October 19th, 2007
Posted by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes @ 6:26 am
This post will hold no surprises for those of you who have experience handling Ubuntu, and really it’s not aimed at you (unless you want to chime in with hits, tips or suggestions). the purpose of this post is simply to show folks who’ve not dabbled with Ubuntu just how easy it is to install this operating system.
Check out the Ubuntu 7.10 installation walk-though here.
The great thing about the Live CD format is that you can dabble with an OS without having to install the OS and lose your existing OS. That’s a great “try before you commit” feature and allows you to pick the distro that’s right for you. But once you’ve decided to make the leap, you then want to make sure that the installation cialis cheap online process is as smooth and hitch-free as the Live CD experience is.
So far, my Ubuntu 7.10 install experiences (and I’ve carried out about five installs so far on different platforms) have been pleasant and totally hassle-free – exactly what an OS installation should be like.
What I especially like about the Ubuntu installation is that all the questions are answered at the beginning of the install process and then the installation process doesn’t need any user input until the end. This is in stark contrast to Windows XP where the install process is all over the place (Windows Vista is more like Ubuntu and asks all the questions at the start of the process).
Select an image
Ubuntu is distributed on three types of images described below.
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Desktop CD
The desktop CD allows you to try Ubuntu without changing your computer at all, and at your option to install it permanently later. This type of CD is what most people will want to use. You will need at least 320MB of RAM to install from this CD.
There are two images available, each for a different type of computer:
- PC (Intel x86) desktop CD
- For almost all PCs. This includes most machines with Intel/AMD/etc type processors and almost all computers that run Microsoft Windows, as well as newer Apple Macintosh systems based on Intel processors. Choose this if you are at all unsure.
- 64-bit PC (AMD64) desktop CD
- Choose this to take full advantage of computers based on the AMD64 or EM64T architecture (e.g., Athlon64, Opteron, EM64T Xeon). If you have a non-64-bit processor made by AMD, or if you need full support for 32-bit code, use the Intel x86 images instead.
Server install CD
The server install CD allows you to install Ubuntu permanently on a computer for use as a server. It will not install a graphical user interface.
There are three images available, each for a different type of computer:
- PC (Intel x86) server install CD
- For almost all PCs. This includes most machines with Intel/AMD/etc type processors and almost all computers that run Microsoft Windows, as well as newer Apple Macintosh systems based on Intel processors. Choose this if you are at all unsure.
- 64-bit PC (AMD64) server install CD
- Choose this to take full advantage of computers based on the AMD64 or EM64T architecture (e.g., Athlon64, Opteron, EM64T Xeon). If you have a non-64-bit processor made by AMD, or if you need full support for 32-bit code, use the Intel x86 images instead.
- SPARC server install CD
- For Sun UltraSPARC computers, including those based on the multicore UltraSPARC T1 ("Niagara") processors.
Alternate install CD
The alternate install CD allows you to perform certain specialist installations of Ubuntu. It provides for the following situations:
- creating pre-configured OEM systems;
- setting up automated deployments;
- upgrading from older installations without network access;
- LVM and/or RAID partitioning;
- installs on systems with less than about 320MB of RAM (although note that low-memory systems may not be able to run a full desktop environment reasonably).
In the event that you encounter a bug using the alternate installer, please file a bug on the debian-installer package.
There are two images available, each for a different type of computer:
- PC (Intel x86) alternate install CD
- For almost all PCs. This includes most machines with Intel/AMD/etc type processors and almost all computers that run Microsoft Windows, as well as newer Apple Macintosh systems based on Intel processors. Choose this if you are at all unsure.
- 64-bit PC (AMD64) alternate install CD
- Choose this to take full advantage of computers based on the AMD64 or EM64T architecture (e.g., Athlon64, Opteron, EM64T Xeon). If you have a non-64-bit processor made by AMD, or if you need full support for 32-bit code, use the Intel x86 images instead.
A full list of available files, including BitTorrent files, can be found below.
If you need help burning these images to disk, see this guide.
October 18th, 2007
Posted by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes @ 3:00 pm
My ISO of Ubuntu 7.10 “Gutsy Gibbon” finished downloading a few hours ago and I’ve had some time to explore this cialis buy online new Linux distro.
Ubuntu 7.10 is one sweet OS. Visually, Gutsy Gibbon isn’t all that different to Feisty Fawn. The theme has been tweaked and is easier on the eye but overall the look is pretty much the same. Anyone used to Feisty should feel completely at home with 7.10.
One of the aspects of Gutsy that feels much improved over previous versions is speed. Everything feels faster and snappier, from loading up the OS to clicking on menus. At first I thought that this was an illusion (new things always seem faster) but then I loaded up the Live CDs for both Gutsy and Feisty on the same system and 7.10 has a significant performance advantage over 7.04. Everywhere I look, I can’t help but be impressed.
But there’s more to Gutsy than just a tune up. there are a number of new and improved features – I’ll cover these in later posts.
I’ll have more to say about this OS over the next few days, but for now I’ll leave you with a quick screenshot gallery. Enjoy!
Anyone else having fun with 7.10?
Adrian is a technology author who has devoted over a decade to helping users get the most from technology. He also also runs a popular blog called The PC Doctor. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
