format, but however in this case I am going to restrict myself to simply ext3.
The system comes with a 160GB HD, which is more then enough for what I am going to use it for with a single OS based install seeing as I always work from network server. Out of this 160GB I will allocate 30GB to my root / partition, 3GB to my swap partition, and the rest to my user /home partition, this will be done by having the root on a primary partition and the rest on an extended or logical based partition. The current partitioning scheme can be seen below:
kaya@Compaq2230s:~$ df h |
| ||
Filesystem | Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on | ||
/dev/sda1 | 28G 4.9G 22G 19% / | ||
tmpfs | 958M | 0 958M 0% /lib/init/rw | |
varrun | 958M 132K 958M | 1% /var/run | |
varlock | 958M 4.0K 958M | 1% /var/lock | |
udev | 958M 168K 958M | 1% /dev | |
tmpfs | 958M 212K 958M | 1% /dev/shm | |
lrm | 958M | 2.5M 956M | 1% /lib/modules/2.6.2814generic/volatile |
/dev/sda5 | 117G 6.8G 104G | 7% /home | |
root@Compaq2230s:~# fdisk l
Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Disk identifier: 0x80d2f3ee
Device Boot | Start | End | Blocks | Id System |
/dev/sda1 * | 1 | 3647 | 29294496 | 83 Linux |
/dev/sda2 | 3648 | 19457 | 126993825 5 Extended | |
/dev/sda5 | 3648 | 19087 | 124021768+ 83 Linux | |
/dev/sda6 | 19088 | 19457 | 2971993+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris | |
Table1. Filesystem and disk usage information.
3.2 Configuration:
After initial bootup of the HD install, the system was again very fast to get from initial mode 0 (init 0) to initial mode or run level 5 (init 5) and rapidly went from the off state to the KDM login manager. From here the overall viewing perspective changed as I could still see that the system was running at 1024x768 resolution superimposed upon the 1280x800 widescreen. Logging into the KDE4 desktop environment, the panels and windows were larger then they should be when compared to my other laptop also running at the same resolution of 1280x800. This meant diving into the system to check what the overall status of everything was as it seemed to be a bit of deja vous and the HiGrade all over again. First lets start by seeing if the KDE4 environment actually was in 1280x800 resolution or if it was running in 1024x768.
Opening the Kicker or Kmenu and going to System Settings and Display actually revealed that the system thought that it was at the correct WXGA resolution. This meant that either we had a driver issue on our hands or something wrong with KDE interfacing with the kernel and the X server. My immediate response was to perform an upgrade of all packages and kernel so that I had the latest hardware support. For this to happen I needed to either use the wired or wireless network controller:
Before dealing with that though Ubuntu has a major security issue of having sudo enabled, meaning that if a sudoer's account gets hacked then the hacker has potential access to the root user account and filesystem. Let's sort this out quickly as one can do everything they need to by using the su command. Booting up a terminal window, Konsole in KDE4, then running: sudo passwd root and entering the 'new' root password will set a specific password for the root or 'superuser' account. Once this is done we have the ability to su to root without any problems or fear of weak security.
3.3 Wireless setup:
Now, as I was performing the install downstairs I needed to connect to my WAP in order to have inter/intranet access. This meant connecting to one of 4 WAPs, since 3 of them were being used in a point to multipoint WDS bridge, that left me with connecting to the Cisco 857W 2 floors above me.
Did the system even have support for the wireless interface??
5
