[ubuntu-uk] Acer Aspire

[Rob Beard]

keith wrote:
> Yesterday I splashed out on a new toy - the Acer Aspire One netbook, the Linpus Lite version with 1GB ram, and a 120GB Hard Drive.  It's a very nice little machine and ideal for a first time user, but the OS is rather limited.
> 
> I've checked the Howto install Ubuntu on it at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AspireOne and at face value it looks pretty daunting.  If it all goes pear shaped
> it seems that I've got no means of recovering the original OS because of the lack
> of CD drive on the machine.
> 
> So before I commit myself, can any
> of our readers who may have already accomplished the feat tell me how
> successful/useable the installation has proved to be.
> 

I haven't actually got one of these machines yet (it's on my Christmas 
list), but I would suggest maybe the following:

Create a USB pen drive of Ubuntu or alternatively SystemRescueCD 
(http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page)

Create a disk image of the hard drive (assuming you haven't put much or 
anything on the machine yet you'd probably find the image would be small 
enough to stick on a large USB stick or SD card).

You can find details here: http://www.swerdna.net.au/linhowtoimage.html

This way if things go belly up you should be able to restore the hard 
disk image.

I've done this on a Windows based laptop with success, although I 
haven't tried it on a Linux machine, although I have successfully 
managed to create disk images of Linux machines.

I'm sure though someone else has actually tried it.  I'm surprised 
though that they didn't bundle in a restore CD/DVD, I mean an external 
USB DVD writer is only about £30 nowadays.

Rob