ubuntu, installing over PXE boot / TFTP server from windows

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ubuntu, installing over PXE boot / TFTP server from windows

arc

this is where i stand
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i have a dell lattitude LS. Tiny laptop. It's old, but does the job (surfing/car). It has no optical drive, cannot boot from USB but i do have an external FDD drive for it. BUT no other machine with an FDD on it. DOH!

it was running a stripped out install of XP, but i suspected ubuntu would do a better job of handling the limited resources (P3 500, 256mb RAM).

Following this guide;

http://hugi.to/blog/archive/2006/12/23/ubuntu-pxe-install-via-windows/page/3

It booted from the TFTP server, loaded up the netboot installer and is currently downloading the archives. YAY, it worked.

That is all.
 
How is the performance? I have Ubuntu installed on an Acer Travelmate (Celeron 2.4GHz, 256MB RAM, 60GB HDD) and still find it as sluggish as XP was. I'd hoped it would be much zippier than it is. I don't have any of the fancy desktop effects enabled either. Perhaps I just need more memory?
 
running it atm, doesn't seem slugish but i installed a CLI install of Ubuntu and then installed #crunchbang on top of it.

it's stripped out, but does what i need. shame the screen is only 12.1" and 800x600 though.

might sell this, and my other laptop and buy something with a better screen.

it's def quicker than XP was on here.
 
I really like the latest Ubuntu distro because it's getting more and more user friendly with every release. Unfortunately it seems to be following Windows in that every release needs more and more power to use it properly. I have it installed as a dual boot on my new build Windows 7 machine as well and it is truly excellent on that.

How about Ubuntu for netbooks? Would it be worth installing that on my laptop?
 
Just checked out the Xubuntu homepage but it's a little light on info.

Does it still incorporate easy networking compatibility with Windows with Samba? And does it have the built in update/application installation tool? I don't really want to get into command line interfaces for software installation which I why I like Ubuntu so much. If it ran all the games I wanted to play I wouldn't bother with Windows at all.
 
Xubuntu uses the Xfce desktop environment instead of Gnome or KDE. It does include the Synaptic package manager so its easy to install apps.
No reason you shouldn't be able to see Windows shares and you could even configure it to be a Fileserver (Samba) if you install the Samba package.

Its a "Live" CD so why not give it a try and only install it if you like what you see? You can always just eject the CD if you don't like it ;)
 
I've tried the Xubuntu live CD and quite liked it. It is very similar to Ubuntu and seems to have all the features I want. Took me ages to figure out how to uninstall Ubuntu but finally managed it and now I've installed Xubuntu. Seems to be a bit faster but we'll see how it goes with extended use. Just getting all the updates and then I'll install what programs I want and set up networking.

Looking good so far though. (y)
 
Oh dear. Don't know what the problem is but Xubuntu is painfully, agonisingly slow on my laptop. It can take minutes for a mouse click to be acted on. The desktop is fine if I'm not running any programs but trying to run Firefox just brings everything to a grinding halt. Clicked the 'close window' button to shut it down and it took about 5 minutes (!) to do it.

This is no good at all. Back to the drawing board.
 
OK, I've had enough. Running a Linux distro on my laptop was a nice idea but it's just too frustrating and time wasting to be worth it.

Got rid of all traces of Linux and restored it back to XP which I am now optimising for best performance. I'm surprised that Linux actually performed much worse than XP, it's not been the case on any other machine I've set it up on.
 
OK, I've had enough. Running a Linux distro on my laptop was a nice idea but it's just too frustrating and time wasting to be worth it.

Got rid of all traces of Linux and restored it back to XP which I am now optimising for best performance. I'm surprised that Linux actually performed much worse than XP, it's not been the case on any other machine I've set it up on.

Linux has always as a general rule been a bit Iffy on laptops. Usually to do with hardware support for some of the base hardware incorporated into the motherboard such as memory controllers, bridges etc. So they end up using a generic one which works albeit with poor performance.
 
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