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:
- Save the content of /etc/fstab.
- Write down the disk mount directories to recreate.
- Save the contents of crontab -e.
- Export the bookmarks in Firefox.
- Export the Firefox ADBlock Plus content.
- Save the Firefox InformEnter content.
- Write down the other extensions to restore.
- Write down the plugins to restore, and consider how to do so.
- Write down the CUPS IP addresses of your network printers.
- Write down the IP addresses and mount info of your network
disks.
- Write down the information on your ISP provider.
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.)
- In Debian, you can now simply select "automatically partition the
free space." It will create a Linux system disk and a swap space.
It did not make the swap space big enough to hibernate on my
machines. But I am not a bear.
- In Ubuntu, you must create the two separately. Create first the
Linux disk partition, giving it all free space except for a couple
of gigabytes (GB, 1 GB = 1000 MB = 1000^2 kB = 1000^3 B, or 1 GB =
1024 MB = 1024^2 kB = 1024^3 B, depending on who you talk to), or
so for swap space. Note: if you want to be able to hibernate your
machine, the swap space must be greater than your RAM memory.
Since I have 4 GB of RAM on my machine I chose a swap space a bit
bigger than 1024^3 bytes, so that all of RAM can be written to
swap if needed. If you have less RAM, you should still keep a
couple of GB of swap space. Select menu option "/" for the Linux
disk. Then select the remaining free space and put menu option
"swap space" in it.
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.
Return to Linux on Lifebook S6520