Upgrading an old Compaq Ipaq from Ubuntu 5.10 Breezy Badger to 8.10 Intrepid Ibex
I've got an old Compaq Ipaq that I gave my then 10 year old niece to play with. I put Ubuntu 5.10 "Breezy Badger" on it. Fast forward to today, and she wants it refreshed. It hasn't been on the Internet for 3 years so it doesn't have any updates. I remember years ago that Ubuntu had an update manager so I figured it'd be pretty straight forward. It wasn't really, but it was manageable.
It took a minute to remember that Ubuntu has LTS (Long Term Support) versions, and then it has intermediate versions. I could have just paved her machine, but she'd customized a lot of it, and I didn't feel like the hassle of starting from scratch.
- Ubuntu 6.06.2 LTS (Dapper Drake)
- Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy Eft)
- Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn)
- Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon)
- Ubuntu 8.04.1 LTS (Hardy Heron)
- Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex)
You can upgrade from any version to the next LTS easily, then hop between LTS major versions. That means I needed to run three upgrades:
- 5.1 -> 6.06.2 LTS
- 6.06.2 LTS->8.04.1
- 8.04.1->8.10
First I updated her /etc/apt/sources.list file and changed every "breezy" to "dapper."
An hour later, I was on 6.06. Reboot. Then I used the Update Manager to get me to 8.04…churn churn churn. Then Reboot. Then Update Manager to 8.10, hour later, and she was fully up to date.
I then added all the Edubuntu educational applications from a downloaded and burned CD. Now, to figure out why the sound no longer works. ;)
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Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.
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I'm impressed in the sense that I would have expected network card, graphics driver, IDE chipset support and a few other basic things to go as well :)
Although I must say its amusing that PulseAudio is the New New hotness. I remember when ESD was dropped for ALSA, now they're back to the ESD model, rebranded as PulseAudio.
I always enjoy reading your blog. Keep up the good work.
KentB - Yes, there are no words to describe how truly epically screwed up sound is in 8.10. I would have stayed on 8.04 if I'd known. I'm shocked that we can't get SOUND right in this day. At least they know it.
MikeC - ;)
Wireless, on the other hand needed a Internet connection to install the restricted drivers... What is the old adage about the chicken and the egg again?...
What sort of CPU does that old Ipaq have? I have an old Windows 98 PC that my kids would like to use and I want to repave it with a more robust OS. I've always wanted to install Ubuntu and I would like to know hwo ti behaves on older machines.
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Wait... don't you work for Microsoft?