[tlug] installing Ubuntu on Panasonic CF-R4

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

Bruce writes:

 > *Note: I do not want to erase the XP or the recovery section (orders  
 > from no.2).
 > (It does not come with a back up CD, as recovery is installed on the  
 > hard drive)

I hate to tell you this, but my experience (a couple years back, IBM
A30p) is that the recovery "disk" is a second partition that can't be
copied and moved (in my case, to a larger disk).  Nor did XP itself
like its partition being resized, I had to reinstall from CD (XP was
an upgrade, so I had one).  I don't see a partition that would be
holding the recovery disk in the partition list you present.  Can you
still access the recovery boot?

 > In the partition part, I choose Manual, and
 > double-click partition 2 (/dev/sda2) and change Type to ext3,
 > register it, then choose partition 2 (/dev/sda2)
 > then click the forward button to go to the next stage...

 > and get this error message:
 > ---------------------------------------------
 > No root file system is defined
 > Please correct this from the partitioning menu.
 > ---------------------------------------------
 > 
 > I don't see anything labeled as the partitioning menu.

It's the table that you showed, which as shown lacks a root file
system:

 > /dev/sda1    ntfs     /media/sda1                   40805 MB   4400 MB
 > /dev/sda2    ext3     /media/sda1      Check        15981 MB   3200 MB
                              ^
This is the problem ----------+  It needs to be "/", aka root.  Even
in a manual install, that should be hard coded (ie, when you change to
a configuration that lacks a root file system, you should be prompted
"which partition should be root? or make a new partition?")

 > I double click on /dev/sda2 and can change the mount point (?) to
 > /, /boot, /dev/sda,  /etc....
 > but it still doesn't work.

If you can change the mount point to /dev/sda (or anything under
/dev), the installer is potentially hazardous to the health of your
system (maybe it does the check later, but do you want to bet your
system on it?)  Be very careful, you could easily hose your XP
partition blundering about like this.[1]

Are you sure "/" doesn't work?  It should look like:

 > /dev/sda1    ntfs     /media/sda1                   40805 MB   4400 MB
 > /dev/sda2    ext3     /                Check        15981 MB   3200 MB

(except that I'm not sure what that "check" is about, probably a bad
blocks check at mkfs time).  Then click on [continue] or whatever the
button's name is.


Footnotes: 
[1]  Strictly speaking, there's no technical reason why you can't have
a mount point under /dev, and with devfs or udev, /dev itself might be
a mount point for a special file system.  But a user-friendly distro
shouldn't allow you to even think about it at install time.