How to change from 12.10 to 12.04 ?

[Kanahau]

Hi,
i am ABSOLUTELY new to this. I installed 12.10 with WUBI on my DELL inspiron mini 10 (running XP home edition). Its great, but a but clunky especially calling up the dash, i read somewhere 12.04 works a bit smoother on this netbook. How do i change it and when i do will i have the option of increasing the partition or getting rid of windows completely? (was it a real installation with wubi?) i would like to install it properly? this time but my netbook has no dvd???? or is it just as good using wubi?

A thousand thanks for your help on my road to recovery from windows...........

[Wim Sturkenboom]

The best way to chance is by doing a clean install; there is no easy way to 'downgrade'.

If you want to get rid of Windows, don't use the wubi installer but do a normal install.

You can use a USB memory stick and 'burn' the downloaded ISO on there; instructions can e.g. be found on the Ubuntu download page. Next boot from it (you might have to change the boot order in the BIOS to boot from USB first).

During the partitioning phase, select manual partitioning, delete all partitions and create new ones. One for swap (size of RAM), one for the root partition (about 25GB) and the rest for /home. If your HD is small (50GB or less), I would only make a swap partition and a root partition.

I don't know if 12.04 is much lighter on resources than 12.10; if you want something lighter, use Lubuntu, Xubuntu or another lightweight distro.

[dolphin194]

Your Dell Inspiron Mini 10 will run Ubuntu 12.04 quite nicely. I have not tried Ubuntu 12.10 on my Inspiron Mini 10v (which is running Xubuntu 12.04 at the moment), but when I had Ubuntu 12.04 installed it ran fine.

Like the other poster said, there is no easy way to "downgrade" Ubuntu (as you can see on this page). Your best bet is to re-install Ubuntu.

Also, you are running a Wubi install from what you posted. When you install Ubuntu with the Wubi installer, your computer can lack the performance of a fresh install.

Back up your data, then grab a USB stick and follow the steps here to install Ubuntu (It also works for Ubuntu 12.04):
http://www.ubuntu.com/download/help/...desktop-latest

[snowpine]

Welcome to the forums!

Dell actually made 3 different computers with the name "Inspiron Mini 10." If we figure out which one you have, then maybe we can help with your sluggishness issue.

1. Open a terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T or tap Super/Windows key and type "terminal")
2. Copy & paste the following command:

lspci | grep VGA

3. Copy & paste the output into your reply here.

Based on the answer, I will try to give you good advice. Please don't be hasty and wipe your 12.10 install to reinstall 12.04 until you have explored all your options.

[tlhIngan]

The best way to chance is by doing a clean install; there is no easy way to 'downgrade'.

Welcome to the forums!
Dell actually made 3 different computers with the name "Inspiron Mini 10." If we figure out which one you have, then maybe we can help with your sluggishness issue.

Both of these are very good recommendations.
If your computer is sluggish, you should perhaps try the lighter versions of Ubuntu, like Lubuntu (that's what I'm running on my 9-year-old and 7-year-old PCs), or Xubuntu.
They are essentially the same as the official releases of Ubuntu, but they are packaged with a lighter interface. Often, that's where the sluggishness comes from.

[Kanahau]

Hi Snowpine,
Thanks for your answer, I am happy to wait and see your further advice, i would rather do this right once than mess things up, do you think i should completely remove windows? i have already backed up all my work and deleted as much as i know how from my windows er...bit.
so this is what i got from the terminal

steve@ubuntu:~$ lspci | grep VGA
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GSE Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
steve@ubuntu:~$

i hope it means something to you cause its left me scratching my head..........

i await eagerly your reply

[Kanahau]

my thanks to Wim Sturkenboom, dolphin194 and tlhIngan too, this is the first time i have used a forum for anything, thank you for making me feel noticed and of course your advice

[blackbird34]

The command

lspci | grep VGA

was to see what graphics card you had to see if it's the problem.
I can't really tell you anything about that, but I can already say that
1) If you're new, switching to 12.04 is a good idea because it will be more than 4 years before support runs out (upgrades are free but still, it's less hassle to sit on the same OS for a while)
2) I'd advise you to keep Windows, you never know if you'll need it, but you should get used to Ubuntu quick, so you can reduce the Windows XP partition to be quite small (but still make sure there's room for XP and whatever files you have).
3) Detailed installation instructions if you are using a live CD or if you are installing from a USB stick. Both are very easy and straightforward, and (I findà much simpler than when i had to reinstall Windows.

EDIT: You may find the links in my signature useful

[snowpine]

Hi Snowpine,
Thanks for your answer, I am happy to wait and see your further advice, i would rather do this right once than mess things up, do you think i should completely remove windows? i have already backed up all my work and deleted as much as i know how from my windows er...bit.
so this is what i got from the terminal

steve@ubuntu:~$ lspci | grep VGA
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GSE Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
steve@ubuntu:~$

i hope it means something to you cause its left me scratching my head..........

i await eagerly your reply

Hi, you are in luck, because Intel 945GSE is well-supported by Linux. But, paired with the Atom processor, it is simply rather weak hardware to get the best performance with a full-featured "bells and whistles" distribution like Ubuntu.

For a performance boost, you might consider installing the lightweight Xfce or LXDE desktop environment. Here is a page with screenshots of Xfce (Xubuntu) and easy instructions to install it:

http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/xfce

Installing LXDE is a similar concept.

[Kanahau]

Actually, like a kid on Christmas day i went ahead and installed ubuntu 12.04.1, removed windows completely (although maybe i should have taken blackbird34's advice there..........). Everything seems fine. I am no gamer and only really work on the computer (docs,emails and work on my website). Of course i watch a few films too but i don't think i use he machine hard.
Thanks to you all for your help.

i do have one more small question i want to install Barry but... the instructions say :-

To install the latest version of Barry onto Debian Squeeze, add the following line to your /etc/apt/sources.list file:
deb http://download.barry.netdirect.ca/barry-latest/ squeeze main

What is my "/etc/apt/sources.list file:" ?

also a little further down it says:-

Finally, you will need to update your apt keyring with the following key:
82DE DE11 74C1 0EA7 C55D 5679 3B52 35AE B6C2 250E

One way to fetch this key is by using gpg:



gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-key B6C2250E
gpg --armor --export B6C2250E > barry.key
apt-key add barry.key

is that last bit in the terminal?