Release notes should warn against installing Ubuntu on old machines

[David Dean]

two cents for free..

>From memory the "old" way to deal with this was to create a tiny slice
at the start of the disk, and install boot there - whether the user
requests it or not. There is (almost) no down-side to this in the
modern era, and personally, if ubuntu wants 10mb at the start of my
200gb drive I can cope with that added complexity.

I'm certain this was being done a decade ago with linux (been away for
a while!).

Cheers,
David

On 3/7/07, Jan Claeys <lists at janc.be> wrote:
> 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
>
>
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-- 
David Dean
+61 402 55 6068
dave.dean at gmail.com