Well for completeness, I thought I would post an update and maybe just a few recommendations.
I decided to go ahead and install an "i386" version of Ubuntu on the Mini...primarily using the directions of the previuosly mentioned website: http://www.ubuntumini.com/2008/10/installing-ubuntu-on-dell-inspiron-mini.html. The author of the website gave the following quote in some discussion, which after all of this I happen to agree with : "If you don't know Linux then don't waste your time on lpia. i3[8]6 the regular version of Ubuntu is easy to install and works better for a beginer. You won't notice a difference because there is no real difference." There was lots of good information about installing Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex on the site, so that is the route I went. Most everything went according to the directions on the site. Now, with a standard i386 version of Ubuntu installed, the squeezecenter installation went without any issues, and I thought things were finally good to go....but then I ran into a few problems: Problem #1: Static IP. I want my slimserver on a static IP machine so I always know where to find it on the network. This happened to be not so straightforward because of Network Manager in Ubuntu 8.10. It would not hold my static IP settings and kept reverting to a DHCP configuration. This turned out to be a known bug, and I found a solution in a message (#20) at the end of this web page: http://linhost.info/2008/11/how-to-set-a-static-ip-on-ubuntu-810/. Problem #2: Network Drive. I have a Buffalo linkstation that I access on the network and it wasn't obvious to me how I could access the drive in slimserver. So I read about mounting network drives and what could be done to have a permanently mounted drive. It wasn't nearly as straightforward as I thought it should be, but I ended up with some good information from the following: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MountWindowsSharesPermanently. Problem #3: Ubuntu updates. Now things were running smoothly!!-Until about two weeks ago. I did an update to Ubuntu that included a kernel update. SomeNumber-9 upgraded to SomeNumber-11. This update killed my wired ethernet connection for some reason. No more squeezecenter. I did some forum surfing and discovered this wasn't unique to me, but solutions were primarily to boot to the old kernel, which I am now doing. I'm hoping for an update which undoes this problem. During the process of troubleshooting, I had more problems with Network Manager and went searching for an alternative. I found wicd: http://wicd.sourceforge.net/. This program just worked - right away. Network Manager in 8.10 is so, so buggy that this was a welcome change. I highly recommend it over Network manager if you want a graphical network management tool in 8.10. I think that's all, other than booting to an old kernel, things are finally working smoothly. My Dell Mini easily carries the squeezecenter load and runs with relatively low power consumption, and is available to me in a pinch if I want to take it with me when I travel. Overall, Ubuntu has been an adventure and wasn't nearly as straighforward as I had hoped. Thanks for everyone's help. -- dingJam ------------------------------------------------------------------------ dingJam's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=22565 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=57553 _______________________________________________ unix mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/unix
