Introduction
If you are like 93% of Internet surfers out there, you are reading this article from a browser installed on your Windows machine, however I’m sure you have heard of that “other operating system”. You know the one which is really difficult? Yeah, that’s right, Linux. Well, it’s almost right, except for the part about “really difficult”. You may have seen screenshots, thought about trying it, already tried it, or just thought “hey, it’s a cool idea”. If you are any of these and curiosity just has you itching to give Linux a shot, or another shot, read on!
In this article I’ll show you how to get up and running on your current system in your very own Linux environment. I will be walking you through installing the most popular, and in my opinion the best flavor of Linux called Ubuntu. So before you read any further, hop on over to the the Ubuntu Linux download page and start downloading the CD image. You may be wondering which download do you need. If you have an Intel or AMD processor, get the Intel x86 version. Avoid the 64 bit version, even if you have a 64 bit processor, it is not officially supported. Mac users will need the Power PC variation.
Don’t worry, we will be setting up a dual boot so your Windows install is safe!
UPDATE: We have posted a video of the entire process of installing Ubuntu Linux, using 7.10 “Gutsy Gibbon” as the testbed for our video. While this article will provide a lot of detail for you, be sure to check out our video to SEE it in action!
Why Bother?
Good question. Why would you want to try Linux when you are a happy Windows user? Here are just a few reasons:
- It’s 100% free and always will be
- Thousands of applications are immediately available and 100% free
- No more virus, spyware, or malware hassles!
- You want to learn something new (this was my reason)
- It’s cool
- Why not?
- It’s 100% free (did I mention that yet?)
If any of those reasons are compelling, or at least good enough, Linux is worth giving a shot. Who knows, you might actually like it!
Important Stuff to Know
Before we actually start the installation, it is important to make sure your expectations of Linux are set correctly. First and foremost: Linux is not Windows! You are going to have to use the command line sometimes and most likely do a little bit of troubleshooting. Please do not let this intimidate you, after using Linux for a short while you will become proficient and, with a little patience and persistence, eventually be just as comfortable with Linux as you are with Windows. I’ll even point you to some very helpful resources to get all the answers you need. I’ve only been using it 5 months, and while I still know Windows better, I can use Linux just as easily.
As you may know, Linux is “open source” software, meaning anyone, anywhere can take the code and edit it without restriction. This sounds great, and don’t get me wrong, it is, however because there is no commercial backing, there can be certain shortcomings. Some of these include device driver support and availability of software (especially games). Do not let this discourage you though, virtually all hardware has support for Linux and you are going to have thousands of applications available to you with just a few clicks of your mouse once we get you set up on Ubuntu. Sound good? Of course it does! Check you download progress!
The machine I will be referring in this article is an Intel Pentium 3 866Mhz. The motherboard is an Asus CUV4X with 512MB of memory. Additionally, I have a DVD drive and 2 15 gigabyte hard drives, One has XP Professional already installed (primary IDE master) and the other is empty (primary IDE slave). Here is a basic rundown of what I will be covering in this article:
- Setting up Ubuntu Linux on a separate hard drive from Windows
- Answering a few post-new installation questions
- Familiarizing you with your Linux environment… using Windows terminology
- Pointing out some stuff you might want to try
Lets Install Ubuntu!
Ahh, there’s nothing more exciting than a new operating system install. Nervous? Don’t be, this is going to be easy. Is your download done yet? Well, when it is, burn it to CD immediately and pick up this article from this point. I’ll even leave you a marker so this spot is easy to find.
HERE IS WHERE TO PICK UP
You have the Ubuntu install disc, so pop in your spare hard drive (if you do not know how to do this, make a quick detour to the PC Mech Forums and you will have it done in no time) and put the install disc in your CD drive and lets get started.
