I downloaded the alternate install CD image for both Ubuntu & Xubuntu Hardy Heron and installed from those. I managed to get both Ubuntu and Xubuntu installed successfully using the alternate CDROM. Both supported my wireless card right from the install and I just had to select my WPA network and add in my passphrase – the wireless also seems very stable and stays connected so I am impressed with that. I added in Xine, Real Player, VLC, and Mplayer and had to play around to get the right mix of plugins and codecs so that movies trailers and audio from a couple sites that I frequent would play correctly – setting up a new install for multimedia these days is quite complicated and you never know if you have it right until you use the system for a while. I will take some time over the next couple weeks to try out the new Ubuntu on this notebook and see what happens – it will be a good test to see if this new version can stand the test of time.
I should mention the model and specs of the Panasonic Toughbook that this installation was done on are:
Panasonic CF-28 Toughbook Model CF28STJGZKM-B with:
Integrated Touchscreen (I don’t have this fully working in Ubuntu yet but I have setup it up with other distros before so I am sure I can get it working – I will post the details on exactly how it is done once I do)
Pentium III running at 1GHZ
256MB of RAM
CDROM Drive
D-Link DWL-AG660 Wireless card (in cardbus slot)
I have now successfully installed PCLINUXOS Gnome 2008, PC-BSD, SymphonyOne 2008.1, Xubuntu and Ubuntu on this CF-28. I have several hard drives for this notebook which are easy to remove and swap so it is a great unit for testing differnet Linux distributions. I will continue to try these distros and other new distributions on this particular notebook and report back on my success.
