Installing latest Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) on my low end notebook IBM Thinkpad T21 is trivial. I can’t use default distribution CD that available on the net, instead back to old fashioned way using alternate CD install from Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy Fit). Please be patient, on machine with 256 MB RAM and 800 MHz processor speed, it took almost 1,5 hours to complete all installation process.
Also notice after installing Edgy, you may have a blank screen after boot process. Don’t worry, to fix the problem press CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE and then ALT+F1 to get you to login prompt. Enter your credentials and issue the following command:
sudo dpk-reconfigure xserver-xorg
Follow the default options, until you prompted to choose default depth for your monitor, please choose 24 (bit) here instead 16 (bit). The full guide is here .
After you have completed Edgy updates, then upgrade distribution to 7.04 (Festy Fawn) and apply all updates, then upgrade to latest Gutsy. There is a tips, use a lightweight windows manager instead default. I prefer to choose xfce, install with the following command :
sudo aptitude install xubuntu-desktop
Now, it is time to cosmetics :-)
Update: screenshot