After your computer goes through its boot sequence you will be greeted with the Ubuntu installation welcome screen. After pressing Enter, you will be asked for your preferred language, followed by your location and keyboard layout. The install will then start detecting some of your hardware, load some basic components, and auto detect your network settings. Now you will be prompted for your “Host Name”. This is the equivalent of your Windows computer name. I am going to call this computer tux (the name of the Linux Penguin). Up next, the install will detect your hard drives and ask what you want to do. Much like Windows, Ubuntu will let you select the drive you want to install it on and with the press of your Enter key handle everything for you. The problem is, that’s no fun, plus there is a better way. So let’s do a little Linux “geeking”.
Partitioning for Your Linux Installation
Before showing you the partitioning scheme I will be using for this setup, it is important to understand how the use of partitions differ between Windows and Linux. On a default Windows install, all your files are stored in a single block of space on your hard drive called a partition. To make things easy, Windows assigns a letter (usually C) to this partition. Linux does the exact same thing except it does not use letters. In fact, if you were to “explore” your Linux file structure, it would appear everything was stored on a single drive, even if you have several partitions or multiple hard drives “mounted” (more on this later). Enough talk, select the option to manually edit your partition table and let’s move on.
Now you will see a listing of your existing hard drive partitions. Linux refers to your IDE devices (usually your hard drives and CD drives) using the letters “hd” followed by letters a through d (representing primary IDE master through secondary IDE slave, respectively). Additionally, hard drive partitions have a number after them referring to the partition number. For example, a hard drive on your secondary IDE cable set as master, with 2 partitions would show as hdc1 and hdc2. A CD drive on your primary IDE cable set to slave would show as hdb (there is no number because CD’s do not have partitions).
You should see your primary hard drive (hda) which has your Windows installation with all of its partitions listed. We are going to leave this one alone. Additionally, you will see your empty hard drive (hdb, hdc, or hdd) with the size of the drive listed followed by “FREE SPACE”.
Highlight “FREE SPACE”, press enter and then select the option to create partition. We are going to first create the “/” partition which is equivalent to the Windows C drive. All of your programs and libraries (libraries in Linux are similar to Windows DLL’s) will be stored on this “/” partition. A size of 5-10 GB should be plenty for this. Since I only have 15 GB on my installation drive, I am going to allocate 5 GB, but if you have a bigger drive, assign more space just to be safe. On my primary machine, I have an 80 GB drive and I have 10 GB partitioned for “/”. After entering the size, select Primary as the partition type. Next you will be asked where to place the partition on the disk. Since “/” is our workhorse partition which will store all our crucial Linux operating system files, including the information we need to boot the system, it makes sense to place it at the beginning. At last you will be presented with a partition configuration screen. You will see the option to change the partition file system, but lets leave it with the Linux standard, ext3. Make sure the mount point is set to “/” and change the bootable flag to “on”… after all we do need to boot our system right? Select the option to be done with this partition and let’s move on to the next one.
You should now notice some of the free space has been allocated to your “/” partition. We still have a couple of more partitions to set up so highlight “FREE SPACE” again and create our swap partition. The swap partition is used for temporary random storage in case your computer doesn’t have enough memory to store what programs demand. Additionally, if you hibernate your computer, all the contents of your memory are stored in the swap. Windows refers to this as “virtual memory”. The recommended amount to allocate for this is one and a half times your memory, so for me, I am going to make it 768 MB. Make this a primary partition and place it at the end of your drive. At the configuration screen, change the partition to a swap area. Apply the changes.
Lets set up the final partition. Select the remaining “FREE SPACE” and assign all of your remaining space to this primary partition. When you get to the configuration screen, notice the mount point is set to “/home”. The /home directory in Linux is equivalent to “My Documents” in Windows. For example the user I am going to set up, “jason”, has its own directory (/home/jason) which stores all my personal settings and files. The reason we make this a separate partition is for abstraction. For example, we can format our “/” partition for a new install or distribution upgrade without losing any data… even better, all my settings such as bookmarks and playlists will be kept no matter what happens to the “/” partition. Pretty neat idea. Apply your changes, this is the last partition!
