I have an Asus EeePC 701 4G. It’s now being overtaken by many other “netbooks“, but it still does me fine (despite Cassie saying it for children or girls – sexist eh? Go sister.). It came with a special Xandros Linux distro, but it was a bit haphazard, and didn’t really make best use of the small screen. I fiddled around, used the full KDE interface, installed various tools, but I’ve become tired of the Eee-specific versions of packages like Amarok and Firefox.
My desktop PC runs Ubuntu, and I’ve been happy with that, so I was intrigued to hear about the Ubuntu Netbook Remix, a version of Ubuntu tweaked for use on small-screen portable devices. I was even more intrugued to find out about Ubuntu-eee, a distro based on Ubuntu, including the Netbook Remix bits, aimed specifically at the Asus EeePC range.
So I went along to the page and have since been struggling to install it. I did post a question to the designated Launchpad site here: Ubuntu Eee question #45698: “Unetbootin segmentation faultâ€. But to date noone has answered, so I’m throwing the net wider. Here’s what I’ve done so far, to lay it out in case anyone fancies helping me (hint, hint).
- Went along to the Ubuntu-eee download page here: http://www.ubuntu-eee.com/wiki/index.php5?title=Get_Ubuntu_Eee
- First thing was to download the current version’s ISO file via Bittorrent from here: http://www.mininova.org/tor/1790364. Done, copied to a USB stick for backup.
- Then I downloaded current eeepc build of UNetbootin from Sourceforge here: http://downloads.sourceforge.net/unetbootin/unetbootin-eeeubuntu-linux-238?modtime=1214975255&big_mirror=0. Done, copied to a USB stick for backup.
- Ran “sudo apt-get install syslinux p7zip-full” to download required packages. Done.
- Ran unetbootin and nothing happened. Ran it from a terminal and saw it was getting a segmentation fault. I don’t know what that is, but I gather it is bad, so I was stuck.
- END OF ATTEMPT
At this point I was a bit miffed. I didn’t really know what to do, but I thought perhaps a clean slate would help. I had backed up everything from the machine in readiness for the OS upgrade, so I used the EeePC backup feature. The EeePC comes with a special “restore partition” which allows you to wipe the machine back to it’s factory state by getting into a boot menu by repeatedly pressing F9 during boot, and selecting “Factory Restore”. This completely replaces the OS with the factory-supplied Xandros setup.
I did the restore, and everything was back to how it was late last year when I first switched the machine on. Nice and friendly and simple. Luckily the web worked straightaway, as I was connected by Ethernet cable. Back to the installation process.
- Went to the download page as above.
- Already had the ISO on the USB backup.
- Already had Unetbootin on the USB backup.
- Ran “sudo apt-get install syslinux p7zip-full” to download required packages. No luck – it says it can’t find the packages.
- Ran “sudo apt-get update” to update the packages list. Tried again – no luck.
- END OF ATTEMPT
Question – what respository are these packages in?
Update 1:
- I added the catch-all repositories listed here: http://wiki.eeeuser.com/addingxandrosrepos?s=repositories
- I was then able to install syslinux, but p7zip-full still showed up “not found”
- Searched around, and found p7zip-full at linuxappfinder.com. A good source!
- Downloaded a deb file for p7zip-full
- Installed fine.
- Ran unetbootin, it complains that it needs GLIBC, whatever that is.
- Back to linuxappfinder, find LIBC6 which is very important apparently.
- Downloaded the “sarge” deb file, wouldn’t install.
- Downloaded the “etch” deb file, CRASHED LAPTOP.
- Even ps -e gives a segmentation fault.
- Had to hold down power button to shut down.
- Upon restart, fatal error regarding GLIBC. And again on reboot. Godammit.
- Restore EeePC from special partition. Again.
- END OF ATTEMPT.
This is getting annoying.
- OK. Fresh new install.
- Straight to linuxappfinder.
- Installed deb file of “etch” version of syslinux.
- Installed deb file of “etch” version of p7zip-full.
- Downloaded “etch” version of libc6. Won’t install.
- Checked error message from unetbootin – it says “/lib/tls/libc.so.6: version ‘GLIBC_2.4’ not found”. Version 2.4?
- Found and downloaded an Ubuntu “edgy” version of the libc6 deb that says it’s 2.4.
- Guess what? It won’t install. Bugger.
- END OF ATTEMPT
Questions: What is libc? Do I already have it? Why can’t I install it? Why can’t anything be simple? Why won’t anyone from the Ubuntu-eee launchpad site help me? (that last one sounded a bit whiney)
Update 2Â
- I asked a twitter contact for help, he responded later in the comments, and I’ll address them in a minute. Here’s what I did before going to bed.
- Back into the fray. I got the idea from various sites that installing build-essential may have what I need.
- “sudo apt-get install build-essential” – can’t find build-essential.
- Do I already have libc6 installed?Ran “dpkg -l | grep libc | more”. This tells me I have libc6 v2.3.6.ds1-13 installed. Unetbootin asks for 2.4.
- Quick search suggests changing the version of libc6 installed is a bad idea.
- END OF UPDATE
CURRENT SITUATION: Unetbootin needs GLIBC 2.4. I have GLIBC 2.3, and I’ve been advised against trying to change that. Another person I asked for help recommended not using Unetbootin at all, but I have no idea how else to do it. I’m just following a list of instructions after all.