Linux Articles

Ubuntu 8.10, also known as the Intrepid Ibex, arrived exactly one week ago (on October 30th, 2008), and is the ninth release of Ubuntu OS. The following tutorial will teach you how to install the Ubuntu 8.10 operating system on your PC, and is addressed to people that have just heard about Ubuntu, people that have never installed Ubuntu before and want to test it, but don't know how.

This guide will make things very simple for you, but if you get stuck somewhere in the middle of the installation and you need help, do not hesitate to use our commenting system at the end of the article.

What do I need to get started?
· You will need the Ubuntu 8.10 Desktop ISO image that corresponds to your hardware architecture (i386 or amd64), and which can be downloaded from here. When the download is over, burn the ISO image with your favorite CD/DVD burning application (Brasero on Ubuntu or Nero, CDBurnerXP, Roxio on Windows) on a blank CD at 8x speed. Insert or leave the CD in your CD/DVD-ROM device, and reboot the computer in order to boot from the CD. Hit the F8 or F12 key (depending on your BIOS) to select the CD/DVD-ROM as the boot device.

Select your language when asked...

Select the second option "Install Ubuntu," and hit the “Enter” key...

Wait for the CD to load into RAM...

When the installer appears, you are able to select your native language for the installation process. Click the “Forward” button to continue...

Where are you?
· The second screen will feature a map of the Earth with little red dots, so you can select your city/country. Upon the selection of your current location, the time for the final system will adjust accordingly. You can also select your current location from the drop down list situated at the bottom of the window.

Click the “Forward” button after you have selected your desired location...

Test your keyboard
· On the third screen, you will be asked to select the keyboard layout that suits you best (default is U.S. English). You can also test your keyboard on the small text input field situated at the bottom of the window.

Click the “Forward” button when you have finished with the keyboard configuration...

Hard disk partitioning
Hold on, don't leave just yet! The hard disk partitioning is an easy task, so I am quite sure you will handle it too. You have three options here:

1. If you want to keep your existing operating system (e.g. Dual boot with Windows XP), select the first option: "Guided - resize the partition and use the freed space." This option will appear if you have another operating system installed, such as Microsoft Windows. Remember that, after the installation, the Windows boot loader will be overwritten by the Ubuntu boot loader!

2. If you want to delete your existing operating system, or the hard drive is already empty and you want to let the installer automatically partition the hard drive for you, select the second option, "Guided - use entire disk."

3. Manual is the third choice and it is recommended for advanced users.

WARNING: Be aware that all the data on the selected hard drive or partition will be ERASED and IRRECOVERABLE.

Click the “Forward” button to continue with the installation...

Who are you?
· On this screen, you must do exactly what the title says. Fill in the fields with your real name, the name you want to use to log in on your Ubuntu OS (also known as the “username”), the password and the name of the computer (automatically generated, but can be overwritten). Also at this step, there's an option called “Log in automatically.” If you check the box on this option, you will be automatically logged in to the Ubuntu desktop.

Click the “Forward” button...

Are you really ready for Ubuntu?
· This is the final step of the installation. Here, you can select to install the boot loader on another partition or hard drive than the default one...

Click the “Install” button to install Ubuntu...

The Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron) operating system will be installed...

After approximately 8 to 15 minutes (depending on your computer's specs), a pop-up window will appear, notifying you that the installation is complete, and you need to restart the computer in order to use the newly installed Ubuntu operating system.

Click the “Restart Now” button...


The CD will be ejected, remove it and press the “Enter” key to reboot...

The computer will be restarted and, in a few seconds, you will see the Ubuntu login screen. Input your username and password...

Have fun using Ubuntu!


Source: http://akupunyasitus.blogspot.com/

Installing OpenSolaris - Indiana Developer Preview! Indiana is a Live CD distribution, based on the OpenSolaris source code, which tries to make the installation experience easier, to modernize the look and feel of OpenSolaris on the desktop, and to introduce a network-based package management system into Solaris. It will also have the capability for developers to create their own customized distribution. The following are some of the most important features of the Indiana project:

· Single CD download, with LiveCD 'try before you install' capabilities
· Caiman installer, with significantly improved installation experience
· ZFS as the default filesystem
· Image packaging system, with capabilities to pull packages from network repositories
· GNU utilities in the default $PATH
· bash as the default shell
· GNOME 2.20 desktop environment

The first official release will be available in Spring 2008. Until then, here are installation instructions:

Download the ISO image from here, burn it with your favorite CD/DVD burning software, reboot your PC and boot from the CD/DVD-ROM device. Hit enter when GRUB appears:

Wait for the CD to load...

