[Blackpool] Re Toshiba laptop Linux install

[Tony Hughes]

Hi All

For those of you that were at the meeting on Saturday and know the saga 
of my Portege 2010 ultra portable laptop that I have been figuring out 
how to get Linux installed as it has a non standard 1.8" HDD and will 
not recognise a USB CD drive for booting.

We had looked at doing a network install but in the end I have purchased 
a 1.8 to 2.5 converter for the hard drive from e-bay (arrived in 24 
hours for £3.99 inc postage)

Using the converter i put the HDD into another laptop (Dell Inspiron 
1300) a fairly simple process with the converter, and installed Xubuntu 
10.04 onto the drive.

I then transfered the HDD back to the Toshiba and booted it up, success 
after a fashion I have a working install although the I can not get the 
system to recognise that the screen will run at 1024x768 so I have a 
tiny desk top at 800x600 in the middle of what is normally a nice 13" 
full screen display.

I run a software update and this has not solved the problem, I also 
looked in the driver downloads to see if a driver was the problem but 
apart from a driver for the fax modem no video drivers available.

Next I try the net for a solution but all the suggestions I try do not 
work. Looks like this could be a project for the next time at the 
meeting. at least I know the laptop will run Xubuntu 10.04 with its 
limited specification. Maybe a network install is the answer as at least 
the install will be direct to the PC so it would hopefully detect the 
hardware at install.

Anyone got any ideas for me.

Tony