This is a work in progress, this means that I'm on it right now, it is not finished yet and it may breake your system!

Caveat

As you may already have guessed following this instruction may breake your systme and you are on your own to fix it again.

Partitioning

# fdisk /dev/hda

# mke2fs -j /dev/hda1
# mkswap /dev/hda2
# sync; sync; sync
# swapon /dev/hda5

mkdir /mnt/ubuntu

mount -t ext3 /dev/hda1 /mnt/ubuntu

Installing the Base System

If your current system is rpm based, use alien to install it or find a rpm on the web (http://azhrarn.underhanded.org/debootstrap-0.2.23-1.i386.rpm).

Chrooting

mount -t proc none /mnt/ubuntu/proc
mount -o bind /dev /mnt/ubuntu/dev
LANG= chroot /mnt/ubuntu /bin/bash

Installing OpenSSH Server

apt-get install openssh-server

Install a Kernel

apt-get install ....

Installing GRUB

apt-get install grub
mkdir /boot/grub
cp /lib/grub/i386-pc/* /boot/grub
vim /boot/grub/grub.conf

# /boot/grub/grub.conf
default 0
timeout 3

title=Ubuntu
  root (hd0,0)
  kernel /vmlinuz root=/dev/hda1
  initrd /initrd.img

ln -s /boot/grub/grub.conf /boot/grub/menu.lst

# grub

grub> root (hd0,0)
grub> setup (hd0)
grub> quit

Reboot

# exit

# umount /mnt/ubuntu/proc
# umount /mnt/ubuntu/dev
# umount /mnt/ubuntu
# reboot

Finishing

apt-get install ubuntu-standard

References

• [http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml The Gentoo Handbook] contains a very good (Gentoo specific) [http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=1 instruction on chrooted installation procedures].

• [http://doc.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/install/i386/apds03.html An other instruction] from the [http://doc.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/install/i386/index.html Ubuntu Installation Guide] is somewhat outdated and has shortcomings related to the bootloader installation.

• [http://www.underhanded.org/papers/debian-conversion/remotedeb.html HOWTO - Install Debian Onto a Remote Linux System]