Well, the hard part is now over. Compare your screen to mine, they should look similar. Go ahead and select finish partitioning and confirm you selections to write the partitions to your hard drive.
Jason Faulkner is the man who brings you our daily tips. He is based in Atlanta, Georgia.
I’m running into the same problem as #7. I boot up and after the system checks the screen goes blank. The CD still keeps running but nothing happens. I’ll check my video settings but would it be better to dump windows and start clean. I bought a used IBM T23 with XP Pro and don’t need it. If I format the drive how do I boot up and install Linux CLEAN.I don’t want windows on this laptop.
I can think of way too many reasons to dump windows…. perhaps our next server build will be Linux based…
I have been trying to install Ubuntu for two days with no success. The process gets to the menu and then starts to unstall and during the time that the rectangle is going back and forth on the screen it stops and that is the end. I have on more than one ocasion let it run but it won’t go any farther. I am running an HP Pavillion with 256 meg. of RAM, 15 gb HD, and 633 mhz cpu with XP Pro. Any help please???
Thanks very much.
I have put Ubuntu on a number of different systems, including 3 different Pentium 3 laptops. Linux is an excellent way to revive performance in older systems that are sluggish with windows XP and later. However the two most popular Ubuntu GUI desktops are somewhat resource hungry. Ubuntu with Gnome or KDE starts to have problems if you only have 256 meg of RAM. If your machine can take more memory then add some. I have been successful with 384 meg of ram.
Also you can try the lightweight Ubuntu version Xubuntu or another linux flavor such as Puppy (http://www.puppylinux.com/).
On the whole I have found that the Ubuntu family seems to have the best success with getting you online with a laptop. The biggest problem I have had is getting the video drivers configured so that these older laptops are able to use their full screen resolution ability.
Old, cheap (under $150 in 2008) Pentium III Laptops I have installed it on:
Gateway Solo 6200 (put in 512 meg ram) – this was the easiest install
Sony Vio PCG FX300
Ended up I had to set video=vesa in the GRUB bootloader line to get the full 1024 x 768 screen resolution (did I mention these are old cheap laptops)
Compaq Presario 1800T. Still solving the video thing (Ubuntu/Xubuntu does 800 x 600 while Puppy does the 1024 x 768).
The ability of Linux to restore useful abilities to these older machines makes them available to people who cannot afford newer systems. Sort of a $150 laptop because of recycling project.
An additional feature of Ubuntu not mentioned in the article above is that it has a pretty stable automatic notification of upgrades for the programs you have installed. That is within the release version. Upgrading to a newer release can be more difficult and should be approached carefully.
When you go to install Ubuntu it is actually a good idea to have a smaller root (/) partition and a separate larger home (/home) partition. Release upgrades then only modify the root partition. There are lots of articles on the internet about this.
There are some excellent open source tools that allow you to run many Windows apps. WINE (http://www.winehq.org/) is one for many windows programs and FreeDos (http://www.freedos.org) installs on a linux system as dosemu and allows you to run all your old DOS programs that stopped working after Windows 2000.
So far the only programs I felt I really needed that do not seem to do well on my system under WINE or its commercial cousin Crossover are Quickbooks and Quicken. This is not to say that there are other Windows programs I have tried which have not run, it is rather to say that I was able to find Linux specific programs to do the same things.
In some cases I have found better Linux programs.
It is also my experience that Linux does a good job of teaching you about how OS’s work so that the computer is not just a mysterious black box. After all, knowledge gives us more control over our lives.
you should upgrade your computer
[...] even if u have one cuz its not officially supported” is this true or is the article outdated? http://www.pcmech.com/article/installing…; its on the second paragraph thanks so much Answer Yes there are known issues with the 64bit [...]
[...] — zachdude1094 @ 5:54 am I got Ubuntu Linux to run off a CD today by following these instructions, downloading the .ISO image from Here (get the Intel x86 version. Avoid the 64 bit [...]
