Release notes should warn against installing Ubuntu on old machines

[Jan Claeys]

On di, 2007-03-06 at 22:12 +0000, Sitsofe Wheeler wrote:
> Ubuntu can have serious problem when installed on machines whose
> BIOSes cannot read files past the 1023rd cylinder. 

My system was bought in early 2000 and so probably has a BIOS from 1999,
but it boots just fine from this disk:

        $ LANGUAGE=en sudo fdisk -l /dev/hda
        
        Disk /dev/hda: 203.9 GB, 203928109056 bytes
        255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 24792 cylinders
        Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

So it's really no problem to install & boot Ubuntu on such an "old"
machine...


The problem might occur with dual boot systems though, or when you don't
have /boot in a place near the "front" of the disk?  In that case, we
probably should warn or stop users when they try to install in some
place that won't work.


-- 
Jan Claeys