[SOLVED] How to install ubuntu on a sdhc?

[devianpctek]

Hi guys I just got a eee pc 2g (i know kinda cheap lol) but i cant do nothing on it because of the 2Gb drive and the OS installed on it (there's no support anymore for it), so i want to install ubuntu 10.4 NBR on a 8Gb SDHC card that I have so the question is it can be done? I want to have it installed on the card and be able to boot up from it.

I already did the installation and it went smooth a little slow but no errors reported, but when the computer restarts and boots I just get a black screen with a blinking cursor
(i have set the BIOS to boot from the SDHC card)
i'll appreciate any advice/help you can provide thanx

[meton_magis]

how did you boot the install of ubuntu?

[devianpctek]

how did you boot the install of ubuntu?

I ran it from an USB drive I create a "boot disk" from ubuntu then just boot from it.

Ok I have news on the install the first thing I tried that got me to the blinking cursor and the black screen was this:

1- run ubuntu installer (the second option) and directly install it on my SDHC, no troubles with the installation but then when want it to boot I got the black screen with the blinking cursor. TOTALLY FAILED

Then I tried the first option the "try ubuntu before install" then just run the installation from there, again no errors reported then reboot the eee and bingo I got grub screen,
boot up ubuntu and got a system up and running however when I restarted the eee I didn't got the grub screen (that's weird) but instead I got the "grub recovery" screen :/ didn't touched anything, reboot and went to BIOS there was some weird misconfiguration on it so I "fixed" what I thought it was the best setup, reboot BINGO grub loading again, right now I'm upgrading some packages so I haven't tried any more boots, what I don't understand is why after installing ubuntu (the second time) I got a clean boot to grub but then after restarting I got the "grub recovery screen" ??

[rokytnji]

Not Ubuntu but my tutorial should apply. The graphical installer in Ubuntu is a bit different but the premise would/should be the same. Just transpose Ubuntu (which is Debian based also like AntiX) for AntiX in my tutorial. Pay attention to where grub goes in my screenshots and write down wh at the partition labeling is (sda?,sdb?,or sdd?) that Ubuntu gives the sdhc card in gparted.

Yet Another Technology Site: Install AntiX 8.2 Final on External Flash Drive

[devianpctek]

Ok finally i got it there was some configuration i had to do on the BIOS to get it to work properly, i had to set the internal drive as first boot then the card as second boot (but if theres no sd card i get the grub recovery screen) I really dont understand why but now is working, now the question how safe is to run it from the sd? I've noticed that when I turn off the eee and take out the SD card is hot, so how long would it take for the SD to burn down??

[rokytnji]

the SD card is hot, so how long would it take for the SD to burn down??

I have ran mine for about a year and no problems. But I format mine as Ext2 file system with no swap. My Netbook has 2 gig of ram since I upgraded it and has no need for a swap partition.

ext2 was the default filesystem in several Linux distributions, including Debian and Red Hat Linux, until supplanted more recently by ext3, which is almost completely compatible with ext2 and is a journaling file system. ext2 is still the filesystem of choice for flash-based storage media (such as SD cards, SSDs, and USB flash drives) since its lack of a journal minimizes the number of writes and flash devices have only a limited number of write cycles.

from

ext2 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[devianpctek]

I have ran mine for about a year and no problems. But I format mine as Ext2 file system with no swap. My Netbook has 2 gig of ram since I upgraded it and has no need for a swap partition.

oh ok thanks for the info, I let ubuntu take care of the partitions, so I guess I have to redo all over so I can reformat the SD as ext2 and make sure there's no swap partition right?

[rokytnji]

make sure there's no swap partition right?

Thats what I would do as a swap partition on a SD/SDHC card may make it fail early. Just my opinion though.

[devianpctek]

Thats what I would do as a swap partition on a SD/SDHC card may make it fail early. Just my opinion though.

Ok I followed your advise I reinstall without swap partition, I did not noticed any change having swap or not on the system but that wasnt the point, the main thing is that wanted to have the less possible writes to the card to avoid the "worn down thing" and since i managed to install ubuntu on the SDHC i'll mark this thread as solved Thank you all