Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) and 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) may be installed on Asus UL Series using the graphical installer of Ubuntu Desktop Edition. Many Asus UL models have been tested with the 32 bits and 64 bits flavors.

The Alternate CD may also be used.

Installation Notes

Models without optical drive

Asus UL models without optical drive (such as the UL20 and UL30 Series) will need an additional step before being able to start the installation:

• use an external USB optical drive unit if available

  OR

• create a bootable USB stick with the CD-Rom ISO image. Instructions may be found here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/FromUSBStick, http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/, http://www.howtoforge.com/easy-way-to-create-bootable-ubuntu-usb-pendrive

Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala)

An active Internet connection is recommended during Ubuntu setup. Using the installation Live CD, the default wireless stability and performance is known to be very poor on some Asus UL models (such as the Asus UL30A with the Atheros AR9285 chipset). It is thus advised to use an Ethernet wired connection during setup.

Dual Booting with Windows

Many Asus UL models are shipped with Windows 7 64 bits edition. Except setting up Ubuntu inside Windows partitions with Wubi, installing Ubuntu while keeping Windows requires to resize (reduce) some of the existing Windows hard disk partitions to make room for Ubuntu.

Such an operation is not specific to the Asus UL Series. Information may be found here: https://help.ubuntu.com/9.10/switching/installing-partitioning.html, http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/resize-a-partition-for-free-in-windows-vista/, http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/using-gparted-to-resize-your-windows-vista-partition/.

CAUTION: modifying hard disk partitions is a risky operation.

• Be sure to backup all existing data before attempting any partitions changes
• Ensure that the battery is fully charged and the computer AC powered during such operations

• Be also aware that using GParted (either from the Ubuntu installation disk or GParted Live CD) to resize a Windows Vista / Windows 7 partition may prevent Windows from booting in some cases. The preferred free method is to resize the partition from Windows

• In case of failure, Asus UL notebooks may be restored to the initial factory configuration using the recovery partition or CDs/DVDs

Running the Installer

Except for previous recommendations, Ubuntu setup on Asus UL Series may follow the generic graphical procedure.

Back to Asus UL Series home page

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