Finished Upgrade: Gutsy Gibbon 7.10 to Hardy Heron 8.04
May 30, 2008 at 7:08 pm (AMD, CLI, FSB, Feisty Fawn, Firefox, Gutsy Gibbon, Hardy Heron, IDE, IDE cable, PSU, RAM, Rhythmbox, action, add-on, administration, administrator, asrock k7vm3, boot, clone, compiz, compiz-fusion, computers, conky, coordination, cpu, cpu temp, cube, customize, dd, desktop, desktop effects, effects, entertainment, error, ext3, fix, free, guild, hard disk temperature, hard drive, hitachi, linux, maintenance, management, maxtor, media, mem test, mods, monitor, network, no cd, online, operating system, overclock, overclocking, pc, programs, samsung, seagate, search, sempron, slave drive, stress test, sudo, syntax, system, temperature, temperature monitor, ubuntu, upgrade, windows xp, xp)
Posting from Linux Ubuntu Hardy Heron 8.04, second try. My first try was doing an upgrade from the manager. After finishing that and booting up in Heron 8.04, 2 things caught my eye – the prompt for updates and a Crash Report. First thing I clicked on was the Crash Report but it does not respond. Clicking on Update Manager doesn’t do anything either. I went in search for possible solutions but none came soon enough. I wanted to give Heron a try and the wait was not promising. So I went with the popular vote and did a clean install.
I made the mistake of doing it with my XP drive still plugged in. My boot setup is that of two drives operating independently of each other with XP being the primary drive. Both XP and Ubuntu booted up as it should but the problem starts when you remove one drive. Grub error 17 comes up whenever that’s the case. Next order of battle is to fix the windows MBR. Luckily, when things were working I was able to burn a way out. I went into Recovery Mode DOS and entered “fixmbr”. Once that was done, XP booted up nice in its own independent way.
I then took off the XP drive, leaving only the Linux drive and booted up the LiveCD. Reinstalled Linux and of course take a nap. Grub is safe and sound only in the Linux drive. Everything works peachy. As in my last post, there are 2 main things I want working. My Conky and Compiz-Fusion settings aren’t up and running yet. But I will be working on those next. In the next release of Ubuntu, I will attempt the upgrade first and the clean install will be the last option. I just have to remember removing the XP drive if I end up doing it again.
To summarize: If upgrading does not work, remove the XP drive before doing a clean install. I’m glad to have kept a record of the changes I have made. At least I have some sort of guide to put my settings back the way they were in 7.10. I have XP and Linux Ubuntu 8.04 running as planned. Spent a good deal of time but definitely another learning experience worth the effort.
Upgrading Linux Ubuntu: Gutsy Gibbon 7.10 to Hardy Heron 8.04
May 29, 2008 at 6:15 am (AMD, CLI, Feisty Fawn, Firefox, Gutsy Gibbon, Hardy Heron, IDE, IDE cable, action, add-on, administration, administrator, asrock k7vm3, boot, clone, compiz, compiz-fusion, computers, conky, coordination, cpu, cpu temp, cube, customize, desktop, desktop effects, effects, error, ext3, eyecandy, fix, free, game, hard disk temperature, hard drive, hitachi, international, linux, maintenance, management, maxtor, mem test, mods, monitor, network, no cd, online, operating system, pc, programs, samsung, seagate, sempron, slave drive, sudo, syntax, system, temperature, temperature monitor, ubuntu, upgrade, watch)
Currently waiting for the Update Manager do move my Linux installation another step to Hardy Heron 8.04. My request for CD’s from ShipIt have been approved but I have some free time and I can’t wait anymore. Gotta see what the chatter is all about. It has been a month and feedback from my fellow users in UbuntuForums more or less say that it’s safe to dive in. So here I go.
Internet speed is not at optimum at the moment since someone is playing an online game on the other PC. But I’m not in any hurry. Plenty of time to watch, wait and write. Estimated time to finish is in approximately 4 hours and 45 minutes. I think I should be able to catch a nap before any “Yes or No” dialog boxes come up.
