More on the Economics of Computing: An Example

I spent the last week on computer upgrades worth $2500 but costing nothing.  I swapped out two desktops for two laptops, and installed the Edubuntu operating system on all four plus a third laptop.  We now have four laptops fully loaded, and two desktops for sale.  Loading the operating system on the first four computers took about a day.  Loading it on the last laptop took three days.  Here is why.

The computer started out with Windows XP Pro on it.  It did not recognize any removable media.  It has no physical floppy drive.  It has what I presume is a very good CDRW/DVD drive, but the motherboard can’t see it.  It has three USB ports, but Windows can’t see them.  I tried swapping the CD drive with another one which I know works.  Nothing.  The motherboard has a malfunction which does not allow it to recognize any drive even at bootup.  No changes in setup produce any results.  The interface is simply broken.  In order to back up the important files on the computer, I had to offload them over the Ethernet port to a router, and then to a shared folder on one of the other computers.

I first tried downloading a program called UNetBootin which runs inside the Windows environment.  It automatically downloads and installs the appropriate pre-installation files, then reboots and proceeds to install the new operating system.  It worked well until it started partitioning the hard drive.  Then it crashed.  So now the computer has appropriately sized drives, but no Windows and no Linux.  Basically unbootable.  Yikes.

I verified again that the CD drive interface is defunct.  However, I found that the motherboard does recognize the USB ports at bootup.  I wondered if it would boot from a USB pen drive.  I have two USB drives: a 128MB drive and a 2GB drive.  The 2GB is actually an MP3 player.  I started with the 128MB drive to test the USB boot.

I found the website for a compact operating system called Damn Small Linux.  It only requires a 50MB download so it fits nicely on the 128MB drive.  It is bootable from the USB drive, but requires formatting and partitioning the drive and marking it as bootable.  After this process, I had a bootable USB drive with a (damn) small Linux operating system on it.

I plugged the drive into the dead computer and Voila!  It booted into the Damn Small Linux operating system.  Not only that, but it recognized all the hardware (except the CD drive) and it got on the Internet without any other preliminaries.  After several tries, I was able to reformat the hard drive and copy the DSL operating system to the hard drive and boot from it.

My next try was to piggyback an Ubuntu install on top of the DSL install.  A web search revealed no standard way of doing this.  I attempted to install the Synaptic Package Manager in DSL, hoping that I could use the package manager to install Ubuntu.  It wouldn’t install: the dependencies couldn’t be met.  I tried installing all of the dependencies one by one, but the DSL operating system was too old to use them.  I tried to install, one by one, all of the packages which the other fully loaded computers contained.  That worked pretty well until I installed one that the computer didn’t like, and after that it wouldn’t get on the Internet again.  No more downloading, and no more installs.  Just stuck.

I then tried to repeat the formatting and partitioning process, this time with the 2GB MP3 player, to make it bootable.  Since it had extra space on it, I copied the Ubuntu operating system to it from my install CD.  I plugged it in to the dead computer, but the computer wouldn’t recognize it as a bootable drive.  So it was on to the next thing.

I re-installed Damn Small Linux from the first USB drive, and again copied it to the hard drive.  Then I used a different process for a manual install of Ubuntu.  This involved getting three files from deep within the bowels of the Ubuntu mirror website, copying them to the boot folder of the computer, and modifying the boot configuration file to recognize the new files as a bootable operating system.  After that, the new files perform a fresh install of Ubuntu, much in the same way that NetBootin was supposed to have done.

The three downloaded files are chosen specifically from the operating system you want to install.  I chose the latest version of Ubuntu, the Hardy Heron.  The computer tried to boot into the installation files, but quickly gave an error.  I tried it again.  Same result.  I googled the problem, and found that the bootloader in Damn Small Linux is too old to functionally utilize the files from the Hardy Heron.

I repeated the process, but this time with the oldest available version of Ubuntu, the Dapper Drake.  This time the install got considerably farther, but at 61%, partitioning the hard drive, it froze.  I tried it again.  Same result.  I googled it, and found that the Dapper Drake was too old for this particular install configuration.

I repeated the process again, but with the Feisty Fawn.  It is newer than the Dapper Drake, but older than the Hardy Heron.  This install went flawlessly.  It even gave me the option of loading the Edubuntu educational desktop.  On reboot, it upgraded to the next version of Ubuntu, the Gutsy Gibbon.  On reboot again, it upgraded to the Hardy Heron.  Hurray!  It is now as fully loaded as the other computers.

In Conclusion

This was a major growth experience.  Many would have tossed the laptop in the garbage, or spent several hundred to a thousand dollars on repairs.  But with a bit of ingenuity and a lot of tenacity, anyone could figure out how to do it.
I recommend that everyone attempt to do something impossible at least every month, if not every week.  It is a great way to stay mentally sharp.  If you fail, it’s ok because nobody expected you to succeed.  After all, it was impossible.  But if you succeed, you’ll wow your family and impress your friends.

I am in the process of starting a new business, but will try to write some more articles as I go along.