Go! Ubuntu Linux 8.10, Intrepid Ibex - Installation Tips

Ok, today's the day! Ubuntu 8.10, Intrepid Ibex, will be released. Here are a few tips about downloading and installing it.

- The download is about 700 Mb. With today's broadband internet speeds, that's not gigantic, but it's still non-trivial. There is likely to be a huge demand for it initially, so it would be nice to avoid the kind of problem that OpenOffice.org suffered last week when their new release came out. The simplest and most obvious way to get it is to go to the Ubuntu download page and select the version you need. Be sure to select a location near you to download from! However, if you are able to download via BitTorrent, you could go directly to the Ubuntu BitTorrent download page and pick it up from there.

- Once you have the .ISO file downloaded, you need to burn it to a CD in ISO format. If you have one of the popular CD-burning packages installed - Nero, EasyCD, etc. - you should be able to use that, just make sure that you burn it in ISO format; if not, you can go to the Ubuntu Community Documentation Burning ISO HowTo page for instructions on Windows, MacOS and Ubuntu, including links to free/open source ISO burning software.

- Once you have the ISO CD, there are several ways you can proceed. You can simply boot the CD, and let Ubuntu come all the way up without actually installing it or changing anything on your computer, so that you can see how it looks and works, and then decide to do the full installation from there if you want. If you already know that you want to install it, you can run the installation procedure directly from the CD.

- If you run the installation procedure on a computer which has Windows already installed, you will have the choice of either reducing the Windows disk partition to make room to install Ubuntu, or overwriting the entire disk with the Ubuntu installation. If you're installing Ubuntu for the first time, you would be well advised to keep your Windows installation. However, the Ubuntu installation script offers to reduce the Windows partition to just about the absolute minimum that is actually in use, and that doesn't leave you much room to work if you want to keep using Windows after the Ubuntu installation. In my experience, choosing the "Guided" option and specifying a Windows partition size that is about 20% larger than the currently used space is a better choice.

- The Ubuntu installation will take about 20-30 minutes. When it is complete, it will tell you to shut down, remove the CD and reboot. If you chose to keep your Windows partition, it will actually boot to a Grub bootloader menu that will give you a choice between booting Ubuntu or Windows, but the default will be Ubuntu and there is a 10-second timeout, so if you don't respond within that time, it will boot Ubuntu automatically. You can select Windows (and stop the timeout from running) by pressing the up/down arrow keys.

There you have it! Now you can run Ubuntu, and Windows if you chose to keep that intact. I'll post again later, when the distribution is actually available, and I'll include some tips on setup and configuration that I hope will help make it more comfortable for new Ubuntu users.

History.....

Before the first Linux distributions, a would-be Linux user was required to be something of a Unix expert, not only knowing what libraries and executables were needed to successfully get the system to boot and run, but also important details concerning configuration and placement of files in the system.^{[citation needed]}

Linux distributions began to appear very soon after the Linux kernel was first used by individuals outside the original Linux programmers. They were more interested in developing the operating system than they were in application programs, the user interface, or convenient packaging.^{[citation needed]}

Early distributions included:

• H J Lu's "Boot-root" a two disk pair with the kernel and the absolute minimal tools to get started.
• MCC Interim Linux, which was made available to the public for download on the FTP server of University of Manchester in February, 1992;
• TAMU, created by individuals at Texas A&M University about the same time, and
• SLS (Softlanding Linux System).
• Yggdrasil Linux/GNU/X, created the first CD-ROM based Linux distribution.

SLS was not well-maintained, so Patrick Volkerding released a distribution based on SLS, which he called Slackware; released July 16, 1993.^[1] This is the oldest distribution still in active development.

Users were attracted to Linux distributions as alternatives to the DOS and Microsoft Windows operating systems on the PC, Mac OS on the Apple Macintosh and proprietary versions of Unix. Most early adopters were familiar with Unix from work or school. They embraced Linux for its stability, low (if any) cost, and for the availability of the source code for most or all of the software included.

The distributions were originally simply a convenience, but today they have become the usual choice even for Unix or Linux experts. To date, Linux has proven more popular in the server market, primarily for Web and database servers (see also LAMP), than in the desktop market.

Linux Is....

Linux is an operating system that was initially created as a hobby by a young student, Linus Torvalds, at the University of Helsinki in Finland. Linus had an interest in Minix, a small UNIX system, and decided to develop a system that exceeded the Minix standards. He began his work in 1991 when he released version 0.02 and worked steadily until 1994 when version 1.0 of the Linux Kernel was released. The kernel, at the heart of all Linux systems, is developed and released under the GNU General Public License and its source code is freely available to everyone. It is this kernel that forms the base around which a Linux operating system is developed. There are now literally hundreds of companies and organizations and an equal number of individuals that have released their own versions of operating systems based on the Linux kernel. More information on the kernel can be found at our sister site, LinuxHQ and at the official Linux Kernel Archives. The current full-featured version is 2.6 (released December 2003) and development continues.

Apart from the fact that it's freely distributed, Linux's functionality, adaptability and robustness, has made it the main alternative for proprietary Unix and Microsoft operating systems. IBM, Hewlett-Packard and other giants of the computing world have embraced Linux and support its ongoing development. Well into its second decade of existence, Linux has been adopted worldwide primarily as a server platform. Its use as a home and office desktop operating system is also on the rise. The operating system can also be incorporated directly into microchips in a process called "embedding" and is increasingly being used this way in appliances and devices.

Throughout most of the 1990's, tech pundits, largely unaware of Linux's potential, dismissed it as a computer hobbyist project, unsuitable for the general public's computing needs. Through the efforts of developers of desktop management systems such as KDE and GNOME, office suite project OpenOffice.org and the Mozilla web browser project, to name only a few, there are now a wide range of applications that run on Linux and it can be used by anyone regardless of his/her knowledge of computers. Those curious to see the capabilities of Linux can download a live CD version called Knoppix . It comes with everything you might need to carry out day-to-day tasks on the computer and it needs no installation. It will run from a CD in a computer capable of booting from the CD drive. Those choosing to continue using Linux can find a variety of versions or "distributions" of Linux that are easy to install, configure and use. Information on these products is available in our distribution section and can be found by selecting the mainstream/general public category.