Choose the desired keyboard layout (default is US English) and wait for the GNOME desktop to appear:

Double click the Install OpenSolaris icon and hit the Next button when the installation wizard appears:

Select "Use the whole disk" option on the next screen. Remember that this will ERASE the whole hard drive! You have been warned!.

Select your time zone, date and time:

Now, you can input a root (System Administrator) password and create a user account for yourself:

Review your installation settings and hit the Install button to install OpenSolaris:

Wait for the installation process to finish and reboot your computer! The system will restart and you'll see the OpenSolaris log-in prompt in a few seconds, enter the username and password you have created earlier and enjoy a nice and fast Solaris operating system.

By: Marius Nestor, Linux Editor

OpenSolaris 2008.5 Installation Guide - Step-by-step, with screenshots! The final version of the OpenSolaris operating system was released a few days ago and it brings a brand new Image Packaging System (IPS), ZFS as the default filesystem, and DTrace enabled packages so you can keep an eye on everything and squeeze the juice out of your system. The powerful bash shell is one of the GNU utilities that made their way into OpenSolaris 2008.05, and many other tools from the GNU world. The single LiveCD install image will allow you to take a look at the complete operating system in a matter of seconds. If you like what you see, then you can install OpenSolaris 2008.05 on your computer. So, without any further introduction, here are the installation instructions:

Download the ISO image from here, burn it with your favorite CD/DVD burning software, reboot your PC and boot from the CD/DVD-ROM device. Hit the 'Enter' key when GRUB (the boot loader) appears...

Wait for the CD to load...

Choose the desired keyboard layout (default is US English) and wait for the GNOME desktop to appear...

Double click the Install OpenSolaris icon and hit the 'Next' button when the installation wizard appears...

You'll arrive at the partitioning screen. By default, the OpenSolaris installer will let you select a partition and its size (for advanced users only), but I recommend you select the "Use the whole disk" option. Remember that this will ERASE the whole hard drive, therefore it is better to install it on an empty hard disk! You have been warned!.


Select your time zone, date and time...

Set the default language support and locale specific data formats...

Now, you can input a root (System Administrator) password and create a user account for yourself:

Review your installation settings and hit the 'Install' button to install OpenSolaris:

Wait for the installation process to finish...

...and reboot your computer!

The system will restart and you'll see the OpenSolaris log-in prompt in a few seconds, enter the username and password you have created earlier and enjoy a fast and modern Solaris operating system.

By: Marius Nestor, Linux Editor

Install Ubuntu from Windows in 3 Steps without Using a CD I can't help thinking about the days when, if you wanted to install a Linux distribution on your system, you had to go through a messy repartitioning of your hard drive, burning the distribution's image on a CD (or several CDs – there where no DVDs around those times) and, finally, figuring out what to do with the newly created CDs.

If you were lucky enough you had a semi-working OS on your machine that needed numerous tweaks, fixes and other things like these until it worked fine. And I'm not talking about getting it to work exactly how you wanted it to... just getting it to work.

Nowadays, installing a Linux flavored OS on your computer shouldn't be such a hard task to accomplish because there are tools out there that do it without you having to juggle around with your hard disk's partitions and even give a damn about what is happening under the hood. These days, we have come to a point when we can install Linux from inside our Windows OS by using a native Windows executable.

One of the multitude of such programs is Wubi (Windows based Ubuntu Installer), the one that I picked to present you before starting this article.

The thing that will surely amaze you is not that Wubi will install Ubuntu (with its flavors: Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Edubuntu, UbuntuStudio) on your system without you having to deal with a mind-blowing row of tasks before finally having it ready to run, but that it will not affect your file system in any manner. As you can read on Wubi's FAQ page, "Wubi adds an entry to the Windows boot menu which allows you to run Linux. Ubuntu is installed within a file in the windows file system ( c:wubidiskssystem.virtual.disk ), this file is seen by Linux as a real hard disk."

So, you see, nothing gets changed in your Windows OS and there is almost nothing to it. In three unbelievable easy steps, anyone – even people that have never seen the looks of a Linux OS – can install Ubuntu on their computer.

