Want Linux. Heard of trouble installing Ubuntu or variant on a Sony Vaio SR-17.

[james83501]

OK... I'm a newbee to linux. However, I have wanted to put either Xubuntu, or Ubuntu on since it came out. I have a Sony SR-17 with the Sony proprietary PCMCIA DVD drive (expensive little bugger). I wish to install either Ubuntu or Xubuntu. I understand that this model (and other) Sonys have trouble loading and they hang up at 82%, because it shuts down the PCMCIA (I think?...). This is important because the DVD stops at that point. I did some research, and found others who had successfully overcome this very problem while installing an earlier version of linux. I will give you the links. They are very thorough, even with other issues that had arisen. I'll let you Gurus process this for a while and see if you think it will take care of the many issues this little guy has. I have found a memory guy on e-bay that says technology has gotten to the point where we can replace our old 256-512 meg memory for a couple gigs and has even specified which would work. plus a huge hard drive would be cool. Which linux do you think I should run (after you guys check out these workarounds) and should I get the larger memory and HDD. My son has Ubunto (until his windows xp partition crashed his whole system). I liked what I had seen and have no interest in windows any more (no dual partition BS). An e-mail (besides the post) would be nice to confirm what I need to do to get rid of Microsoft and start my linux adventure. I have no programming experience, but catch on fast.

Following are the links:

http://www.eyrie-productions.com/~ra.../sonysr17.html
http://shallowsky.com/linux/vaiolinux.html
http;//shallowsky.com/linux/vaiotricks.html

Thanks, James

[VMC]

First you might want to try downloading ubuntu 8.04 and then see if you can boot your system okay with it. Then when its fully booted up. There should be a little icon of the terminal. It should say Terminal under it. Click on that and type in 'fdisk -l' and copy that so we can see what is already installed and where.

The ubuntu livecd has option to install on free disk space. It's not that hard to install and if all else fails you can delete the partition it was install in.

Also, backup what you already have installed. I'll assume Windows XP. Do you have a backup program? Do you know how to use it or have you backup your computer before.

[james83501]

I do have XP on 7.5 gigs the rest of the HDD is on a seperate partition with over 10 gigs free. I do not have a back-up, and I keep most of my stuff on a jump drive. I have been running lean in an attempt to speed XP up. Therefor backing up won't be an issue. What are the chances one could boot Ubuntu (or Xubuntu depending on what would work best on my 700mhz machine) up on the other partition, wipe out XP, get rid of that partition (do not want windows any more), and resize Ubuntu. Or, should I get something like "Killdisk" or "dban" to wipe everything out and start over? The main problem I am hearing about this little sony sr17 is that the DVD is run on the PCMCIA slot and that some of the distros stop at 82%. Others caugh at the network stuff due to the card slot using the dvd (I have a PCMCIA network card). Thanks for your response.

James.

[VMC]

It's up to you on what you want to do. You can boot on ubuntu boot disk and from install icon install ubuntu and have it use entire disk. It will wipe out xp itself.

See if in fact it fails. Or are yo using the disk to connect to the internet? Even so, you can use the ubuntu livecd to get back here. Or just have install to free disk space.

You might get lucky and it will work.

[james83501]

Lets see... I have a Vaio SR17. Since my network card uses the same card slot as my cdrw-DVD rom, and since the usual installation bugs for installing just about any linux system point to shutting down the disc when assessing the card for networking, and requires some programing skill to work around it, what about somehow downloading Ubuntu or xubuntu on a usb stick (the vaio's floppy system uses the usb, though I do not have a floppy), and then installing it from there? How would I go about that???\

James