Ubuntu Netbook Remix (for SDHC) on EeePC

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Installing Ubuntu 9.04 Netbook Remix on SDHC for my EeePC

The newly released Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) has a netbook-specific version called Ubuntu Netbook Remix (UNR). The following instructions will guide you through the setup of this version on an SDHC memory card, so that you can use it to dual-boot your EeePC. These instructions do not use VMware environments (compare with Dual boot your EeePC with Ubuntu on USB), as VMware does not currently support the use of SD memory cards.

It is quite sensible to use an SD or SDHC card to dual boot an EeePC, as the card inserts into the netbook with nothing showing, so you can't break it when you drop your EeePC, unlike USB Flash Drives!


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What do you need for the instructions in this lens? 

  • A large SDHC memory card, i.e. 4Gb or more. The recommended size is at least 8Gb, so you have plenty of spare space for Ubuntu software updates and your own files on the memory card!
  • A smaller USB Flash Drive, i.e. 1Gb or more, which will be used as a Live Ubuntu USB to install Ubuntu onto your SDHC card.
  • A PC running Windows XP, or Windows Vista, with approximately 2Gb free disk space to create the Live USB.
  • An image of the Netbook Remix USB for Ubuntu 9.04, which can be downloaded from releases.ubuntu.com.
  • A copy of Win32DiskImager software for Windows, which can be downloaded from launchpad.net, to copy the Live Ubuntu data onto the USB Flash Drive. The zip file should be unzipped into a DiskImager folder on your PC.
  • Asus EeePC 901 to make use of the instructions to boot from the bootable SDHC memory card. Other netbooks, laptops and desktop PCs will be able to use the installation instructions, provided they have a memory card slot suitable for SDHC memory cards, but the boot actions do differ from PC to PC.

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Copy the Ubuntu Image onto the USB Flash Drive 

The following actions should be carried out on the Windows PC:
  • Insert your USB Flash Drive, making note of its drive letter.
  • From the DiskImager folder on your PC, click Win32DiskImager.exe
  • (1) Browse to the ubuntu-9.04-netbook-remix-i386.img file on your PC.
  • (2) Select your USB device from the dropdown.
  • (3) Click the Write button to copy the image to your USB Flash Drive.

If all goes well, you should now have a Portable USB Ubuntu 9.04 NetBook Remix that you can run as an alternate Live operating system from the USB Flash Drive or install on your Netbook via the built in Ubuntu Netbook Installer.

Asus EeePC Boot Screen (1)

Tell your Asus EeePC to boot from another disk (1) 

Power up your EeePC. When you see the screen above, click [Esc] immediately and you'll be presented with a list of possible boot devices.

Asus EeePC Boot Devices

Boot from your Live Ubuntu USB 

From the list of boot devices click on USB: USB DISK 2.0, or whatever your USB device is called, and not the 2 lines starting with HDD, as they are the EeePC Solid-State Disks.

Ubuntu 9.04 Live USB: boot menu

Ubuntu 9.04 Live USB: loading in progress

The Live USB Desktop 

Here you can try out most of the Ubuntu facilities without writing anything to any disks. The system will run from the software stored on your Live USB or computer memory.

When you are happy to actually install Ubuntu on the SDHC memory card, then all you have to do is insert the memory card, making sure it is not automatically mounted, and click the Install icon.

Choose your Language 

My first language is English (and my second language is probably SAS, but that's another story!), so I've selected English from the list, and clicked Forward.

Choose your Timezone 

I live in the same timezone as London, so I've selected London from the list, and clicked Forward.

Ubuntu 9.04 Installation: keyboard

Choose your Keyboard 

The keyboard on my EeePC is United Kingdom, so I've selected United Kingdom from the list, and clicked Forward.

Guided or Manual partitioning of the SDHC Memory Card? 

When you get to partitioning you can use:
  • Guided, which uses the entire SDHC Memory Card for Ubuntu. This seems to work best on low quality devices.
  • Manual, if you want to be able to plug the same SDHC Memory Card into a computer running Windows and upload files. This allows you to choose how much space to leave formatted as FAT or FAT32, which Windows can still read.

Whichever you decide to use, just make sure that there is at least 2.5Gb in the Linux root partition (Mount point of "/"), otherwise the installation will fail.

