Install Ubuntu 11.04 / 11.10 / 12.04 / 12.10 on an Asus Eee PC 701 4G

Ever since I got my iPad last summer, my grand-daddy of all netbooks, the Asus Eee PC 701 4G, has become somewhat... neglected.  These days it serves as a test bed for various flavors of linux and their respective updates.  I've run the default Xandros, XP Pro (full installation, compressed), Fedora, Ubuntu, and Joli OS (Jolicloud).  Even with XP Pro, all updates, I never had an issue installing any OS within the confines of the tiny 4GB SSD that is soldered on the board of this device.

Leave it to a bug in the latest version of Ubuntu (11.04) to ruin that perfect record.  An issue that I ran into, and subsequently found information about at Ubuntu in Launchpad, is that the Ubiquity installer imposes an arbitrary minimum hard disk size when the actual final installed size of the OS is far below that limit.  Observe.

After creating a bootable USB key with the Universal USB Installer from Pendrive Linux, boot from the key, and at the Installer boot menu, choose Select Run Ubuntu from this USB to boot into a live session of the OS:

Double-click on the icon to Install Ubuntu 11.04.  At the Welcome window, Select your language, and use Alt-Left Click anywhere in the window to drag it up to click the Forward button, since the massive 800x480 resolution of the Eee PC isn't QUITE able to fit it all on-screen.

On the Preparing to install Ubuntu window, you'll see the specifications that you'll need "For best results" including:

• has at least 4.4 GB available drive space
• is plugged in to a power source
• is connected to the Internet

This time, when you Alt-Left Click-and-Drag the window up, you'll find that the Forward button is greyed out.  So really instead of being suggestions for best results, these are actually requirements to even continue with the installer!  Finks.

Click the Quit button to return to the Ubuntu desktop.  Hit Alt+F2 and type:

• gksu gedit /usr/lib/ubiquity/plugins/ubi-prepare.py

Then on line 310 of that file, change the "fudge factor" from

• min_disk_size = size * 2

to

• min_disk_size = size * 1.4

Update: For Ubuntu 11.10, the same bug rears its ugly head, but instead of line 310, it's now on line 250.
Update 2: For Ubuntu 12.04, the file is now /usr/lib/ubiquity/ubiquity/misc.py, line 796.
Update 3: For Ubuntu 12.10, the file is still /usr/lib/ubiquity/ubiquity/misc.py.


Click the Save button, exit the editor, and then double-click on the icon to Install Ubuntu 11.04 again.  Proceed through all the same windows, and this time you should find that the Forward button is no longer greyed out.  Hey, would you look at that!

Feel free to check the boxes to "Download updates while installing" and "Install this third-party software," and click the Forward button.  Once you finally get to the point where you get the Installation Complete message, click on the Restart Now button, go ahead and restart.  Once you login for the first time, run the Update Manager for any additional updates that didn't get picked up during the course of the installation.  When you open up a Terminal window, and run:

• df -h
• cat /proc/cpuinfo 

you will notice a few things.  First, the final installed size of the OS is actually only around 2.7 GB instead of the 4.4 GB that the installer was requiring .  Second, even though the processor in this netbook is a Celeron M 900, it is downclocked to 630 MHz.  This is fairly common, also happened by default with XP.  In both cases, additional utilities are required to get that back up to 900 or higher for better performance, but poorer battery life obviously.

Not that I'm playing favorites or anything, but for comparison purposes, a Fedora 15 installation on the same hardware comes out to a final installed size of 2.5 GB, and a clockspeed of the full 900 MHz, out of the box.

Anyway, hope that helps if there's any of you out there that are like me, a closet hoarder of technology, always looking to repurpose older tech, rather than dispose of or recycle it.  You can have my gadgets... if you can pry them from my cold dead fingers!