Archive for the ‘ubuntu’ Tag
Installing Ubuntu in a dual-boot configuration
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I’ve installed Ubuntu several times on various machines in a dual-boot format, but I’ve never blogged about it. In all cases, it’s been with Windows on the first partition (mostly with XP, but also once with Vista on a new machine), so I’ll use that as my example here.
First things first. Get Windows ready. This usually includes defragmenting to get all your files at the beginning of the partition. That’s pretty much it.
Next, get the install CD (from Ubuntu or your favorite distribution).
Boot into the installation CD. Ubuntu comes with a partition editor (GParted) on the CD, which you’ll need soon.
Resize your Windows partition in order to leave enough space for (a) the linux system itself, (b) a swap partition if your RAM isn’t plentiful, and (c) any other shared partitions you may want to make:
- (a) In the case of Ubuntu, the minimum hard drive space required is 4 GB, although in my experience at least 10-15 GB is better. This partition will probably be of type ext4 (at least, it is in the latest version of Ubuntu)
- (b) Depending on how much RAM you have and how much hard disk space is available, you may want to add a swap partition. This is a sort of paging file used to swap out segments of the RAM that aren’t used very often, freeing up memory for more active applications. On my old machine, which has 512 MB RAM, I added a 1 GB swap partition. On my current machine with 4 GB RAM, I don’t have any swap space at all and everything runs fine. It’s up to you.
- (c) If you want to be able to share files between Windows and linux (and haven’t yet converted to a cooler solution like Dropbox), it might be wise to make a FAT32 partition that can be read by both operating systems. Make this one however large you need.
Be sure to tell the partition editor that you’re going to want to put the root file system (/) on your ext4 partition, and ensure that your swap partition (if you made one) is correctly identified as such.
If you’ve made it this far, you’re almost done. Now run the installer and let it work its magic.
Ubuntu’s always installed GRUB without a hitch. But if you do run into trouble, this documentation from Ubuntu is a good place to look.
Congratulations, and welcome to linux!
Google alternatives, Wubi, and successful blogging
- Living without Google – The Alternatives – An interesting article for those wanting to get as far away from Google as possible (myself not included, of course).
- Wubi: the Windows installer for Ubuntu – Wubi installs a disk image of Ubuntu to your Windows partition and then lets you boot into Ubuntu as if you had done a full partitioned install.
- ‘What’s Wrong With My Blog?’ – Some great tips about how to write good posts and increase your readership.
Ubuntu Studio
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I helped my friend install Ubuntu Studio on his laptop yesterday and today. It’s pretty cool, I must say. Being a huge linux fan, I’m really excited for him. Ubuntu Studio has a ton of open-source multimedia authoring and editing software. And a really sweet theme (pictured at right).
We ran into some issues while installing but were able to resolve them fairly easily. Here’s a summary and some tips for anyone that may be having the same problems:
- He first installed 6.06 because that was the only CD version he had. Since it was a fresh install, he didn’t have any trouble upgrading to 6.10 and then to 7.04 (besides a slow connection).
- Once the full 7.04 system was installed, we followed the instructions on The Ubustu Feed to install the Ubuntu Studio packages on top. We had to make sure the “universe” repository was selected, as we were getting “<package name> is not installable” messages.
- His screen resolution was less than optimal (1024×768 on a widescreen laptop made for 1280×800). But he has an Intel graphics card, so we resolved it using the 915resolution package and these instructions.
Ubuntu
I’ve been using Ubuntu Linux for nine months now and have enjoyed it immensely. I’m a computer geek anyway, so linux is the perfect toy for me. I love the customizability and control linux gives me. I can open up a bash shell and do most of my work from there. In fact, for the last several months I’ve been using the Fluxbox window manager. It provides very few graphical utilities, so I do most of my work from the command line.
Aside from the terminal, my favorite thing about linux in general and Ubuntu specifically is all the open source software that is available for it. Everything running on the box right now is free/open source software. It is awesome to watch how the open source community has made such great products.
Simply because of the way linux and other unixes (like Mac OS X) are built, viruses and spyware are generally not a concern. Security is much easier to maintain. I don’t even have any antivirus software on this box and have never had a problem.
One perpetual issue with linux is hardware support. The built-in wireless card on my Compaq Presario laptop has never worked reliably, despite my earnest efforts. But by and large, the default installation of Ubuntu 6.06 (the first version I used) found most of my hardware and made it work sufficiently well. I’m using 7.04 now, and it all still runs great.
So as I was surfing today I found a few interesting items:
- Ubuntu Studio is an Ubuntu derivative targeted toward the multimedia guru. Their first official release has just come out, based on Ubuntu 7.04. I have a friend who is really into video and audio editing, but most of the software he uses is written only for Windows (except for The GIMP, of course!). This is a step in the right direction for linux to enter this market. These blogs discuss Ubuntu Studio and may be of interest:
EDIT: I also found the following two sites:
- Dell is offering Ubuntu pre-installed on new systems This is another exciting step for linux entering the general consumer market. Linux has long been the domain of the computer geek, but Ubuntu especially has made great progress in making linux accessible to the average human being.
