This is a summary of how I got Ubuntu working on the R60+

The machine I bought has the following specification:

• T2330 Pentium Dual Core 1.6GHz
• 2 GB RAM
• X1250 ATI video chip
• 160 GB Hard drive
• Atheros 5007 WiFi chip

Initial Partitioning

When you power up the R60+ for the first time, some Samsung software guides you through partitioning your hard drive.

Choose the option to create a D drive. This drive is supposed to be used for storing back up images of your C: drive. I decided that I would set up Vista to get it working with all the toys I needed and would then do a backup snapshot (the backup software only manages one snapshot of the drive).

I knew from previous Ubuntu installs I only needed a 20Gb partition at most for Ubuntu. I therefore initially set the D: drive to 45 GB with a plan to resize it later to make space for the Ubuntu install. Once Vista has finally booted I used the system tools to resize the D partition to about 24 GB (http://www.tweakvista.com/article38991.aspx) leaving 22 GB for Ubuntu and a swap partition.

Installing Ubuntu

The standard installation CD or DVD do not seem to work, soon after booting the installer seems to stop. The messages reported seem a bit random, sometimes I would get a message that X did not start. I assumed it is a problem with the driver for video chipset.

Therefore, I used the Ubuntu Alternate Desktop CD (check the box at the bottom of the download screen). This is a text screen based installer. The only difficult part of the install is the partitioning:

I already have three primary partitions (a Samsung 10GB hidden partition, Windows C: and D: ). We can only have a maximum of 4 primary partitions per hard drive, as I need at least another 2 new partitions (Ubuntu and swap) any new partitions have to be logical partitions.

Therefore I added a swap partition (size 2GB) and the remainder was set as a EXT3 partition for mounting '/'.

The install continues to completion and Grub gets installed.

Grub builds a list of boot options including TWO Windows boot entries. The first entry is the Samsung first time (10 GB) partition. It is the last entry that allows Vista to boot.

Video  problems - solved

Ubuntu boots ok but X fails. I am sure there are standard ways (read quicker) to solve this but my solution was to download the ATI driver from from the AMD web site and run the installer. (I used Vista to copy the installer to a USB stick).  I booted in to Ubuntu, mounted the USB stick, ran the installer and was then able to run X.  But when the desktop started up the whole screen goes white.  CTRL-ALT-Backspace allowed me to get back to the GDM log in screen.  I then chose to log in using the Gnome Safe mode session. This was successful and I could see the Desktop. I then installed the Ubuntu supplied ATI restricted driver and all is now okay.

WiFi Problems - solved

Apparently the WiFi is mis-detected during the Ubuntu install as the wrong chip version. Disabling the Ubuntu restricted WiFi driver and then installing the replacement driver for the 5007 chip solves everything:

http://www.ubuntugeek.com/atheros-5007eg-with-madwifi-on-i386-platform.html

With these two problems fixed I now have a great platform to build on.