Starting the Installation 

Now that you've completed the partitioning of the SDHC Memory Card, so that you've got at least 2.5Gb in the Linux root partition (Mount point of "/"), the installation will start.

Ubuntu 9.04 Installation: progress

Ubuntu 9.04 Installation: complete

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Asus EeePC Boot Screen (2)

Tell your Asus EeePC to reboot from another disk 

Reboot your EeePC. When you see the screen above, click [Esc] immediately and you'll be presented with a list of possible boot devices.

Boot from your SDHC Memory Card 

From the list of boot devices click on USB: Single Flash Reader, or whatever your memory card reader device is called, and not the 2 lines starting with HDD, as they are the EeePC Solid-State Disks.

Adding a Wireless Adapter Device Driver 

Ubuntu 9.04 may not recognize the wireless adapter installed in your netbook, in which case you will have to install it yourself, by using ndiswrapper to load the available Windows device driver. The following instructions apply to the Asus EeePC 901, and may need to be adapted for your own netbook:

  1. Open the Package Manager, using System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager, and select the following packages:
       ndiswrapper-common
       ndiswrapper-utils-1.9

    and install them.
  2. Download the Windows device driver rt2860 from Ralink.
  3. Open the Terminal, Applications > Accessories > Terminal. Assuming you downloaded the zip file containing the Windows rt2860 device driver to your Desktop, and then extracted the files to a folder called wireless on your Desktop, you can type the following to go to this folder:
       cd Desktop/wireless

  4. Load the drivers with ndiswrapper using the following commands in the Terminal:
       sudo ndiswrapper -i rt2860.inf
       sudo ndiswrapper -m

  5. The Asus EeePC 901 has an Azurewave wireless adapter installed, based on the RaLink rt2860 chipset. Earlier EeePC models have a different adapter, and other netbooks may not use this adapter either, so, if Ubuntu does not recognize the adapter automatically, you will need to find different Windows device drivers for these, and load them in the same way.
  6. To complete the installation, run the command:
       sudo gedit /etc/network/interfaces

  7. Add the following text in that file and save the file:
         auto lo
         iface lo inet loopback
  8. Run the commands:
       sudo modprobe ndiswrapper
       sudo gedit /etc/modules

  9. Add the following text in that file and save the file:
         ndiswrapper
  10. Finally, run the following command:
       sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart

  11. The wireless connectivity should work now.
  12. However, there is a problem using WPA with Ubuntu, where the PSK (Pre-shared key) is not stored in plain text, but in hexadecimal characters, so you have to enter the key again at every boot. You can fix this by running the command:
       sudo gedit /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf

  13. Add the following text in that file (modify the SSID and PSK in the non-Bold area with yours) and save the file:
         network={
         ssid="
    YourNetworksName"
         proto=WPA
         key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
         pairwise=TKIP
         group=TKIP
         psk="
    YourKey"
         }

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Ubuntu on eBay 

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SDHC cards on Amazon 

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SDHC cards on eBay 

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Ubuntu Netbook Remix on Wikipedia 

Ubuntu Netbook Remix (UNR) is a version of the Ubuntu Linux distribution that has been optimized to make it to work better on netbooks and other devices with small screens or with the Intel Atom computer processor.

UNR has been available since Ubuntu release 8.04 ("Hardy Heron"). UNR is an optional preinstalled operating system (OS) on some netbooks such as Dell Inspiron Mini 10v and the Toshiba NB100, and also runs on popular models such as the Acer Aspire One and the ASUS Eee PC.

Canonical, the company that is behind Ubuntu, is collaborating with Moblin project to ensure optimization for lower hardware requirements and higher battery life.Moblin Project

Easy Peasy on Wikipedia 

Easypeasy is an operating system for netbooks. It is based on Ubuntu. Easypeasy favors well known proprietary software instead of free and open source software alternatives (e.g. Skype instead of Ekiga) when the functionality offered is deemed better by its developers.

Eeebuntu on Wikipedia 

Eeebuntu (not to be confused with Easy Peasy, formerly known as Ubuntu Eee) is an operating system for netbooks based on Ubuntu. Eeebuntu is a Ubuntu/Debian Based Linux Distro designed originally for the Eeepc Range of Netbooks. It since has started to offer support focused on the Asus EeePC series of netbooks, with some support for a number of other netbooks such as the Samsung NC10, Acer Aspire One, and Dell Mini's.

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