Setting up the GNU/Linux installer from Windows for a Dual-booting OQO model 01+

This is part 3 of my write-up about installing Ubuntu GNU/Linux to dual-boot with Windoze XP on my OQO model 01+. The home page of this write-up can be found here.

Pieces of the Puzzle

The objective here was to arrange for the OQO to boot into the Ubuntu GNU/Linux installer. The easy way to do this would be just to download (or otherwise obtain) a Ubuntu installation CD or DVD and just boot that up, but I didn't want to leave people without access to a USB CD-ROM drive out in the cold, and a "netboot" installation has other advantages that I won't go into here.

In order for the installation to go smoothly on the OQO, I had to make some changes to the generic installer available from Ubuntu. Since I have made the modified installer available for all (see below), I will just skim over what I did. I got the Ubuntu netboot installer from the ubuntu/dists/breezy/main/installer-i386/current/images/netboot/ directory of one of my local mirrors. A list of mirrors is at http://www.ubuntu.com/download. Select a mirror near you that has "ubuntu-releases" in the URL, then delete the part from "ubuntu-releases" to the end and replace it with the above-mentioned directory. I "patched in" the kernel from ftp://ftp.oqo.com/unsupported/linux/ and the Atmel wireless driver from the same source. I also downloaded the GRUB (GRand Unified Bootloader) installer for Windows from the link "binary of the installer + the GRUB" at http://www.geocities.com/lode_leroy/grubinstall/ and set up a single-item menu for it.

Installer Zip File

After testing this setup and ironing out a couple of bugs, I zipped it all up so that I could make it available here, but I have since removed it to make room for other things. Email me (toby <at> yargybot <dot> com) if you want to download it and I'll see what I can do.

Before unzipping the package, you need to move a system file out of the way (by renaming the file) so that a file from the unzipped package can replace it. Unfortunately, the file in question is "protected" and hidden from view by Windoze. To make it visible and rename it, proceed as follows.

1. "Open" the C: drive (start menu | My Computer | C: drive).
2. Select "Folder Options..." from the "Tools" menu.
3. Select the "View" tab in the Folder Options window.
4. Activate the "Show hidden files and folders" radio button
5. Uncheck the "Hide Protected Operating System Files" checkbox
6. Click on the "Yes" button in the warning dialog that appears (you can undo this change once you've unzipped the package).
7. Click on the "OK" button in the Folder Options window. A stack of previously hidden files will now show up in your C: drive window.
8. Find a file called "boot.ini" and right-click on it.
9. Select "Properties" from the menu that popped up.
10. Uncheck the "Read-only" checkbox in the boot.ini Properties window. On my system it was already unchecked, so you may not need to do anything here.
11. Click on the "OK" button.
12. Right click on boot.ini again
13. Select "Rename" from the pop-up menu
14. Change the filename to "boot.ini.bak" or something similar. Alternatively, you can edit your existing file instead of replacing it with the one from the package. You just need to add the following line to the end of the file.
    C:\BOOT\STAGE1="Ubuntu GNU/Linux Installer"
    Once you've made this change you can restore the file's read-only status and re-check the "Hide Protected Operating System Files" checkbox in the Folder Options dialog's View tab.

Now you can unzip the package into the root directory of the C: drive (ie. C:\). This should give you a new boot.ini file (unless you elected to edit your exisiting file instead) as well as a directory called "boot" containing eleven files (note that if you already had a directory called "boot" then it could have any number of files in it).

One final step remains before you are ready to reboot into the Ubuntu Installer. You need to run grubinstall.exe. You can just use your explorer window to descend into the "boot" directory and then double click on the "grubinstall.exe" file, or...

1. Select "Run..." from the start menu.
2. Enter
   C:\BOOT\GRUBINSTALL
   in the text box of the dialog box that appears.
3. Click on the "Run" button.

The "installer installation" is now complete, so click on the "Turn off computer" button in the start menu, then click the "Restart" button in the dialog box that appears. Do NOT shutdown the OQO completely or you may have trouble with the wireless LAN later. It seems that the Linux driver does not initialise the wireless LAN hardware properly, but you can "carry over" the Windows configuration by maintaining power to the hardware during the reboot. When the OQO reboots, instead of booting straight into Windows it should present you with two options: one to boot Windows as usual, and one to start the Ubuntu installer. Technically, this is a dual booting, Windoze and GNU/Linux setup, so you could say we've acheived our goal. However, the GNU/Linux system we have installed is not much use for anything except installing "full-blown" GNU/Linux.