What are those steps I'm talking about? Well... this is about everything you have to do:
1. Download Wubi from HERE;
2. Run Wubi from Windows as you would proceed with any other Windows program;
3. Select the password to be used while installing Ubuntu and click Install.

And presto, you have a fast, good-looking and (I think) very easy-to-use Linux distribution running right beside Windows in a dual boot environment.

The only thing that you really have to think about when beginning to install Ubuntu using Wubi is to decide how big the installation size should be. From what I've learned so far, 10 GB of space would prove more than enough for everything you might think to do when using it. But, if you think you'll need more and you have the necessary space (and I bet most of you do) you could give it about 20 GB to be sure everything will go as smooth as you'd want it to.

Keep in mind though: unlike using a paid software, when using Wubi (which is a free application) there are no warranties, therefore you run Wubi at your own risk. Despite this warning coming from the program's developers, I have never heard about a case when things have gone wrong.

What remains to be said now? Just enjoy Ubuntu and get back with a comment if everything is OK. If not... well... I’m impatiently waiting to hearing from you.

This is Wubi in action installing Ubuntu:





Source: news.softpedia.com

Installing Ubuntu 7.10 - Gutsy Gibbon step-by-step installation guide with screenshots! So you've heard about Ubuntu everywhere on the Internet and you've decided to install it on your computer (just to see if what you've heard about it is true or not) and you don't know how to do it? Look no further! This guide will make things very simple for you, as it will teach you step-by-step how to install the latest version of Ubuntu operating system (current version is 7.10 codename Gutsy Gibbon) on your PC in no more than 10 minutes (depending on your computer specs, of course). Are you ready? Let's start!

Step 1
Download the Ubuntu 7.10 Desktop ISO image, that corresponds to your hardware architecture (i386 or amd64), from here.

Step 2
Burn the ISO image with your favorite CD/DVD burning application (Nero, CDBurnerXP, Roxio etc) on a blank CD at 8x speed.

Step 3
Insert or leave the CD in your CD/DVD-ROM device and reboot your computer. Hit enter when the boot screen appears and wait for it to load into memory.

Step 4
When the desktop is fully loaded, double click the Install icon and follow the installer steps:

Select your language
This is the first step of the installer, where you must select your native language (default is English). This language will be used for the installer and it will also be the default language for your Ubuntu Linux (when the installation is over). Click the Forward button after you have selected your language.


Where are you?
The second screen will feature a map of the Earth with little red dots, so you can select your city and country. Upon the current selection of your location, the time for the final system will adjust accordingly. You can also select your current location from the drop down list situated at the bottom of the window (recommended). Click the Forward button after you have selected your location.


Test your keyboard
On the third screen, you will be asked to select the keyboard layout that suits you best (default is U.S. English). You can also test your keyboard on the little text input field situated at the bottom of the window. Click the Forward button when you have finished with the keyboard configuration.


Hard disk partitioning
Hold on, don't leave yet! The hard disk partitioning is an easy task, so I am quite sure you will manage to handle it too. You have three options:
1. If you want to keep your existing operating system, select the first option: "Guided - resize the partition and use the freed space".
2. If you want to delete your existing operating system, select the second option: "Guided - use entire disk".
3. Manual is the third choice at this point and I strongly suggest you to use it ONLY if you are an expert on Linux partitioning.
Once you've reached a decision, click the Forward button.


Migration Assistant
This is the best part of the installer, as it will allow you to choose your existing Firefox bookmarks, wallpapers, Internet Explorer favorites, Yahoo Messenger or AOL Messenger contacts. If you don't have a Windows or other Ubuntu installation on your hard disk, then you will not see this screen so just click the Forward button to continue with the installation.

Who are you?
Here you must do exactly what the title of this step tells you to do. You must fill in some fields with your real name, the name you want to use to log in on your Ubuntu OS and the name of the computer (automatically generated). Once you have finished with this step, click the Forward button again (for the last time).


Are you really ready for Ubuntu?
If you have successfully arrived at this point, then you are definitely ready for your new Ubuntu operating system. So, what are you waiting for? Click the Install button NOW!


The Ubuntu 7.10 (Gusty Gibbon) operating system is installing...


Step 5
After approximately 8 minutes, a pop-up window will appear with two options:
1. Continue using the live CD
2. Restart now

You've probably clicked the "Restart now" button, because you were very excited to see your new Ubuntu operating system at work. Well then, enjoy using it!

Source: news.softpedia.com