Installing Ubuntu Netbook Release On The Samsung NC10

Having decided that I don’t want the security hassles of Windows XP, I’ve chosen to install the Ubuntu Netbook Release on my Samsung NC10.

Creating The Installation Media

Ubuntu Netbook Release (UNR) has to be downloaded before it can be installed.  Because netbooks are too small to come with a built-in CD-ROM drive, UNR is designed to be installed from a USB flash drive instead.  You will need an empty flash drive at least 1 GB in size.  If you already have a suitable flash drive, be warned – any data you have on this drive will be lost when you put UNR onto it.

Download the UNR image, and then follow the instructions to make your USB flash drive into a bootable install disk for UNR.

Installing UNR

By default, your netbook is probably setup to boot off the internal hard drive (which has Windows already installed on it).  You need to change the BIOS settings on your netbook to boot off of your USB flash drive instead.  These instructions are for my Samsung NC10, but you should be able to adapt them to your netbook of choice.

Insert your flash drive into the Samsung NC10, and reboot it.  When the Samsung boot screen briefly flashes by, hold down the F2 key.  Be quick about it, otherwise you’ll miss your chance and the netbook will continue on and boot into Windows.

Once the BIOS settings appear, go into the boot options screen.  This screen has a list of devices that your netbook will boot from.  The list is in order of preference, and by default the internal hard drive is at or near the top of the list.

One of the items on the list on the NC10 is ‘USB key drive’.  Ignore this option; for some reason the NC10 actually treats the USB key as a ‘USB hard drive’ instead.  Move that option to the top of the list, save your changes, and reboot.

Your netbook should now boot off the USB key, and the Ubuntu installer should appear.  Follow the on-screen instructions to install UNR onto your netbook.

Be aware that if you go with Ubuntu’s default partition layout, it will delete all of the data already on your hard drive. This was exactly what I wanted, but you may prefer instead to install Ubuntu alongside Windows XP so that you can dual-boot your netbook into either operating system.

With Ubuntu Netbook Release installed onto your netbook, the next thing to do is to have a quick look around, and familiarise yourself with things – and then, after that, we can start on getting networking / 3G mobile broadband working.

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~ by Stuart on June 15, 2009.