Installation of Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala)
9 easy steps to success

This guide will show you how to install a new Ubuntu 9.10 desktop system on your computer. If you want to upgrade from Ubuntu 9.04 to 9.10 then follow this link...

1) Download Ubuntu 9.10

The Ubuntu Desktop CD is so-called LiveCD which allows you to try Ubuntu without installing or changing your computer at all. The desktop will present an icon that lets you install Ubuntu permanently on a hard drive. Study the release notes... and features...

The minimum memory requirement is 512MB for the LiveCD installation. If your system has less memory, use the low calory, text based installer...

Download the CD image

Browse to http://www.ubuntu.com/download... and select a download location near you.

I highly recommend you to install the 64-bit version if your computer can run it. Click the "Alternative download options..." link to choose a correct version for your computer.

The name of the CD image is "ubuntu-9.10-desktop-amd64.iso" for the 64-bit version and "ubuntu-9.10-desktop-i386.iso" for 32-bit. The amd64 image will run on all Intel/AMD/Via/etc. compatible 64-bit processors.

For servers you should get the "Ubuntu Server 9.10 CD". Ubuntu Server 9.10 (64-bit)... is a very professional and reliable server operating system suitable for both business and home servers. And you can easily manage your servers (and clouds) with the Canonical's Landscape... system management and monitoring tool.

2) Burn the CD right

You must burn the CD as a file system image on an empty 700MB CD.

In Windows:

In Unix/Linux:

3) Verify the CD

Make sure your PC can boot from the CD. You can change the boot-order in BIOS... (pc setup). Recommended boot-order is CDRom -> Harddisk.

Put the CD in, restart your computer and select the "Check disc for defects" option from the menu. (See picture_3a) This step will take a few minutes while it verifies the CD. You should always perform this test for new Ubuntu CDs. Return to step 1) if this test reports anomalies.

4) The installation

Start the LiveCD

Then select the "Try Ubuntu without any change to your computer" option from the menu as shown in picture_4a. It will load a fully functional Ubuntu Linux desktop. The "Install Ubuntu" selection will let you skip the LiveCD part and start the installation straightaway.

After the LiveCD has loaded, nothing has been installed on your hard drives - it all runs from the CD. You can now test and play with Ubuntu before the final installation.

Of course, if you downloaded the text-based installer, it will start the installation straightaway without any LiveCD desktop.

Start the installation

Start the permanent installation by clicking the "Install Ubuntu 9.10" icon on the desktop. See picture_4b. The installation program will let you create new and modify existing disk partitions.

Choose partitioning method

Guided partitioning
Choose "guided" partitioning if possible. It can even resize and create space on an existing Windows harddisk. See picture_4c.

Manual partitioning
If you want to slice your harddisk manually, create at least these 2 partitions:

• The main partition should be at least 20GB of size. The mount point for this is "/" which denotes the root filesystem. The recommended file system type is the new, fast ext4.


• Swap partition should be around 2 times the PC's physical memory and at least 512MB. The filesystem type for this partition must be swap. See picture_4cc.

More information about the partitioning in this guide... and in this video...

5) Activate drivers

Please reboot and login to your new Ubuntu desktop system - if not already done.

Activate display driver

If your computer has a rather new ATI, NVIDIA or Intel's graphic card then you should install a proper (closed source) driver for it. A proper driver will make your desktop very quick and it will let you play games with full hardware acceleration.

5a) Start the "Hardware Drivers" dialog from the System -> Administration -> "Hardware Drivers" menu.

Note: If you do not see any lines (drivers) in the list then move to step 6).

5b) Enable the driver. Locate and checkmark the graphics driver in the list. It will Enable and install the driver. In most cases the graphics driver will be NVIDIA or AMD/ATI. See picture_5b. Close the dialog after successful installation.

Then reboot, restart your computer from the desktop menu (in the upper, right corner).

6) Keyboard and language

The keyboard and language settings ara probably OK but check them anyway.

6a) Set language. Ubuntu Desktop and its applications have been translated to many languages. You can set the language via System -> Administration -> Language Support menu. See picture_6a. New language settings will take take effect after re-login.

6b) Choose keyboard layout. Start the Keyboard dialog from the System -> Preferences -> Keyboard menu. Select the [Layouts] page. Then add new and remove unnecessary keyboard layouts. See picture_6b.

7) Refine your desktop

Please reboot and login to your new Ubuntu desktop system.

Programs and system files (which we call packages) come from repositories. A repository... is an archive, a server on the internet where program packages are stored and retrieved from. (more in this video...).

7a) Install support for multimedia formats

To make your desktop useable we need to install browser-plugins for Flash10 and Java. We will also add support for multimedia to make video, DVD and music play well in Ubuntu.

First, start the gnome-terminal application from the Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal menu. See picture_7a... Type (or copy & paste) one green line at the time. The first sudo command will ask your user password. Note that it expects your own, ordinary password, that's how sudo works.

This command will add the Medibuntu repository... to your package manager. Medibuntu provides many important applications, multimedia codeces and plugins. Run the following commands, one by one (see this example picture_7a...).

sudo wget http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/karmic.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list

Now refresh the package index (package list) in your pc. Copy & paste this command.

sudo apt-get update

It may report a GPG-error on the Medibuntu's repo. Do not worry, the next command will fix it.

