New instalation, old distribution, antique machine

[Felix Miata]

On 2012/07/31 20:36 (GMT-0400) Dave Burrows composed:

> Felix Miata wrote:

>>  ...As long as Linux is already installed and functional, and decent
>>  internet access speed is available, both upgrade and new installation
>>  are possible by first downloading only the installation kernel and
>>  initrd, booting them with Grub, and installing directly from the
>>  internet via HTTP or FTP. This valuable method works when PXE is not
>>  available, as well as when it is, and when booting from floppy, CD,
>>  DVD or USB for whatever reason won't work. Only what's actually needed
>>  gets downloaded this way, plus things not available on conventional
>>  installation media.

> ...I followed Nils Kassube's
> suggestion, of editing sources.list so it points to
> old-releases.ubuntu.com rather than archive.ubuntu.com.  I ran into some
> trouble when I tried to edit permissions in order to save the changes;
> it told me I wasn't the owner.

> This suggestion sound pretty interesting also.  I'm somewhat concerned
> that it is going to run into the same permissions block that I've run
> into twice over the last 3 days of working on this. So, it seems to me
> that the next logical step would be to solve that.  I'd like to know a
> little more about your thinking, with a few steps to point me in the
> right direction...if you have the time, and patience, that is.  I almost
> understand, but it would be helpful to know how to find the installation
> kernel on the Ubuntu site, and to know what initrd is, and where to find it.

Initrd also goes by the name initramfs. It's a compacted mini filesystem and 
driver library from which the kernel loads drivers and initializes boot to 
permanent storage or starts an installation program.

If you haven't already, start with 
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/NetbootInstallFromInternet 
which for a 32 bit PC and 12.04 should lead you to 
http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise/main/installer-i386/current/images/netboot/ubuntu-installer/i386/ 
to find its installation kernel and initrd. The content of 
http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise/main/installer-i386/current/images/netboot/ubuntu-installer/i386/boot-screens/ 
should give the necessary clues to figure out how to add a stanza to your 
Grub to appropriately load them when you're ready to begin installation.

Naturally if your existing HD is fully consumed by the existing installation 
your only choices might seem to be to attempt an upgrade installation, or do 
a fresh installation. It's often the case that a better choice is rearranging 
your HD so that multiple installations can be made, so that you have 
multiboot (more often mislabeled "dual boot", even though dual means exactly 
two while multi means more than one, and if Windows is installed alongside 
more than one Linux distro it technically cannot be dual), with as many 
different installations as your mind can cope with. Linux installers 
typically include a partitioning process capable of this rearrangement during 
installation, but doing so ahead of time as a separate process holds 
potential advantages. To make multiboot possible you can either repartition 
and reformat, or reformat to use LVM, or do a combination of both. Which 
makes best sense depends in part on your existing partitioning, in part on 
your backup strategy, and in part on whether or not you already have a 
separate partition for /home. Multiboot setup and operation is as much an art 
as a science.

Multiboot enables use of an existing system undisturbed, while experimenting 
with other(s) on alternate boots to discover suitability of switching to 
another release, or test development of an as yet unreleased next version. 
Once you know the bugs in the new are not an obstacle to normal everyday use 
you can quit the old release and use only the new, saving the old as a 
fallback in case of catastrophe, and eventually using it for the next round 
of testing or fresh installation of a new version. People often suggest to do 
the testing with a live version, but that is somewhat more limited in 
capability compared to a HD installation, such as not being able to add other 
or update existing software.

On an old laptop, the HD may be so small as to make multiboot impractical, 
but as cheap and as large as HDs have grown, it might be sensible to replace 
the old small existing with a fresh new with lots of space, and stick the old 
on a USB adapter to fetch data files from post-installation of the new OS. If 
the laptop is seriously old, before replacing, be sure to investigate whether 
there could be a BIOS HD size limitation best avoided. You might want or need 
to avoid going to the largest available size.
-- 
"The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant
words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation)

  Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata  ***  http://fm.no-ip.com/