If you download the "Ubuntu 7.04 - Supported to 2008" from...

http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download

...it is a "LiveCD" with a full GUI when you boot from it and it should auto detect your hard drive. This should give you access to your data on your HD as well as access to your home network. The cd is also a full install cd for Ubuntu. Once you do the install and if not all your drivers are detected do the following....

- Click on Applications -> Add/Removed
- Search for "Restricted"
- Put a check next to the "Ubuntu Restricted Extras"
- Click OK This should install the restricted drivers you may need.

For the Nvidia and ATI drivers I would install the Envy package...

http://albertomilone.com/nvidia_scripts1.html

...this will install the Offical Nvidia and Ati drivers.

A better forum to hang out for Ubuntu issues is.... http://ubuntuforums.org/

Eric

Message Edited by gcleric on 08-28-2007 06:33 AM

The disk is indeed a plain ol' Ubuntu disk just like the kind you can download.

However, the Dell Linux wiki has a list of all the packages that are added:
http://linux.dell.com/wiki/index.php/Ubuntu_7.04/Add-on_Packages
and deleted:
http://linux.dell.com/wiki/index.php/Ubuntu_7.04/Removed_Packages
so you should be able to re-create what Dell did.

Note, however, that the network driver is one of the added packages for the 1420, so you'll want to have that locally available.

As long as your hard drive hasn't died, though, you can always use the recovery partition to restore the computer to factory condition (losing all data in the process, of course); it's one of the options in the GRUB menu on start-up.

Message Edited by gbrainin on 08-28-2007 04:21 PM

If you go to the Places menu and select "Computer," you should be able to mount the partition called "OS." That's the 2MB recovery partition, or at least it is on my computer. I can't speak to whether it'll work if you copy it to a server and back, but at least it's a start.

What I'm trying to do, really, is switch hard drives to a smaller one. So, my drive s not fried or anything, but I can't seem to figure out how to even look at the 2 gig partition I know is there, much less copy it to a server. Thanks for the help, though, that will hopefully work.

Lesson learned: Ubuntu Live CD that comes with the Dell cannot be used to install Ubuntu on the machine. It crashes with a nice little message that states "/bin/sh: can't access tty; job control turned off". If, like me, you manage to get past that little hurdle, the X serv er sets up incorrectly and there seems to be no correct graphical card available under dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg.

Doesn't this make handing users a cd sorta pointless if it doesn't work even after some major hunting about?

The CD is not completely useless (at least on my system). For example, while I can't access the network, I was able to live boot which was enough to allow me to repartition my hard drive (which must be done with the drive unmounted).

I agree it would be nice to have the ability to recover from somewhere other than the original hard drive, but my guess is that would not fit on a CD.