Karmic (Beta) Test Installs

[Leonard Chatagnier]

--- On Tue, 10/6/09, NoOp <glgxg at sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> From: NoOp <glgxg at sbcglobal.net>
> Subject: Re: Karmic (Beta) Test Installs
> To: ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com
> Date: Tuesday, October 6, 2009, 10:00 AM
> On 10/05/2009 07:03 PM, Leonard
> Chatagnier wrote:
> > 
> > 
> > --- On Mon, 10/5/09, NoOp <snip> wrote:
> ...
> >> Sorry, forgot to add that the above can be
> corrected simply by
> >> issuing:
> >> 
> >> $ sudo update-grub
> >> 
> >> from a terminal in the newly installed karmic
> (beta). Grub 2 will
> >> then pick up the other OS install(s), add them to
> 
> >> /boot/grub/grub.cfg file & when you reboot,
> grub will show the
> >> other installs. Just tested & grub menu now
> shows the hardy install
> >> and booted into it just fine.
> >> 
> > Great, that's the news I was waiting for.  You
> can ignore my earlier
> > post asking if you had ran update-grub.  However,
> one questions
> > remains and since you upgraded over Jaunty it may not
> make any
> > difference.  The question is did you install
> grub2(grub-pc) on Jaunty
> > or Hardy before the Karmak upgrade?  
> 
> No. That test is for today. In these tests I 1) upgraded
> jaunty to
> karmic via the internet, and 2) in #3 I installed karmic
> from the
> Alternate CD.
> 
> Today I'll reinstall jaunty on the 10G drive and then test
> installing
> grub 2 on the install. I'll also see if I can figure out
> the problem
> with the liveCD install attempts and why it wouldn't
> overwrite the
> previous karmic install. My camera screen shots are too
> blurry to be of
> much use (you can see what is checked, but for some reason
> the focus is
> messed up & you can't read anything when the pic is
> expanded).
> 
I have some success to report that may be of help to others concerned with the grub2 issue of losing their previous installs. I use the Karmic(not Karmak as I previously wrote)AMD 64 live DVD on a new empty partition to install the Beta version and it went perfectly.  Didn't ask me if I had other OSes on the HDD but did show them on the partitioning part of the install. I never had to run sudo update-grub; just rebooted after completion and the grub start up screen had all my 10 OS entries.  To be specific, I used the "karmic dvd-amd64.iso" located at http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/dvd/current/ and did all 3 sum checks to be sure I had a perfect copy as it was a long download with all the Karmic activity going on on the repos.  I also used the manual partitioning method with the advanced feature(in case I'm not exact here, it was the last line on the part screen and you had to click the Advanced tab to specify the correct partition and its setup) to be
 sure the install would go in part 10. The only issue I had is that it made me do the part setup twice before it would move on to the next step; I guess that was a Ubuntu safety feature to be sure I had what I wanted but it confused me at the time.
Based on my good experience, I would recommend that anyone worrying about the grub2 issue use the live DVD, 64 or 32 bit to install Karmic.
I didn't install grub2 on Jaunty before the Karmic install but since mine was a fresh install I guess it was not required.  Don't mean to sound like a blog but hope this helps those concerned.
I had some crashes but nothing hurt the system after installing Kubuntu desktop but on startup this morning I so far have seen nothing.  Tried to file bug reports on the crashes but Ubuntu will have to make it much more user friendly before I attempt to file a report again.  I was a little bugged myself at 3 AM this morning when I went to bed after trying several time, unsuccessfully to file a bug report.  I also think the developers made a mistake with "Software Center".  What a PITA.  You can only select one app at a time to install and it's a PITA to find the app your looking for with it.  I finally went to Aptitude cli after modifying software sources in order to make progress getting things like they were in Jaunty.
Except for the long DVD iso download and the things mentioned here it was one of the smoothest, trouble free install I've had.  I, too, like NoOp prefer the alt CD for installs as it allows me to control what it dose and have had problems in getting the live CD to do what I want, but not this time. For those who have the disc space, I definitely recommend a fresh install on a new partion vs. an upgrade as it seems to be less problematic, at least for me.
HTH
Leonard Chatagnier
lenc5570 at sbcglobal.net