So a little while ago I went and tested out the latest release of Ubuntu. I liked it enough that I decided to migrate my work Laptop from Windows XP SP3 to Ubuntu 10.04. So here's what I had to do:
1 - Pre-migration checklist
- Hardware of Dell Inspiron D630 (nVidia linux drivers exist, and the wifi is supported)
- Use converter to make a copy of my laptop on an external USB drive (there goes 80 gb of wasted space)
- backup critical files to NFS
2 - Installation method (usb stick + unetbootin)
- put the installer on a 4GB USB Stick
- then downloaded citical files required post install (nVidia drivers, workstation 7.1.0 linux 32-bit)
- Installed Ubuntu 10.04 and formatted with EXT4
3 - Post installation
- Installed WiFi drivers automatically from the hardware drivers section
- Installed nVidia drivers. This is a bit of hassle since they cannot be installed while GDM/X is running. My ATI system at home can run a GUI/terminal installation and not require the user to go into Text Only mode. There is a learning point for nVidia for 'ease of use'
- Performed all updates (including a kernel update)
- reinstalled the nVidia drivers. Easier the second time since the modules didn't load, you can go into a text only mode directly.
- install workstation and boot my VM.
Total time was about 8 hours, mostly for the p2v process to complete as I had to still use my system. If I were to deduct the p2v time, it would probably be 2 hours tops.
Noticeable benefits:
Power on till desktop time is now under 1 minute. XP was well into 3-4 minutes even with auto-login.
Still seeing if I can get everything going. First one down is Cisco's WebEx, which required Sun Java ... not the alternatives that are pre-installed.
