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Restore disk for Ubuntu

840 points posted to Linux by limerat 11/13/07

People who use Windows get a restore disk,people who use Linux should get a restore disk as well.
I just bought a Dell last week...The update manager stopped working in Ubuntu.. So I went to the Ubuntu forums and pasted in the correction into the terminal which should have fixed the problem.-
It did not work.
I reinstalled the OS.
The machine would no longer go on line.
I finally end up at Dell tec support for Linux where I'm told there are missing drivers..So since Dell already knows about this,why are the drivers not installed on Ubuntu or supplied on a recovery disk,along with instructions for people new to Linux?
Anyway, I'm sent to a web page to download the drivers. Lucky for me a friend has let me borrow her computer,or I'd be up the creek without a paddle. I have yet to burn the disk though,as I'm only a guest on said computer.

I have to wonder who else this has happened to and if they can't download the drivers,what have they done? Have they set the machine on the curb for trash pickup?
This foul up is going to make a lot of people really unhappy and Dell needs to have fixed this before they decided to load Linux on their first box. There is no excuse for such inept sloppiness on the part of a professional company.
Had I known about this, I NEVER would have bought a Dell.

Anyway,I just so you know,Dell did provide a video drivers disk with Ubuntu...The problem was the disk had only Windows drivers....Which is useless..
Somebody at Dell needs to get a clue.

davmcn
11/13/07		 yea, that cause you pay for Windows...isn't Linux free to download any time? just reinstall it.
limerat
11/14/07		 Yes it is..Although some flavors of Linux do cost money. (Red hat,etc.)..But your mainly paying for support and some non-free software.
premcv
11/14/07		 Interesting views limerat. So, Dell Support indicated to you that there are drivers missing? What specific drivers are missing, did they mention?
john_h
11/14/07		 limerat: Did you buy a system with Ubuntu preinstalled with Ubuntu? Which system? Did the network originally work, and then stop working?? We certainly pre-install all drivers needed to run your system, including network drivers, so it's difficult to diagnose the problem without more detail
limerat
11/14/07		 Yes,I was sent to a web page to download the drivers.
http://linux.dell.com/wiki/index.php/Ubuntu_7.04#Dell_Remastered_Ubuntu_7.
" Description: Network driver e1000 does not recognize Intel network controller.
Systems Affected: Dimension 530n.
Impact: No wired network connectivity.
Fix: Upgrade to 2.6.20-16 kernel and install the latest linux-backports-modules package from the Ubuntu 7.04 repositories."
And yes,Ubuntu was installed when I got it,since I'm a Linux user.
Dell is sending me a new computer and I'm sending the other one back,but the point is a user should not to have to go through this sort of thing after a reinstall.
john_h
11/15/07		 So it sounds like the driver were indeed installed on the system when you received it, which is how it should be. Instead of having a "recovery disk", we actually put a "recovery partition" on the hard drive. This would allow you restore the system to its original state in which you received it. Here's the info: http://linux.dell.com/wiki/index.php/Ubuntu_7.04/OS_Reinstallation< it sounds like you wiped the entire disk, which is the problem. With our 7.10 release, there are 2 solutions to this: a) all necessary drivers are on the Ubuntu media, and b) we will be providing a recovery disk ISO image on the desktop that people can burn and keep to restore their system. That doesn't really help in your case, but we have indeed resolved this going forward.
premcv
11/15/07		 That's good to know, john_h! Thanks!
tagno25
12/08/07		 The first thing I do when I get a new computer is erase that POS "recovery" partition and then the "Dell diagnostic partition"

the partition is useless, because if the drive has an error and it happens to be in that section and then it does no good
I ALWAYS want disks
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