I've got a Vaio notebook. The FDD and CDROM are on the docking station. The CDROM is not bootable. I tried installing Mandriva by booting from the FDD. It could not find the CDROM. I (need to double-check this) tried booting from an MSDOS disk, but I don't think it was able to find the CDROM drive with that either. The CDROM drive works fine in windows. Anyways, now I think Kubuntu sounds a little more exciting than Mandriva, so I've decided I want to install that. I want to install Kubuntu via FTP. How would I do this (and would there be any issue setting up a dual-boot this way)? Gracias.
You must download the Kubuntu CD (there's no FDD...) and then hope that it recognizes your CD drive... IF that doesn'T work you might consider trying SuSE - it normally has a very good hardware detection and lots of drivers.
Turns out I had to enable "i.Link boot" in the BIOS, because the docking station's connection runs over the IEEE 1394. Got Kubuntu installed off the disc. Learned about the "no root access" issue with Kubuntu. Tried to install Mandriva. It boots from the disc, but then tells me it can't find the CD-ROM drive. Brilliant. C'est la vie. Guess I'll stick with Kubuntu for now.
If you want root access in Kubuntu, log in as an unpriviledged user and then run this on the shell: Code: sudo passwd root su
