Stuff…

Whilst trying to install Ubuntu 9.10 on an old Dell Dimension 1100 the Ubuntu installer would start up and once it got to the stage to do the partitioning parted would error.  parted reported to check /var/log/syslog for more information.

The error was along the lines of:

Ubiquity: parted_server error while loading shared libraries /lib/libparted-1.8.so.12

Thinking that the disk may not be readable I rebooted and ran the check installation media option.  The media was apparently fine.

After failing with this process a few more times I tried the “try ubuntu” option which booted up the X server from the CD.  On the desktop there is an “install ubuntu” link.  Clicking on this link took me through the installation process and successfully partitioned the disk.

System is now installed and working fine.