubuntu-7.10-alternate-i386.iso /ubuntugutsy


5. Run the cdromupgrade script from the mounted iso


>sudo /ubuntugutsy/cdromupgrade

When running the cdrom upgrade, the system would ask for permissions to download latest updates from the Internet. i would recommended you to download the same.



In case of using latest updates, the upgrade process to handle to additions problems. Firstly, it would handle packages which may not be included in the cdrom but are upgraded in 7.10 repository . At the same time, it would also install latest version (if any) of software available on cdrom also. This would make your life easier later on.


6. Go through the upgrade and enjoy the new Ubuntu 7.10.

Ubuntu(7.04) and Eclipse.

Today, let us talk about eclipse 3.3 on Ubuntu. Being an Java Programmer, eclipse plays an important role in my life.

Installing Java

I have installed JDK 1.6 from the multiverse repository for Ubuntu 7.04 . The process involves downloading sun-java6-jdk package from the multiverse repository.

Installing eclipse

I downloaded eclipse archive from the eclipse site, unzipped it and executed the eclipse binary. It easily detected the jdk and worked great. Performance was also good.

All was not over, once i started with some serious memory hogging stuff using GMF on eclipse, the ide started to crash. This happened a number of times, i tried increasing the memory but it didn't help. Finally, after a lot of searching i found refers to issue in the jdk with reference to perm space. It seems some people have successfully resolved it my increasing perm size, but it didn't work for me.

I finally decided to install jdk 1.5, the jdk 1.5 package is sun-java5-jdk , and it ships jdk 1.5.0_11 on (Ubuntu 7.04). And switched the default java to 1.5 using update-alternatives command.The perm space issues are resolved in 1.5.0_8, so the later versions worked perfectly. Once i upgraded and started using the new jdk with eclipse i have not faced the permspace issues.

Eclipse on Ubuntu gives me good performance, specially good behaviour in compiling large projects.

Ubuntu Journey


I am back with my Ubuntu Journey. After talking about my experience with support of some devices in Ubuntu last week. I would continue my discussion with the support of my printer.

I recently bought brand new HP F2120 All-in-One printer. An excellent piece of hardware for my home use. Its printing , copying and scanning support fits well in my day to day home use needs.
The printer ships with custom drivers for windows on a CD. And obviously the linux drivers are not available. I wanted to setup the printer in Linux and interesting it failed to work initially. I was also interested in setting it up as a scanner with the xsane tool.

I searched and found hplib package is required for this printer. I installed hplib using apt-get and it worked !

Pretty soon, I would try to blogging using optical character recognition(OCR). I have already installed tesseract-ocr based on the recommendation on the web.

Working in Ubuntu World

I have been around 15 days in Ubuntu, it means both kind of good and bad.

Good.

• I connected my Canon Digital Camera, and i easily downloaded my photos, something i never did successfully earlier.

• I am able to play most of the media files, quite a large improvement.

• My eclipse ide works great on Ubuntu. I have to still figure out how to manage multiple java version.

Bad

I think the one and most important bad for me in the X configuration domain. I have been used to gui based X configuration for years now in fedora and redhat. Ubuntu doesn't have a proper X configuration Util. The non-gui stuff is non-intuitive , it takes ages to surf the web for right configurations.

I have had problems twice with X, once while using the projector and again with Configuration of Dual Monitor. Probably, Some how i am biased towards the fedora's gui dual head configuration.

I have finally found the configuration that works for my Dell D600 Laptop. I would have to say that Ubuntu forums did help me a lot to reach this working version.

I finally decided to restart my Blog , today ;-) . The best think i can think about to talk today is the new Ubuntu 7.04 Desktop Edition.

I recently installed the Ubuntu, after being an Fedora user for 5 yrs. I use Linux whenever i can in my profession as an java programmer. During college we used it extensively to do our project work, in both C and java.

I have been following the redhat and fedora distributions for 7 yrs now.I feel Ubuntu is gone a long way in making my life simple. I am particularly impressed by:-

• Boot time
• Hardware support

I haven't explored a lot so cannot comment a lot about it. But i did use the following tips to make the stuff better.

1. Setup tmpfs on /tmp

I have used it in Fedora also, this would help a lot.

2. Install smBackup for system backup.


3. change vm.swappiness value to 10

i have a 2GB ram, i would be evaluating it before making it 0 ;-)

Screenshot of my new Ubuntu desktop