I am trying to install UBUNTU 7.1 on an acer travelmate 330t which has an external floppy/cd combo drive connected to the laptop by a scsi-like connector. Currently I am running windows XP. I went into the bios and changed the boot sequenct to cdrom, floppy and hard drive. However I can not boot from the UBUNTU CD. I can see all the directories on the CD while in XP. When I reboot the floppy drive in the combo drive seems to be looking for a disk but the CD drive never comes on. Then it just boots up XP. If I put in an XP cd it will boot from that so I know the CD drive is working. Any thoughts?
Hi Friends,
i had install ubuntu 7.1 in my pc,while start up it make a usual welcome startup sound but when i am trying to play any mp3 songs or video,it says that codec is not found. what to do for this?
please help me
new version of ubuntu is out, installation information for Hard Heron is here:
http://technicianspot.blogspot.com/2008/05/installing-linux-ubuntu.html
I have downloaded ubuntu and burned a CD. I have placed in my laptop an old Sony viao. The hardrive has been wiped of the Windows os,
When I insert the ubuntu Cd into the CD drive and boot the laptop it picks up the CD but displays the comment ‘no operating system present’.
Can anyone help me to load ubuntu?
Thank you
hey guys i recently installed ubuntu following all the norms i emptied one disk and put it there with all precautions now when it starts booting it directly goes to linux and the option on my comp which shows vista long horn loader cant be selected itself i have no idea wat to do to get to get back to vista .please help me
Ubuntu V8.04 Hardy heron, re installation partitioning
Minimum root directory,(where operating system goes),for a good performance,is 8GB, use 10GB, and you’ll be fine, unless you intend to install lots of extra programms, then add on extra space for these. Info from Ubuntu.com
Regards Bill
Using vista on a acer notebook
CD reader/writer stopped working
Can i change the OS off of a usb removable drive?
I am attempting to put Ubuntu 8.04 x86 bit LTS 2011 version on a computer which i stripped the OS. I took a DVD/CD and burned the .ISO file to the CD. Then when i turned on the PC it started to boot from the disk. For whatever reason, my motherboard is automatically looking for Windows. It does not recognize Ubuntu, Do i need to change BIOS? I knew when they said it was “so easy” it was too good to be true.
I have a question.
I went through the installation process with no problems, but when I booted it up from hard drive, it ran XP instead.
any explanation as to why this happened?
i am a instructor at a school where we do Linux (Ubuntu) as one of our subjects – what about the 50 mb /boot partition (directory) that is suggested in linux books , will the installation work without it? my installation bombs out at 94% if i do not create a boot partition , we have just started and i have not yet got Linux / server 2003 / xp to work together , but i think i am about 2.5h away from success, i will let you know
my linux installation works perfectly on one ha with 3 partitions
partition 1 = xp
partition 2 = server 2003
partition 3 = linux
the linux partition must be broken into the following partitions
+/- 50mb /boot
+/- 1.5x ram size as a swap area (no need to format it)
+/- 10004mb /
+/- 20003 /home
if you partition Linux Ubuntu open space like this Ubuntu will ask you if you want to import ntloader (the window boot file) to your GRUB (Linux boot file) if it does not ask you this you have made a mistake somewhere, if it does ask you if you would like to import ntloader (users) and you reply YES you would be able to boot up with any of these operating systems
therefor you could theoretically have a pc with the following boot up options
DOS
win98
win 2000
win xp
win server
win vista
linux
you do however have to install the OS’s in the right order
hope it helps
Imppossible to install. Tried three diferent versions on three different machines with two diferent operating systems w2k and xp. Will not partion drive and am not going to format slave drive. Over 200Gb empty space. Wasted all day and highly frustrated. Don’t waste time. I believe its some kind of Con game selling Pro advice.
john
u r simply not giving enough info for any1 2 try an help u, my linux r running smoothly with a xp an a server 2003 on the same harddrive
barry
Cannot install Ubuntu Linux 8.1 for desktop — receive “Oversize – Recommand Mode 1280×1024 message”.
