Wow! Ubuntu Laptop!

My mother-in-law just upgraded computers and very kindly gave me her older laptop, so literally minutes after I officially received it, I popped in my Gutsy Gibbon installation disk and here I am typing on my new Linux Laptop. Here are the specs:

Acer Aspire 2010
40 GB Hard Disk
1 GB RAM
Pentium M 1.5 GHz

The installation went well, except for a warning I got about Ubuntu security updates. I had also forgotten about having to enable the types of repositories I would be downloading packages from.

So what will I do with another computer? I plan to have this available for wireless access at home and I want to bring it to show people how cool Ubuntu is in hopes of spreading the word.

Ubuntu Installation

It's been about a month since I did this, but I wanted to share how easy it was to install Ubuntu onto my computer. I got my Dell Dimension 4600 (80 GB Hard Drive, 512 RAM, Pentium 4) in August 2004, and although it is still running strong, I want to extend its life as long as I can. So I ended up buying a second 80 GB hard drive to add storage space and I plan to add memory as soon as it makes sense to. I had been planning to install Ubuntu on my computer for a while but I didn't want to do it on my current hard drive. It just seemed too risky. Buying a second hard drive made a lot of sense for this purpose, so while home from work with strep throat, I decided to do it. (I was also trying to do a video editing project with Windows Movie Maker with no success, and I wanted to give Cinelerra - a Linux based video editing program - a try. This was a whole other ball of wax that I will NOT get into right now!).

I worked for a couple of nights trying to offload and backup programs from my Windows XP drive - just in case something awful happened. After doing this, and doing a lot of reading on the subject, I decided to go for it. I went to Ubuntu's download page, and downloaded the .iso image, which I then burned to a CD. Then, after sitting there, throat hurting, contemplating, I decided I would boot from the CD and see what happened. I entered the installation program and it was really quite simple. I selected that I wanted a dual boot with Windows XP and that I wanted Ubuntu to go only on the new hard drive. After about 20 minutes, everything was installed, and I booted up.

The first thing I saw after the Dell splash screen was GRUB with Ubuntu and Windows XP Professional as options. I booted into Ubuntu and it was beautiful. Then to make sure all had gone well I booted into Windows successfully. Sick or not, I felt wonderful! Everything worked with Ubuntu - the mouse, the printer, the network, the sound. True success!!

For those interested (if you're not and you've read this far . . . um, wow - you must have a lot of time on your hands :-) ) I'll post some good reference resources for this:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WindowsDualBoot

http://apcmag.com/6101/dualboot_windows_xp_and_ubuntu

http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2006/05/08/dual-boot-laptop.html?page=1

Up and Running!

I used CD 1 to get Linux up and running. I kind of surprised myself by deciding to change my strategy for getting this project underway. Since I'm such a newbie at Linux, I decided to install the GUI and start with a standard system. That way I can get a handle on the way things work and then hopefully work with the web and file server options.

I'm VERY impressed with the Gnome GUI. It's clean and very attractive, like Apple. Windows looks decidedly UN-graceful in comparison. Here's a screenshot:


I'm very pleased. After using it for a couple of days I'm getting used to the Linux mindset, if gradually.

Jigdo? ISO? = new lingo

Well, following the advice on Debian's website, I downloaded Jigdo and began downloading CDs. I selected all 21 Debian CDs, and it took all night to get through to CD 8! What Jigdo (a contraction of "Jigsaw Download" does is take the files from several different mirror sites across the country and the world, and use them to create full CDs. This lessens the load on specific mirrors (it's all explained here).

Anyway, I did this for two nights in a row, only getting to CD 15 - then I read somewhere that I only really needed CD 1 to get started! Oh, well.

I also learned a bit about CD images (ISOs). ISO files are compressed versions of all the single files you need on a CD. You can't just write the ISO file to a CD, which is what will happen if you use Windows XP's built in CD writing utility. I initially used an ISO Recorder program I came across on the web, but the first CD I burned with it had an error, so I tried Burn 4 Free, which worked fine.

The Plunge

Okay, I've got it all ready:

• I've got my Dell plugged into the network - the Ethernet lights on the PC and on the router are lit, so hopefully the network will work!
• I decided to try the Network Install option for Debian. The full program is 21 CDs, and if I can download everything from the network after Linux is on my station that will be ideal. Otherwise I'll just have to download the CDs.
• I did a little more piddling with Windows 98 to make sure I'm ready

I've realized that I don't know what I'm doing. I would never do this with a computer that I knew I needed later! But I'm going to do it anyway. Here goes . . .

Preparing for Linux

With some trepidation, I began looking at my parents old PC. It was loaded with software that I knew was extraneous for my purposes. I decided to run ScanDisk and to defragment the drive (did I need to do this? I don't know, but I wanted to be safe). I also began sleuthing my hardware, as suggested by one of the Linux books I was referencing. I discovered the following specs about the computer:

Intel Pentium III Processor
40 GB hard drive
128 MB of RAM
CD-ROM drive (predates CD-R/RW capability)
2 USB ports (not sure which type, but presumably 1.0)
3 1/2" floppy drive
Iomega ZIP drive
Linksys Gigabit Network Card EG1032 v.2

Basically, the layout for a top of the line workhorse computer c. 2000.

I deleted as much of the extraneous software as I could and considered the computer ready for Linux.