GNU/Linux Desktop Survival Guide by Graham Williams
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Ganesha Install Log

29 Apr 2006

Standard install (see Section 4.4.3). Choose boot media with F12 on boot. MS/Windows XP Professional is already installed, so use the Debian GNU/Linux installer to reduce the NTFS partition size, but keep it, and repartition the remainder, ending up with a dual boot machine.

Install: lang=English, location=Australia, kb=American English, network through DHCP, hostname=ganesha, resize NT partition.

The repartitioning of the pre-existing MS/Windows NTFS partition is handled directly by the Debian GNU/Linux installer. To resize the NTFS partition, select the partition:

  #2 primary 95.2GB ntfs

Press Enter to invoke ntfsresize to get information about what can be done. This can take some time. We want to keep this NTFS partition but make it smaller. Choose the size (20GB) and write changes to disk.

Then partition the new free space as a Desktop Machine. The default Desktop partition was then:

/	7G	sda5
/home	65G	sda7
swap	3G	sda6

Grub automatically noticed MS/Windows XP and added an appropriate entry for booting.

The machine is now rebooted. Rebooting into MS/Windows resulted in a dirty volume being noticed, and MS/Windows ran chkdisk to verify files, indexes, and security, and all was okay.

Reboot back into Debian.

Set root passwd, user account, apt install.

Package installs: exim4 (smarthost with no local delivery).

Point apt to unstable and install sudo and wajig, and all the rest!

StartX (choosing defaults for setup) seems okay (choosing vesa driver). Replace with i810 driver.

Install kernel-image-2.6.16-1-686-smp. In /etc/fstab change the /dev/hda to /dev/sda and tell Grub to boot from /dev/sda5:

  # kopt=root=/dev/sda5 ro

21 April 2011

This laptop is now a FreedomBox server for my home network. See Chapter 31 for details.

15 December 2013

Set up the laptop as a prototype server for ecosysl.com.

Download the Ubuntu 13.10 image for 32bit install and burn to DVD on Nyx.

Backup the current full disk (16 GB) to a USB disk

$ sudo rsync -av . kayon@nyx:/media/sabrina/ganesha.131211

Reboot and choose F12 to boot from DVD. Test Ubuntu out from DVD. Noted the screen resolution looks great — 1600x1050 — running the i915 video modules. Interaction just fine and network connected.

Clean install of Ubuntu 13.10 from DVD using dash icon. Choose English. Choose to download updates while installing. Choose to install third-party software. Replace Debian GNU/Linux (7.2) with Ubuntu. Choose to encrypt the new Ubuntu installation for security—a passphrase will be required for each reboot—as a server we would want it to reboot without a passphrase after a power failure, but since the battery is kept charged, a power failure is unlikely to require a reboot anyhow. Choose to use LVM with the new Ubuntu installation. Enter a passphrase. Choose to overwrite empty disk space. Choose English (US) keyboard. Enter Name, computer name, username, password, encrypt home folder. Log into Ubuntu One.

To now set it up as ecosysl.com. Install wajig and ensure everything is up to date. Install apps:

$ wajig install lamp-server^ ssh nfs-kernel-server meld most emacs
$ wajig install bzr bzr-email ssmtp mailutils
$ wajig install fail2ban python-gamin

Enter password for mysql. Notice I install ssmtp as a very simple sendmail since all I want is to be able to send mail via smtp and not receive email on this server (at least for now). I can send email via my ISP directly using SMTP without additional username and password log on. Also needs mailutils to provide the mail program.