Running XP (SP2), ATI (Raedon 9000 series) 4xAGP video card w/64MB memory.
XP runs in 1280×1024 mode.
Booting Linux from CD, begins loading, get the initial Ubuntu ’splash screen’, orange bar moving back and forth across the screen, then it changes to a loading status bar.
After the progress bar reaches the right end I get a blank screen and can hear 3-4 seconds on ‘music’, then get above message and in a few seconds my monitor goes off.
Have looked thru Ubuntu website, forums, etc and really can’t find a place to begin overcoming this.
Anyone with an idea?
Thanks
hey Jim
i dont know that error but will try and help you anyway
are you installing ubuntu from within xp??
if so that could be your first mistake, try loading “booting with your cd”
are you installing on a seperate HD or on a partition “after” XP, did you run the cd’s diagnostic feature to see if your machine is compatable and that your memory is working fine?
ubuntu does sometimes go “out of sink” on the monitor but it fixes itself after a couple of seconds
try to list exactly how you install ubuntu on what HD how your partitions is made up, are u looking for dual boot ect
the more info you give the better the the oppotunity that me or someone can help you
Jim you need to install a program called EnvyNG on your pc for the ATI driver problem. I’m using 8.04 so I’ve never installed or used EnvyNG with 8.10.
http://albertomilone.com/envyngfaq.html#A
—————————————
Jim said:
11/2/2008 10:52 pm
Cannot install Ubuntu Linux 8.1 for desktop — receive “Oversize – Recommand Mode 1280×1024 message”.
Running XP (SP2), ATI (Raedon 9000 series) 4xAGP video card w/64MB memory.
XP runs in 1280×1024 mode.
Booting Linux from CD, begins loading, get the initial Ubuntu ’splash screen’, orange bar moving back and forth across the screen, then it changes to a loading status bar.
After the progress bar
reaches the right end I get a blank screen and can hear 3-4 seconds on ‘music’, then get above message and in a few seconds my monitor goes off.
Have looked thru Ubuntu website, forums, etc and really can’t find a place to begin overcoming this.
Anyone with an idea?
To all those having blank screens during installation!!!
Before choosing the option “Install Ubuntu” press F4 and choose “safe video driver” option
anyone help me out for installing the drivers from the motherboard cd in the ubuntu8.10
to install most supported drivers you have to go to System>Administration>Hardware Drivers
There you will be asked to activate which drivers. Make sure to update the system first though, as I had some problems activating my video card drivers before updating system (to update system goto System>Administration>Update Manager).
I have a problem with the very beginning with the installation. I burn ubuntu on a cd and boot it. Then it asks me what do I choose: Windows vista or ubuntu, and I choose ubuntu. Then It start loading and shows the screen where ubuntu is loading. But then it shows a screen that wants me to type some kind of command and on the top of the screen says that is loading but it is not. It says the version of ubuntu and under that says to type help for build commands.
WHAT DO I DO HELP?
i know how to install and create partitions with XP and LINUX together ^^
I have just loaded Ubuntu on my laptop as Windows Vista far too slow. Am new to Linux and need advice on partitioning and formatting the space where vista loaded (do not want it). please direct me to the best lcations to learn how to recapture my hard drive space (seems I only have 41MB use of 120GB… or am I wrong? My laptop now automatically boots up on ubuntu.
Had the same hanging problems as several others.
It seems to be a common issue with ACPI or APIC or whatever the acronym is.
On Ubuntu 8.10 the keys to choose boot options are F6, and turn off the api and lapic options.
This worked for me.
Installed 2nd hard drive(supposedly bad)40gb.Quick format threw windows 2000.Installed xubuntu (I have 384mb of ram)Now I have a choice of 2 different os systems.sweet.
Mr. Jason Faulkner
You’re tips on how to partition single drive for dual-booting helps me make my way to hassle free installation and a better computing machine.
Many thanks!
Jose