There are a few things I’m concerned about. I wonder if my compiz-fusion and conky settings will be saved. Or any other setting for that matter. They’re supposed to be intact after an upgrade. I’ll know for sure once this is complete. I haven’t really done a full diagnostic on this since I installed Linux Ubuntu Feisty 7.04 last year. I have plenty of unallocated space in my hard drive and I’m thinking about trying out another Linux flavor. Which one is yet to be decided. For now, shuteye…
Problem with hal.dll in win XP
May 27, 2008 at 3:53 am (AMD, Acronis, CLI, Firefox, IDE, IDE cable, NTFS, action, add-on, administration, administrator, asrock k7vm3, boot, clone, computers, coordination, cpu, customize, desktop, effects, error, fix, free, hal.dll, hard drive, hitachi, linux, maintenance, management, maxtor, media, mods, monitor, network, no cd, online, operating system, pc, programs, samsung, seagate, search, sempron, slave drive, syntax, system, ubuntu, upgrade, watch, windows xp, xp)
I’ve run into this quite a few times especially when I’m cleaning up and uninstalling unused or useless programs in Windows XP. There is only 1 major thing that you need so you’ll be able to fix this – your hard drive connected to a working operating system with internet connection. It doesn’t matter what it is – Windows, Linux, Mac(haven’t tried with this one though). The internet connection is needed for you to copy a hal.dll file from the world wide web. But if the operating system you’re working on is XP, then you’ll just copy the dll file off of the working one.
The file’s location is C:\windows\system32. Paste the working hal.dll file into that folder to replace the corrupted one. Once that’s done, shut down the computer and get it ready to boot up using your hard drive. If there aren’t any hitches, you’ll see a very primitive windows xp desktop. Here is where the internet comes in handy. It will automatically search for drivers online and update them. After that, you’ll be able to customize the desktop settings or any other hardware settings that you had before this problem. Now if you do not have internet, it’s a lot of work. You have to load the drivers using your hardware’s respective CD’s – assuming you kept them.
In my case, I had internet. And I also had a perfectly working Linux Ubuntu 8.04 on another drive and broadband internet. So that after replacing the corrupted hal.dll file, the rest was pretty much automated. Switching and connecting hard drive wasn’t fun especially because I had an old dusty sempron rig. But all in all, it was a valuable learning experience. I very much thank Ubuntu.com for supplying me with the free CD’s to get started in my Linux learning.
To sum this up, here’s what you need and what you need to do:
1)A working operating system – linux, mac, windows, it doesn’t matter as long as it can connect, read and write to your hard drive with the corrupted hal.dll file
2)Internet Connection – to download a copy of the hal.dll file and all of your hardware’s drivers. An alternative is having a copy of a working hal.dll file on a CD, flash drive, or if you’re running XP to fix this and you’ll also need your hardware drive CD’s handy.
3)Copy the working hal.dll file into the C:\windows\system32 folder and say “Yes” when if asks if you want to replace it and then boot up your hard drive.
4)If you have internet connection, you’ll just have to wait for XP to download all of your hardware’s drivers available online. On some rare occasions, some drivers may not be available online. When that happens or if you do not have internet, you will need to use your driver CD’s.
So you don’t have to look any further, I’ll give you the working hal.dll file that I used for my XP install: RIGHT CLICK AND SAVE TARGET AS
Hope this helps a little and good luck with your troubleshooting! (“,)
Hardware Audit
May 19, 2008 at 2:51 am (add-on, computers, customize, desktop, free, online, operating system, programs) (audit, checklist, hardware, list)
Nothing to see here. Just listing what I have for future reference…
1)
AMD Athlon X2 4000
Emaxx MCP61S-AVL
2GB Geil DDR800
GeForce 7300GT 512MB
160 GB HDD
2)
AMD Sempron 2200+
Asrock K7VM3
1GB DDR400
GeForce FX5200
Seagate 160GB IDE HDD
Samsung 80GB
Maxtor 40GB
3)
Sony Vaio CR
4)
Ubuntu 7.04 – Since April 2007
Ubuntu 7.10 – Since January 2008
Beginning Photography
May 1, 2008 at 2:48 am (action, add-on, computers, customize, entertainment, free, online, programs) (auto-focus, camera, D40, D60, digital, digital camera, digital photography, DSLR, megapixel, photography)
I started experimenting with art when I was in grade school. Painting and sketching lessons during the summer. It was fun while I was at it. Unfortunately, cartoons kept grabbing my attention. As a kid, the choice between primary colors and Mighty Mouse was done in a nanosecond. The latter won of course. Towards the end of gradeschool and during much of highschool and college, I was into writing. Words were my red, yellow and blue. I am now exploring my interest in photography. I started feeling the fun for it when I got my Sony Ericsson w810i camera phone. It has a 2 megapixel camera with auto-focus. It takes good pictures. Better than our family’s old 3.1 megapixel Kodak camera.
I’m looking for an upgrade. An actual DSLR, that is. And in the choice between Canon and Nikon, I knew what I wanted from the beginning. I don’t know much about photography… yet. But I know that I want to learn with a Nikon camera. And then another choice, which model? I want something easy to carry around. I’ve narrowed them down to 2: D40 or D60. They are both lighter and less expensive than their brothers. I’ve been reading up on both of them. I still can’t decide. Which means I will need to read some more.
