Help and information

Contents

Help and information
Alternate Install
1. Notes
2. Unmanaged Wired Network
  1. Edit /etc/network/interfaces
  2. Change Network Manager settings

The graphical installation system (Ubiquity) requires more RAM than Lubuntu needs to run. If you have less than 160MB RAM you cannot use the graphical installation, you will also find this alternate installation method faster if you have less than 256MB RAM than using the standard install method. Please be aware that your system may seem to 'hang' (stop) at about 90% (dpkg), it has not; it just takes a little time (up to 90 minutes).

There is a known issue with connecting external hard drives, this is currently under investigation.

If you are using a system with really low amounts of RAM you might want to have a look at Lubuntu Mini ISO installation instructions for how to install a system using minimal hardware.

Alternate Install

As you are going to be issuing commands with root access, please do read Safely Issuing Commands.

The first thing you will need to do is install Lubuntu itself. To do this you will need to download the Alternate Lubuntu ISO 32 Bit or, preferably, via Torrent. The assumption here is if you are looking to install a 64 Bit desktop you should have enough RAM to use the standard installer - unless there is someone out there willing to contribute a 64 Bit edition in which case, please contact the mailing list.

If you need assistance on how to burn the downloaded ISO to a CD then please see [See note 1] for detailed instructions.

If you are using a USB device to install the system e.g. Unetbootin created USB Boot stick, please check the USB section for additional notes. They are not needed if you are using a CD / DVD installation.

A couple of notes on the alternate installation:

When the CD boots please select your language for the installation process.
At the installation screen select "Install Lubuntu"
Select your language & then your country/territory.
Detect your keyboard layout. (You will be asked to press some keys.)
The installer will then detecting the hardware required to complete the installation, scan the CD ISO, load any additional components required for the installation and some other network items.
It will then ask you to specify a hostname for your system to identify it to any network you connect it to.
The installer will then try to set up the clock and ask you to confirm that what it has detected as your timezone is correct.
It will then set up other tasks automatically.
This leads you to the Partitioning screen - Most users will simply want 'Guided - use entire disk'. [See note 2] for other options. It will then ask you to confirm the changes so please check to ensure you don't accidentally erase data you want to keep.
The installer will now install the base system to your drive which can take some time, depending on your hardware.
Next up is the setting up of users and passwords. It will ask you the Full Name of the new users, it will suggest a username for you (which you can just change if you don't like it), ask you for a password for this user, ask you to confirm the password you just entered and then ask if you want to encrypt the home directory for this user (by default this is set to No).
The http proxy information is then asked for, if you do not use a proxy (most home users do NOT use a proxy) then it is ok to leave this blank.
The installer then automatically selects and installs all the required software for your Lubuntu system based upon previous questions. This again will take some time depending on what sort of hardware you are running it on.
After this is complete it will move on to the Grub installation. It will ask you a question on where to install it, for everyone using the 'Use entire disk' in the partitioning editor earlier you can just take the recommended option of 'Install the GRUB boot loader to the master boot record?' and hit enter.
Finally you have reached the 'Finish the installation' section where it will confirm your system clock is UTC (again most users can just say yes unless you are sure it isn't) and it will then ask you to remove the CD so the next time you boot up it will only boot from the hard drive you have just installed to.
Upon pressing enter to continue it will then reboot into your Lubuntu system.

When the computer restarts sign on with the user you set up during the alternate installation.

Head over to Update Lubuntu to get the latest updates for your new system then return if you have a problem with your wired network not being seen.

Notes

For how to burn an iso, Burning an ISO has details on the programmes and instructions (Use something like 4X write speed), there is a screen cast for using xfburn at Burning CDs/DVDs (using XFBurn)).
For options on partitioning: Partitioning with Ubuntu
Lubuntu does not use Automatic Updates at present.

Unmanaged Wired Network

If Network Manager reports that your ethernet (wired) connection is un-managed, or you don't see the Network Manager applet icon at all, there are two solutions possible detailed below. Feel free to choose any.

The technical details may be found in Debian Wiki and this bug description.

Edit /etc/network/interfaces

Start an LXTerminal session, then issue:

sudo /etc/init.d/networking stop
gksudo leafpad /etc/network/interfaces

Remove or comment the two lines under "The primary network interface". You should get something like:

# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
# and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).

# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

# The primary network interface -- or you can completely remove this line --
#auto eth0                      -- or you can completely remove this line --
#iface eth0 inet dhcp           -- or you can completely remove this line --

Save and Quit.

Get back to LXTerminal and issue:

sudo service networking start
sudo service network-manager restart

After a short while you should see "Connection established" message above the Network Manager applet tray icon.

Change Network Manager settings