Notes on Installation

Preparation

Getting the installation medium [name].iso and burning it to a bootable CD or DVD is probably not such a big deal for a reasonably computer-literate user. (And frankly, I do not see how someone who is not one is going to be happy with Linux.) Do not get the 64 bit version unless you really need it: existing precompiled 32 bit binaries that you may have will not work on it.

If you are connecting to the Internet through a plain phone line, you must ensure you will still be able to do so in Linux. The modem that is build into your laptop is most likely not a true modem,, but a Winmodem, a software simulation of one. It will not work in Linux. You will need to buy a real physical modem that you can hold in your hand. I am using a Dynex PCMCIA V.92 modem that I could find cheap. It works, but I do not particularly recommend it. The normal price is high and my subjective impression is that the Winmodem is slightly faster.

Make sure you have current backups and can recover your machine's operating system(s). Do not hope that "it will be OK."

If you are completely replacing an existing Linux system, (since this version might solve problems you had with the earlier version,) you probably also want:

Put all this stuff on a USB stick and an external USB hard disk or your previous laptop.

Attach all peripherals.

Boot the install disk

You then probably need to go into the BIOS by pressing [F2] or a similar key during system power up. Your mouse will not work there, it is all keyboard driven. (And on a notebook, you may need to use the build-in keyboard.) The purpose is to get the machine to first try booting from your newly created installation CD/DVD before booting from the hard disk into Windows.

Then put the CD/DVD in the drive and restart the machine. Follow instructions. Usually, you can just press return on the default choice. Sometimes, you do need to enter text such as your name, password, and the machine name. Remember that the machine name can contain hyphens, but not underscores or spaces. On a network, you may need to consult with the network administrator on what to call your machine.

The dreaded partitioning

Then there it is, the most dangerous part, partitioning. Assuming that you are starting with a Windows machine, you will want to keep you windows system, and just add Linux to it. That means that you will have to reduce the amount that Windows takes on the hard disk so that you can use the rest for Linux.

On Debian, that means that you will need to do manual partitioning. On Ubuntu, I did manual partitioning too, since it was not clear to me what the program was going to do if I did not.

My hard disk was actually already partitioned into two partitions. In other words, it had two Windows systems on it. That is common; the second Windows system is a very small one, intended to recover your system if something happens to the normal Windows system. You must reduce the disk size of the big, normal Windows system to make room for Linux. Select the big Windows partition and then the option that reduces it size. Do not reduce the size to whatever is stated as the minimum. Not all software runs on Linux, so you may still need Windows, and then you need some free Windows disk space to put your stuff.

Resizing the Windows system will give you free space for Linux. (If you already had a Linux system that you are completely replacing, you would instead be deleting that to create the free space.)

I may note that I never use hibernate: I find it a safer idea to save my work and shut down the system instead. Then, unless my hard disk gets corrupted somehow, I know that my work is safe.


Applies to software obtained May 2009.
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