A first look at Ubuntu
Rather than just loading Fedora and continuing as usual, I’ve decided to take a look at some of the other distros, starting with Ubuntu.
I started out by downloading and ISO of ubuntu-6.06-desktop-i386, and burned it to CD. I then restarted the notebook and let the machine boot from CD. After several minutes I was sitting at a sleek looking Gnome desktop with an “Install” icon on it. I started the install, and was taken through the usual keyboard, language, and time settings, and then prompted me create the first user on the system.
The next step was to allocate disk space to Linux. The default was to erase my entire disk and let the install create and allocate partitions for me. Since I have Windows XP installed, I selected “Manually edit the partition table” and hit next. After a minute of scanning the disk I was taken to a screen that showed my partition table.
When I did the first XP install I left 22 gigs of space free for installing Linux, which I selected in the partitioning tool and split into a 1 gig swap partition (”New Partition #1″) and a 21 gig root partition (”New Partition #2″). I clicked next and told the install to go ahead and write the changes to the disk.
After a minute or so, I was taken to the next screen where I was to select the partition I wanted to allocate to “/”. The drop down list didn’t show my newly created partitions though. Figuring I must of done something wrong, I went pack to the previous screen. My partitions were there, but they were not tagged as having the filesystem types I thought I had assigned. I removed and recreated the partitions, taking extra care to assign the proper filesystems.
I clicked next again, said okay to the changes and was taken to the partition assignment screen after a minute or so. Again, the drop down list didn’t show the partitions.
I tried a couple of more times before giving up and searching the Ubuntu forums for an answer. It turns the partition tool in the installer is known to be buggy - you can’t manually edit partitions.
At this point my first attempt at installing Ubuntu ended in failure.
Next up: Kubuntu from DVD.
June 8th, 2006 at 01:58
Ubuntu is great and Dapper Drake makes it even better!
I upgraded to Dapper and was pleasantly surprised to find that my system is much more responsive than with Breezy. Firefox seems especially snappier. I really like the new GNOME deskbar applet too.
Too bad you had trouble installing it. I hope you can figure out a workaround or the Ubuntu devs can fix the problem.
October 27th, 2006 at 09:03
heyas all.
my 40 gig drive is going to good use now. I have installed UBUNTU and have ordered KUBUNTU.
I dont know how to install the driver for my ati radeon 9600xt.
Actually i dont know if i am meant to be downloading and installing XFREE86 or the XORG version of the driver. I am downloading them both but i dont know how to do anything in Linux really.
I dont know where I am meant to set up my modem or set up a net account. (no INETWIZ.EXE)
So yeah, can someone help me out with getting my ATI driver installed?
and does anyone know of a good long PDF file i can read and wrap my brain around.
I\’m still a Windows user, but I want to use Linux as much as possible.
Thanks. :)