Medibuntu's packages are signed with a private GPG security key. Add its public key part to your package system. Run

sudo apt-get -y --force-yes install medibuntu-keyring

Upgrade the system (if there are updates available). Run

sudo apt-get upgrade -y

The next two commands are particularly important if you upgrade from an older version. First, remove old and buggy Flash-plugins. You may also remove "gnash" and "mozilla-plugin-gnash" packages if these are present. Run

sudo apt-get remove --purge flashplugin-* nspluginwrapper

Then remove both OpenJDK and GNU's GCJ Java solutions and the Icedtea browser plugins if present. Run

sudo apt-get remove -y icedtea6-plugin openjdk-6-jre openjdk-6-jre-lib gcj

Install Sun's Java runtime. Add support for proprietary multimedia formats (mp3, avi), ability to read encrypted DVDs. Add extra fonts. Answer "y" to confirm the installation.

sudo apt-get install --reinstall sun-java6-jre ubuntu-restricted-extras non-free-codecs libdvdcss2 sun-java6-fonts

Press TAB-key or arrow-keys to move the cursor in the text window (in case you need to confirm the license).

The installation of Adobe's Flash-plugin.

Restart your browser; firefox, google-chrome, opera, ...

pkill firefox

7b) Install and start firewall

The Ufw... firewall (user friendly firewall) is a command line tool and gufw... is its grapical front-end. Run command

sudo aptitude install ufw gufw

Then activate firewall. Run command

sudo ufw enable

You can start graphical UI for ufw from System -> Administration -> Firewall Configuration menu. The sudo-system will again ask your user password before it shows the dialog. See picture 7c... Make sure the firewall is enabled.

Firestarter... is another good firewall front-end to the Linux's iptables firewall system.

7c) Speed up application start time with preload

Linux's preload daemon... monitors what programs you use most often and caches these programs and dependent libraries in (unused) memory to speed up application start time. If your system has 1GB or more memory then preload will have a positive effect. Install and start the preload process. Run command

sudo apt-get install -y preload

It will automatically start at boot.

7d) Enable Control Center

Ubuntu comes with a Control Center application, but the menu selection for it is normally not activated because most of its tasks can be done via other menu items. But the Control Center has a search-field plus it gives a great overview so you should enable it.

First, right click the main menu on the panel and select "Edit Menus". The menu editor window should appear. See picture 7e... Then enable the "Control Center" item as shown in the picture.

Start it from the System -> Control Center menu. See picture 7ee... It's a really nice feature.

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Note: We have here used command line to install some programs and packages. But normally we use the Synaptic Package Manager (from the System -> Administration menu) or the new Applications -> Ubuntu Software Center... dialog to install and remove packages/programs. Command line is snappy but GUI is often easier to use. All these methods use the same underlying program-database and technology, so it does not matter what you use. Study pictures 7f... and 7ff... You ought to learn to know these tools.

8) Some final tasks

8a) Add items to the toolbar

On your desktop, right-mouse click on the upper toolbar (panel) and choose "Add to panel..." from the menu. See picture 8a... Drag & drop items onto the toolbar as shown in picture 8aa... You can also pull some important menu selections from the main menu onto the toolbar or the desktop surface so you can access them easily. See picture 8aaa...

8b) Show date and time + weather

Right-click the date & time widget in the upper right corner of the Desktop and choose Preferences... from the popup-menu. Then configure weather report for your location/region. See picture_8b....

8c) Install some additional programs

Start the Synaptic Package Manager from System -> Administration menu. In the Synaptic, search for programs/packages listed in the table. But first, study picture 8c... You can also install the programs by clicking the 1-click apt-link in the rightmost column.

Other software you should know about. You may install these programs later.

Other good software repositories.

Here... are also some good programs for kids.

9) Test and GO!

Test browser-plugins and actions on the most common file types.

9a) Start Firefox and check browser-plugins on http://webapps.ou.edu/it/browser... You should see that most of the plugins are present. This model picture_9a is from my PC. You will probably do without Real Player and Acrobat Reader plugins because other tools can handle that type of content.

You can also list all plugins by typing about:plugins in th Firefox's address field (see picture_9aa).

9b) Take a Java test...

9c) And watch this music video... to check if your browser can play Flash10 content.

Congratulations with your new Ubuntu Desktop !

Some additional settings

Your personal cloud-account on the internet

Consider also to sign-in to your cloud-account. Ubuntu gives you a free 2GB account on the internet where you can save your files and backups. It automatically synchronizes your $HOME/Ubuntu One/ directory with your internet account. You can also share files with friends and other Ubuntueros.

Browse to Ubuntu One... and create your Ubuntu One account now. Study this picture...

Ubuntu is also a very powerful Server Cloud Operating System...

The most important guides

Ubuntu 9.10 release notes... and features...

Documentation library...

The Ultimate Ubuntu Guide... for Karmic Koala.

Eva's Ubuntu guide...

Ubuntu Bible read online... or download PDF...

Canonical's Landscape Systems Management and Monitoring tool... (some Landscape features...)

Manual pages...

Ubuntu screencasts...+ clips...

Full circle magazine...

Ubuntu planet... and Podcasts...

Ubuntu forums... is a place to ask questions.

Other howtos

Ubuntu 9.10

Important tips to make Ubuntu and web access faster...

Developing applications for the Google's Android phone...

Netfonds' PrimeTrader trading software on Linux... (for Nordic and Norwegian users)

Fujitsu Siemens AMILO Li 1718 laptop and Ubuntu 9.10...

Install GNOME shell (GNOME 3.0) in Karmic...

Ubuntu 9.04

Setup Compiz 3D desktop...

Various virtualization solutions in Ubuntu 9.04... (VMware Player, VirtualBox and KVM).

Startwith C/C++ development...

Logitech QuickCam E 2500 in Ubuntu...

Activate hardware sensors and monitor temperature and voltages of CPU, motherboard, fan speed etc...

Your first 1000 words in Portuguese...

A nice way to convert music files between AVI/MP3/OGG. Install first nautilus-script-audio-convert package.
sudo apt-get install nautilus-script-audio-convert
Then right-mouse-click a music file in the Nautilus file manager and convert...

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