Rough Book

random musings of just another computer nerd

Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) and Windows 7 dual-boot

In my previous post I talked about the problems I had while installing Ubuntu and Windows 7 on my Alienware m7700 laptop. It took me about three days of hair-pulling before I was finally able to get it to work. First, I burnt a new copy of the ISO for Ubuntu 9.04. Then, I enabled RAID on my system. I put the disks into stripe mode (the FastTrak Promise 378 does not support JBOD). This time, I got past the COMRESET error (ata3: COMRESET failed (errno=-16)) and was able to boot into the LiveCD. However, my joy was short-lived. The install would terminate (around the 40% mark) with the following message:

[Errno 5] Input/output error

This is often due to a faulty CD/DVD disk or drive, or a faulty hard disk. It may help to clean the CD/DVD, to burn the CD/DVD at a lower speed, to clean the CD/DVD drive lens (cleaning kits are often available from electronics suppliers), to check whether the hard disk is old and in need of replacement, or to move the system to a cooler environment.

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October 23, 2009 Posted by | Computers, Linux, Operating Systems, Windows | , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Ubuntu and Win7 problems

Yesterday I decided to reformat my Alienware m7700 Area-51 machine. It’s supposedly a laptop, but it’s actually a beast and it has a power supply that emits as much power as a small nuclear plant. Anyway, I put in a 500Gb and a 120Gb drive, with the 120Gb as a slave. The machine comes with a RAID controller (Promise SATA 378 TX2), but I have it turned off and in ATA mode. Win7 installed fine; the only problem I have is with the sound. My front speakers in my quadraphonic setup refuse to work. It’s strange. I even have the latest drivers from Creative for my Audigy2 ZS Notebook. It used to work fine before.

I figured I’d solve that problem later and decided to install Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty) on the 500Gb drive. The LiveCD boots up fine, but when I try to actually try out the LiveCD or even try to install Ubuntu, it fails. Everything hangs after this message:

ata3: COMRESET failed (errno=-16)

After searching on the internets, it seems to be a RAID controller issue and a fix exists in the kernel. So I don’t know why I still have the problem. If anyone knows of a solution, please let me know! I’m going to keep working on the problem and see if I can solve it.

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October 21, 2009 Posted by | Computers, Hardware, Linux, Operating Systems, Windows | , , , , , | 1 Comment

Apache2 and .htaccess with mod_rewrite on Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron)

Apparently the default settings for .htaccess files and URL rewrites in Ubuntu (8.04 anyway) is kinda jacked. Apache wasn’t seeing my .htaccess files, and even after setting up the configuration correctly, I was getting Internal Server (500) errors from .htaccess files.

The default setting for Apache2 on Ubuntu for .htaccess is “ignore it”. You need to enable it by going to /etc/apache2/sites-available/default and changing the AllowOverride directive, which you can find inside the <Directory> … </Directory> tags:

AllowOverride ALL

If you want to enable URL rewrites, you need to enable the mod_rewrite module as it is not enabled by default:

[11:31:14] vivin@dauntless ~/Projects/www/skyblue
$ sudo a2enmod rewrite
Module rewrite installed; run /etc/init.d/apache2 force-reload to enable.

[11:31:20] vivin@dauntless ~/Projects/www/skyblue
$ sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 force-reload
 * Reloading web server config apache2

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March 26, 2009 Posted by | Computers, Linux, Operating Systems | , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

There is no Windows 7

Here is a first look at the Windows 7 beta. All I could really get from the review was that “it’s done”, and that it “feels snappier” and that it is “more responsive”. In the screenshots it still looks like Vista. The taskbar reminds me of KDE. A bunch of torrent sites have the beta up for download. Microsoft is expected to announce the build’s public availability in January. So you can get a copy of it and try it out, but to do so might be “breaking the law”. But that hasn’t deterred a bunch of people who’re out downloading it. Right now, piratebay‘s torrent for the beta is showing 2,503 seeds and 8,137 peers.

On another note though. People seem to think that this is a new operating system from Microsoft. It isn’t. It’s just Vista Service Pack 3, in my opinion. I mean, how long did it take Microsoft to come up with Vista after XP? I seriously doubt they got a brand new operating system out in about a year and a half. The name is just a PR campaign to bury the name “Vista”. There is so much bad press and publicity surrounding the name that Microsoft has to get away from it, if they want the Vista codebase to be successful.

I had Vista on my laptop. It was alright; I didn’t use it long enough to run into too many issues. The UAC prompts were pretty annoying though. Also, compiling anything on it took forever. I’m running Ubuntu on it now, and it’s way faster. My sister and my dad both run Vista, but I haven’t heard of them having any problems. If Windows 7 really is good, then I might actually consider running it. I currently have only one Windows machine and that’s running XP. Everything else is either running FreeBSD or Linux.

Popularity: 2% [?]

December 28, 2008 Posted by | Computers, Operating Systems, Windows | , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

   

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