Moving from Windows, Installing Ubuntu

A Guide to Installing Ubuntu

First off, this guide assumes you'll be doing no customization. This is a very basic install. It should also illustrate how easy it is to install Linux. Ubuntu has seven "steps" to installation. I will walk you through these.

This is the screen you will see upon booting from the Live Boot Disc. If you would like to see what your computer would look like with Linux, and also test your hardware for compatibility, you can easily select the first option to boot into a "Live" install. Your filesystem will be untouched, and you can restart with no lasting effects. You will also see options to Install, test the downloaded Live Boot Disc for errors, test your memory, or if you'd prefer not to boot into the live disc at all, boot from the harddrive. THis is important to remember, as if you're like me, you'll forget to remove the disc after your installation, so it will again boot to this menu. For this walkthrough, we're going to skip the live boot (you can do this on your own, no options are required) and go right to the install.

The first installation screen! It gives you the option of selecting a language (default: English) and then tells you to relax and be calm. Select your language and click Next!

Next, we select our timezone for the clock. You can either choose via drop down menus, or you can click a close enough area to where you are on their cool interactive map! This is a new feature since I last installed Ubuntu, so I enjoyed clicking around a but before moving on. Feel free to do this, or move along quickly. Click Forward when ready.

Keyboard layout! This is very important if you want to be able to do anything with the booted system, even log in to change this should you make a mistake. Another new feature, it automatically suggested to me that I was using a USA keyboard. They were right. However, I could've verified this by typing in the box below where it says "You can type into this box..." to verify that what I type shows up on the screen. Once satisfied, click Forward.

Here is where things can get uncomfortable if you're uncertain of what you're doing, or if you're uncertain of what Ubuntu wants you to do. These days, Linux installers are very adept at identifying what you already have installed on your harddrive. If you want to use free space on the harddrive, an option appears to allow you to do this. Because this was a fresh harddrive, my only options were to use the whole disk, or to manually set up my partition tables. Ubuntu is more than capable of doing this for me, so I told it use the whole disk and clicked forward. Make sure you have a backup of anything that is on the drive that you do not want to lose. If you continue past this point, your data will be lost unless you specifically partition around that information. Shrinking partitions is not fool proof and more often than not, I've lost data trying to utilize this feature. My best advice is to get a free harddrive and install on it, allowing Ubuntu to use the entire disk.

This next part is to configure a login for the machine. Many Linux distros still do, or used to, only set up a root password. In Linux, a "root" user is a user with full control over everything. It was designed to not be used unless changes were intended to the system to prevent unintended changes. Ubuntu, as with some other distros, no longer has you set up a root password but instead has you create an intial user who will have the ability to run "root" commands with another program, called sudo. I will discuss sudo more later. For now, fill in your name, a username you can remember, and a password you can remember as well. If you are the only person who will have physical access to the machine, at the bottom you can tell it to automatically sign you in. You can also choose a different name for the system if you so choose.

Review and verify! If you're an advanced user, head on in to the advanced menu and poke around. Otherwise, hit Install.

This is what it looks like while you're installing...

And when your done installing. Click restart here. You won't be able to open your disk drive yet to remove that disk, but once the system has finished shutting down, but before turning off, it'll give you the chance to remove the disk. Hit Restart Now!

Here is the login. It is so dark and ominous! But don't be scared. Using your username and password you set up before, log in.

Here is what your desktop looks like before you start letting Ubuntu know what you're really into. You've done it! You are all installed.