starhawk2
October 28th, 2017, 11:36 PM
I have a homebuilt 'laptop' (no battery was included) that I've put together. The system unit is a Wintel CX-W8 'MiniPC' from eBay. One of these awful things. (https://www.ebay.com/itm/282667234168) In addition to the system unit, there is a Dell-branded PS/2 to USB adapter for the keyboard, the keyboard proper (a SolidTek KB-595PW), an IOGear GUH304 hub (chosen for its ability to supply 1a current to each port, not for being USB3, which it is -- the system unit is USB2-only), an HDMI 7" 1024x600 LCD (with unused touch feature -- I've got it hooked to power but not to USB data -- display is a knockoff of this WaveShare Raspberry Pi display (http://www.waveshare.com/wiki/7inch_HDMI_LCD_(C))), and a "Speed STP-600 USB Smart Pad" external touchpad mouse. Right now the heap is hooked to an Ethernet connection, but when it's in regular use it will have an additional dongle added to it -- a Netgear WNDA4100 WiFi adapter. To combat potential heat issues, I've knocked a hole in the top of the system unit and added a fan... the whole pile is powered by a 5v 6a laptop-style brick.
The system unit's specs are an Atom Z3735F System-on-Chip, 2gb RAM, 32gb eMMC "SSD" -- and none of it upgradeable. Despite being a 64b system with 32b UEFI (!) I managed to get Xubuntu 16.04 on there some months ago... today I decided I wanted that to be 17.10... so, since I couldn't get a LiveCD to work with a known good method of patching it for use with these atrocious systems (see http://linuxiumcomau.blogspot.com/2017/06/customizing-ubuntu-isos-documentation.html for pertinent details), I decided to go the upgrade route.
Of course it wants to put up a fight. I now have a partially booting Xubuntu 16.10 system.
Whether working from patched LiveCD (a non-patched CD will not even boot) 'burnt' to USB using Rufus, or from the botched upgrade, the symptoms are nearly identical. The system boots fine until it's time to pull up graphics, at which point I get a wallpaper with no taskbar, icons, or cursor. The difference is that, with the LiveCD, the "I see wallpaper" point I cannot access a Terminal, whereas with the upgraded system I can get to CLI Mode with CTRL+ALT+F2.
I would prefer vastly to have a working LiveCD and install of 17.10 directly, rather than to continue with the upgrade, as I anticipate having the same exact problem at each successive upgrade stage and I'd really rather not muck with that if I don't have to. The patch script is available at the long URL above (the bloggy one) along with various supporting scripts, and the command I'm using to run the script is
./isorespin.sh -i /media/starhawk/DATA/downloads/xubuntu-17.10-desktop-amd64.iso -w /media/starhawk/DATA/linuxium-temp -f wrapper-linuxium-install-UCM-files.sh -c wrapper-linuxium-install-UCM-files.sh
Regarding the above command, 'starhawk' is my username, and 'DATA' is the partition of the SSD in my (main) computer, where the ISO lies. (This is not the same computer as the homebrew laptop, and it runs Mint 18.1... not that that matters here.) I have to use Rufus (on Win10, groan) to 'burn' the patched ISO to the USB drive from which I'm booting the system, by the way, as I don't have a UEFI-compatible optical drive, and these MiniPCs, along with everything else, only support booting from GPT-partitioned drives, which Rufus lets me set (unlike most, if not all, other such utilities).
Can someone advise me on how to proceed here?
The system unit's specs are an Atom Z3735F System-on-Chip, 2gb RAM, 32gb eMMC "SSD" -- and none of it upgradeable. Despite being a 64b system with 32b UEFI (!) I managed to get Xubuntu 16.04 on there some months ago... today I decided I wanted that to be 17.10... so, since I couldn't get a LiveCD to work with a known good method of patching it for use with these atrocious systems (see http://linuxiumcomau.blogspot.com/2017/06/customizing-ubuntu-isos-documentation.html for pertinent details), I decided to go the upgrade route.
Of course it wants to put up a fight. I now have a partially booting Xubuntu 16.10 system.
Whether working from patched LiveCD (a non-patched CD will not even boot) 'burnt' to USB using Rufus, or from the botched upgrade, the symptoms are nearly identical. The system boots fine until it's time to pull up graphics, at which point I get a wallpaper with no taskbar, icons, or cursor. The difference is that, with the LiveCD, the "I see wallpaper" point I cannot access a Terminal, whereas with the upgraded system I can get to CLI Mode with CTRL+ALT+F2.
I would prefer vastly to have a working LiveCD and install of 17.10 directly, rather than to continue with the upgrade, as I anticipate having the same exact problem at each successive upgrade stage and I'd really rather not muck with that if I don't have to. The patch script is available at the long URL above (the bloggy one) along with various supporting scripts, and the command I'm using to run the script is
./isorespin.sh -i /media/starhawk/DATA/downloads/xubuntu-17.10-desktop-amd64.iso -w /media/starhawk/DATA/linuxium-temp -f wrapper-linuxium-install-UCM-files.sh -c wrapper-linuxium-install-UCM-files.sh
Regarding the above command, 'starhawk' is my username, and 'DATA' is the partition of the SSD in my (main) computer, where the ISO lies. (This is not the same computer as the homebrew laptop, and it runs Mint 18.1... not that that matters here.) I have to use Rufus (on Win10, groan) to 'burn' the patched ISO to the USB drive from which I'm booting the system, by the way, as I don't have a UEFI-compatible optical drive, and these MiniPCs, along with everything else, only support booting from GPT-partitioned drives, which Rufus lets me set (unlike most, if not all, other such utilities).
Can someone advise me on how to proceed here?