{"id":1255,"date":"2014-03-09T12:31:43","date_gmt":"2014-03-09T17:31:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.familytidings.com\/blog\/?p=1255"},"modified":"2014-03-09T12:31:43","modified_gmt":"2014-03-09T17:31:43","slug":"boon-installation-of-ubuntu-13-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.familytidings.com\/blog\/?p=1255","title":{"rendered":"Boon Installation of Ubuntu 13.10"},"content":{"rendered":"

Boon is a 64-bit AMD machine with 2 GB RAM. It has Ubuntu 10.04 LTS on it which, while still supported, is a little long in the tooth. For instance, it doesn’t support my Canon 60D RAW files very well and a few applications are no longer supported, including Chrome and the newest upgrade of BeerSmith 2.
\nSince the OS on this computer is so old, I decided to perform a new install and migrate the user accounts.<\/p>\n

The installation is going to replace an Ubuntu 9 installation. I renamed the Ubuntu 9 partitions for Ubuntu 13. Here’s what will be used:<\/p>\n

\/ on LVM volume ubuntu13-root<\/code>, 10GB ext4
\n\/home on LVM volume ubuntu13-home<\/code>, 32 GB ext4
\n\/boot on \/dev\/sda6<\/code>, 9GB ext4 (yes this is unnecessarily large, but there was one chunk left at the end of the disk)
\nswap on \/dev\/sdb9<\/code>, 3GB swap
\nBoot loader installed on \/dev\/sda<\/code><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Both Ubuntu 13.10 64 and 32-bit and 12.04 LTS experienced hard lock-ups running from the USB drive and after logging in when installed to the hard disk. It seems the problem is a conflict with the NVidia graphics card and the Nouveau drivers. \u00c2\u00a0Because of this it took a few tries, but eventually the installer was successful. \u00c2\u00a0The first step when booting up the new OS is to Ctrl-Alt-F1 to a text terminal, log in and replace the Nouveau driver:<\/p>\n

sudo apt-get install nvidia-current<\/code><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

From there, it was a mostly normal set up.<\/p>\n

Settings > Appearance > Auto hide launcher on<\/p>\n

Open a terminal and install Synaptic, which is much faster than the Ubuntu Software Center:<\/p>\n

sudo apt-get install synaptic<\/code><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In synaptic, install gkrellm<\/code>, nautilus-dropbox<\/code>, keepassx<\/code>, and emacs<\/code>. \u00c2\u00a0From Firefox, install Chrome<\/a>. \u00c2\u00a0After starting each of these except GKrellm and Emacs, right click on the respective application icon on the Launcher and lock it to the launcher. \u00c2\u00a0GKrellm should start at log in. \u00c2\u00a0To do that, run Startup Applications and add GKrellm. \u00c2\u00a0The executable is \/usr\/bin\/gkrellm<\/code>.<\/p>\n

To keep the rest of the family happy, I want the old 10.04 LTS version to boot by default. \u00c2\u00a0So before going further, that should be done with Grub Customizer<\/a>. \u00c2\u00a0Start Grub Customizer from the Dash. \u00c2\u00a0Under List Configuration, move the entry and Advanced Options group for Ubuntu 10 to the top. \u00c2\u00a0Under the General Settings tab, change the default entry to Ubuntu 10. \u00c2\u00a0Under “advanced settings”, uncheck GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET<\/code>. \u00c2\u00a0Save and reboot to test it. The Grub configuration wasn’t working. To find out why, I installed Boot-Repair<\/a> and ran the report generator. Grub was updating the boot loader on \/dev\/sda<\/code>, but BIOS was booting \/dev\/sdb<\/code>. Telling Grub Customizer to install the the MBR on \/dev\/sdb<\/code> fixed the problem.<\/p>\n

Google Maps in Chrome is pinging the CPU at 100% and taking a long time to update. It’s running just fine in Firefox. I read while diagnosing the Nouveau driver problem that new versions of Chrome disable hardware acceleration on older NVidia cards. It looks like that’s what’s happening, as shown in chrome:\/\/gpu<\/code>. There’s an article on correcting this<\/a>. I enabled these to (mostly) fix it (Chrome version 33.0.1750.146) in chrome:\/\/flags<\/code>:<\/p>\n