Ubuntu (Linux): Getting Slow Old Machines to Boot

Some tips about making a slow old machine boot. I hope to expand on this more as I experience more situations.

Hardware
Getting hardware to work can is getting more easier as more manufacturers of devices and supporting Linux more. Yet you will bump into some issues on and off, here are a few things to help installation go smoothly.

Old Hardware (Different name on kernel supports)
I have known the odd monitor setting to be differently named for third party use. Acer, Dell and Compaq have known to use crypt set ups in the past. Another is "ROCK" that sells laptops but they don't make them, some company in Asia creates them and hires or makes another company to sell them more friendly.

Support Or Not?
Always google around to look for hardware supported yet in the Kernel.

Partitions
If the motherboards is really old, make sure the "Boot/" partition is first. Believe there is a guide on standard size for the various partitions.

Basic Setup
/boot - 512 Mb as ext2(Important that)
/swap - double the size of your physical memory as swap.
/ (Rest of the hd space) - REST of the space as ext3 (For fast performance).

Believe it could be lower on the /boot partition. May need to verify that myself.

Booting
Various boot issues may come in the way. Here is mine I bumped into.

Move the Boot Partition
Some distros of Linux, forget to make the /boot partition at the beginning of the harddrive. See above for more info.

Kernel Boot Parameters
Read the first two paragraphs and then look for your known issues in "Known Kernel Parameters"

Manually Change (temporary)
When you get to the load up screen of "GRUB" you may need to press "e" key a few times to edit parameters.

Make changes Permanent
You will then need to modify the "/boot/grub/menu.lst" file and then finally run "sudo grub-update" to permantly keep the changes.

sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst
sudo update-grub

Known Kernel Parameters

• Slow Reading of Harddrives rootdelay=90
• Provide Auto Power Down acpi=force

Further Reading
Grub Howto By Ubuntu Community
Setting Kernel Parameters By Ubuntu Community1

Xubuntu : 8.10 to 9.04 Upgrade - No Sound

I successfully installed Xubuntu 8.10 on a slow end machine and fulled updated all the software. I then couldn't help myself and click that nice button saying, "Upgrade to the latest distribution 9.04". Which I did.

I found the sound gone, came back and then gone again after creating a new account. I am not sure if this is for "Xubuntu" or for all the them, well here is my solution.

Major upgrades have known to require some little fine tuning so this normal really :) Yet I have sneaky suspicions of user error from time to time. ANYWAY!!!! Read on

Exceptions
I chose to not let it change the "menu.lst", I modified the boot parameter of the kernels to have "rootdelay=90" and "acpi=force" at the end to aid the old machine boot up to really boot up and shut down efficiently. I will explain in another blog entry soon about my boot parameters [INSERT LINK HERE].

Issues Found
Sound disappeared on me.

Resolution
One of the volume controls has been muted. To Unmute you need to reveal some volume controls, by default Xubuntu hides them (Not exactly sure why, yet I have a funny feeling it is to make you aware you can just show the controls you only need to see).

1. Click "Applications->Multimedia->Mixer".
2. You will see a window pop up with a pulldown showing the various modes which could be OSS and/or ALSA based at the end. Go through the first two and show all your volumes.
3. Once you click ok you will see various volumes in various tabs. It is probably the first first you should worry about. Look out for "MASTER" and "PCM-??" controls and also the mute button which is showing red "X" next to a speaker or on top of it.
4. Play a CD track or something that requires sound, and fiddle with the MASTER and PCM. Hopefully you should be able to hear your sound again.

End of Line. (Getting into the mood for the new Tron film :P)

EDIT: TO BE REALLY REALLY SURE:
run "alsamixer" in a terminal, (Applications->Accessories->Terminal). It is just like the GUI only in text form.

There has been odd bizzare reports where the sounds is more properly saved using that command, oh and then press "ESC" to save :) If you view both the GUI volume control in GUI and TEXT form, you will notice they both are synched together.