format, but however in this case I am going to restrict myself to simply ext3.
The system comes with a 160GB HD, which is more then enough for what I am going to use it for with a single OS based install
seeing as I always work from network server. Out of this 160GB I will allocate 30GB to my root / partition, 3GB to my swap partition,
and the rest to my user /home partition, this will be done by having the root on a primary partition and the rest on an extended or
logical based partition. The current partitioning scheme can be seen below:
kaya@Compaq2230s:~$ df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1 28G 4.9G 22G 19% /
tmpfs 958M 0 958M 0% /lib/init/rw
varrun 958M 132K 958M 1% /var/run
varlock 958M 4.0K 958M 1% /var/lock
udev 958M 168K 958M 1% /dev
tmpfs 958M 212K 958M 1% /dev/shm
lrm 958M 2.5M 956M 1% /lib/modules/2.6.28-14-generic/volatile
/dev/sda5 117G 6.8G 104G 7% /home
root@Compaq2230s:~# fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x80d2f3ee
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 3647 29294496 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 3648 19457 126993825 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 3648 19087 124021768+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 19088 19457 2971993+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
Table-1. Filesystem and disk usage information.
3.2 Configuration:
After initial boot-up of the HD install, the system was again very fast to get from initial mode 0 (init 0) to initial mode or run level 5
(init 5) and rapidly went from the off state to the KDM login manager. From here the overall viewing perspective changed as I could
still see that the system was running at 1024x768 resolution superimposed upon the 1280x800 widescreen. Logging into the KDE4
desktop environment, the panels and windows were larger then they should be when compared to my other laptop also running at the
same resolution of 1280x800. This meant diving into the system to check what the overall status of everything was as it seemed to be a
bit of deja vous and the Hi-Grade all over again. First lets start by seeing if the KDE4 environment actually was in 1280x800
resolution or if it was running in 1024x768.
Opening the Kicker or Kmenu and going to System Settings and Display actually revealed that the system thought that it was at the
correct WXGA resolution. This meant that either we had a driver issue on our hands or something wrong with KDE interfacing with
the kernel and the X server. My immediate response was to perform an upgrade of all packages and kernel so that I had the latest
hardware support. For this to happen I needed to either use the wired or wireless network controller:
Before dealing with that though Ubuntu has a major security issue of having sudo enabled, meaning that if a sudoer's account gets
hacked then the hacker has potential access to the root user account and filesystem. Let's sort this out quickly as one can do everything
they need to by using the su command. Booting up a terminal window, Konsole in KDE4, then running: sudo passwd root and
entering the 'new' root password will set a specific password for the root or 'super-user' account. Once this is done we have the ability
to su to root without any problems or fear of weak security.
3.3 Wireless setup:
Now, as I was performing the install downstairs I needed to connect to my WAP in order to have inter/intranet access. This meant
connecting to one of 4 WAPs, since 3 of them were being used in a point to multi-point WDS bridge, that left me with connecting to
the Cisco 857W 2 floors above me.
Did the system even have support for the wireless interface??
5
