The download was super fast - actually took about five minutes since I used BitTorrent to download.
I chose Gusty Gibbon - 7.10 build Live CD.
Now, I did not want to split up internal 100GB HDD of the laptop (Dell Latitude D620) nor did I want to mess up Master Boot Record(MBR) for Windows(XP).
Besides, I had a spare 250Gb Fujitsu USB HDD.
So after bit of googling turned up DaBruGo's this post and Android's this post describing the whole process.
My experiment was based on these and is chronicled below:
Step 1: Configure the BIOS of the laptop to boot in order: CD-ROM, External HDD, Internal HDD
Step 2: Load the Live CD, connect the USB drive and let the laptop boot from the CD.
Step 3: Make sure the External HDD is mounted ok (Places->Disk->Double click )
Open a terminal (Applications->Administrartion-> Terminal) and execute
%fdisk -l This will show the which disk has been assigned which device number. In my case it was /dev/sda for internal HDD while
/dev/sdb for external HDD where I planned to install Ubuntu. The distinction was easy to make due to difference in sizes (Internal
HDD 100 Gb, External HDD 250 Gb). Make a note of the names.
Step 4: Click on "Install" on Desktop. Set appropriate values for
a. Language b. Time Zone etc.
This will bring you to Partitioning step. I chose Guided Partitioning for "Whole Disk"
Be VERY CAREFUL to choose the correct device here (/dev/sdb in my case). There is no undo here!!
Follow the instructions for setting up Computer name, user name, password. Please make a note of it.(The user name and password will
be needed to login once the installation is complete)
Once you see "Advanced" options choose the GRUB loader path from "hd0" to "/dev/sdb" (The external HDD).
This is very important!! Leaving the GRUB loader path unchanged will cause the installer to over write Windows MBR ("hd0").
Wait until the partitioning is finished.
Step 5: Follow the reboot prompt and reboot the PC with keeping the Live CD in the drive.
[Note: This is contradictory to Andriod's post but in line with
Debugro's post.]
Step 6: Mount the External HDD back on(Places-> Disk-> Right click and select "Mount"). Note the complete path to this disk. In my case it was /media/disk. Open a terminal and proceed to execute following commands.
% sudo chroot /media/disk
% sudo vim /boot/grub/menu.lst a. Add # in front of #hidemenu to comment it out.
b. Change a "# groot" line in a section of your menu.lst file
## default grub root device
## e.g. groot=( hd0, 0)
# groot=(hd1,0) - CHANGE THIS LINE TO READ # groot=(hd0,0)
c. Scroll down to until you get to a section where there is a menu list (not commented out ... no #s) that has Ubuntu mentioned three
times (and possibly an area mentioning Windows XP down below it, if you have XP installed on an internal drive of yours).
There is a line in these three Ubuntu menu choices that has root listed on it and probably has (hd1,0) to the right of it. Change this to
(hd0,0) on all three of these menu choices. Why? Because according to GRUB, the external USB drive will be our first drive (hd0,0) and
not our second drive (hd1,0) because we loaded GRUB on it's bootsector(Thanks DeBugro!).
Save the file and exit ([Esc] :wq)
Step 7: Reboot the PC. Take out the LiveCD from the drive. The GRUB should now load from External HDD if everything went well.
Post install Notes. 1. The Ubuntu asked to update lot of pacakges. That is OK. It also asked me to update "Restricted drivers" (For NVDIA graphics
card and Intel Pro Wireless). This was OK but I was totally freaked out when asked to reboot the PC!! Man, this is sooo like
M$FT :(
2. The Firefox that works on Ubuntu is apparently FF 2.0. I tried to install FF 3 from source and it throws up GTK related errors
during when exiting.
3. With root access (using sudo) I created another user. This user login has problems for Sound/ Display settings by GNOME.
This is next AI for me?
Edited on 21st Jan 2010: I upgraded to 9.10 karmic koala via upgrade manager. I should say that this version is almost perfect!!
All things are working just fine for me. The "cube" and other compiz visual effects work out of the box.
The power management (suspend/resume/battery) that was not working in 7.10 (nor in 8.10) works perfectly.
I can also reboot in Windows from GRUB. The Empathy which was broken in 8.10 is also working now. So is CD/DVD R/W drive auto-mounting.
The desktop themes have much wider choice now which though not a must is great!
All in all, since the upgrade I am almost exclusively on Ubuntu at home which is great.!