updated 16.may.2008
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Installation
of
Ubuntu Linux 8.04 LTS
This guide is for installing a new Ubuntu 8.04 desktop system. |
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The installation options are
Browse to http://www.ubuntu.com/download and pick the "Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Desktop Edition - Supported to 2011". There are both 32 bits and 64
bits versions. The Ubuntu 8.04
Server CD
is a professional and
reliable server operating system with Long Term Support (LTS). LTS
means that your installation will receive security updates and support
for three years for the Desktop Edition (till the year 2011) and five
years for the Server Edition (to year 2013) !
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Burn
the CD after download: You must burn the CD as a file system image on an empty 700MB CD. In Windows Follow this guide to burn the CD https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BurningIsoHowto Alternatively get DeebBurner Free edition from http://www.deepburner.com/?r=download Start DeepBurner and select the "Burn ISO image" option to burn the CD. For the best result, burn at slow speed. Here is also a complete example on howto download and burn a Ubuntu CD in Windows... In Unix/Linux The Brasero burner (in Ubuntu
w/ GNOME) and the amazing K3B burner (in
KDE) have
special
menu
selections for burning of iso images. Look for menu selections "Burn
image" or "Burn iso image".
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Check the CD: Make sure your PC can boot from
a CD. You can change the
boot-order
in BIOS
(pc setup). Recommended boot-order is CDrom -> Harddisk.
Put in the CD, reboot your PC
and select "Check CD for defects"
option from the menu. (See picture_3a)
This step will take a few minutes while it checks wheather the CD has
errors. You should always perform this test for new Ubuntu CDs.
Return to step 1) if the test reports anomalies.
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The
installation: 4a) 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 it
starts the installation straightaway.
After the LiveCD has loaded,
nothing has been installed on your hard
drives - it all runs from
the
LiveCD. You can now test-run Ubuntu on your PC before the final
installation.
Of course, if you downloaded the Alternate CD, it will start the installation straightaway without any LiveCD desktop. 4b) Start the installation 4c) Partitioning 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 10GB of size. The mount point for this is "/" which denotes the root filesystem. The recommended file system type is ext3. It's a reliable journalled file system. * Swap partition should be around 2 times the PC's physical memory and at least 256MB. The filesystem type for this partition must be swap. See picture_4cc. More information about the partitioning in this guide... |
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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. Also the Compiz
3D effects (in step 10 of this guide) require accelerated
graphic support.5a) Start the "Hardware Drivers" dialog from the System -> Administration -> "Hardware Drivers" menu. See picture_5a. Note: If you do not see any lines (drivers) in the list then move to step 5d). 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. 5c) Restart: Reboot, restart your computer via System -> Quit menu. You should also know that the CNTR + ALT + BACKSPACE keys, pressed at the same time, can restart the graphical display (the X). ----- 5d) Check screen resolution: I suppose that you have now logged in to your Ubuntu/GNOME desktop. From the main menu, select System -> Preferences -> Screen Resolution dialog. The installer should have detected and set the screen resolution correctly. Anyway, check it and if it's wrong then pick a new screen resolution from the drop-down list. Study the picture_5d. Move to step 6) if everything is OK. Problems? In case you encounter problems with the display settings: Try Alberto Milone's Envy... Envy can install the very latest driver for NVIDIA or AMD/ATI's graphic cards. The last solution is to ask other Ubuntu users for help. Read how to get help and what are the support options... Note: If you see other closed-source drivers in the "Hardware Drivers" dialog, then you may enable them too. |
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Internationalization.
Language and Keyboard: Keyboard and language settings ara probably OK but check them anyway. 6a)
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 (System
-> Quit -> Log Out - login).
6b) 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. |
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Refine
your desktop: Please reboot and login to your
new Ubuntu desktop system.
7a) Modify software sources (the repository definition): Programs and system files
(which we call packages) come from
repositories. A
repository is an archive on an external Ubuntu-server on the
internet. If you have a broadband connection then there is (often) no
reason to use the cdrom
for package installations, it's easier to use the package repositories
on the internet. So I will show you how to remove the cdrom media from
the software sources list. The list is saved in /etc/apt/sources.list file but we
will here use a GUI dialog to modify it.
Start System -> Administration -> Software Sources dialog from the menu and uncheck the cdrom line. See picture_7a... Note: The Software Sources is also available directly from the Synaptic Package Manager (menu Settings -> Repositories). 7b) Refine your Ubuntu-desktop to perfection: To
make your desktop useable we need to install browser-plugins for Flash9
and Java. We will also add multimedia
codeces for support for restricted media formats.
Now update package index
(package list) in your pc.First, start the gnome-terminal application from the Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal menu. See picture_7b... Type (or copy & paste) one green line at the time. The first sudo command will ask your user password. This command will add the Medibuntu repository... to your package manager. Medibuntu provides many important applications, codeces and plugins. Run the following commands. (see this example picture_7bb...)
Medibuntu's packages are signed with a private GPG security key. Add its public key part to your package system. Run
Upgrade the system (if there are updates available)
Install support for more multimedia formats and Adobe's Flash 9. Again, answer "y" to confirm the installation.
Install Skype and Google Earth 4.2. Google Earth requires a good graphics card (reread step 5) .
Give the OpenOffice suite ability to run Java
The Medibuntu repository... contains many other programs (packages) which you may want to install. 7c) An important addition for 32 bits (i386) Ubuntu 8.04: The ubuntu-restricted-extras
package (which you installed above) comes
with the OpenJDK Java solution.
OpenJDK is good but it seems to fail
when login to some online
bank sites with signed Java-applets (picture 7c...),
so on a 32 bits Ubuntu, I prefer to
install the official Sun's Java 6 and its non-free Firefox
plugin. But I will recommend you to test the OpenJDK
implementation
first. Give it a chance ! Return to this step (step 7c) if OpenJDK
Java and its Icedtea browser-plugin do
not work for you.
This is how to replace OpenJDK with Sun's Java 6. But note: Sun's browser plugin (sun-java6-plugin) exists only for 32 bits Linux. So 64 bits Ubuntu users should rely on OpenJDK and its IcedTea browser plugin that come with the ubuntu-restricted-extras package. 64 bits Ubuntu users should not run these commands: Remove both OpenJDK Java and the Icedtea browser plugin. (32 bits Ubuntu only).
Install Sun's java 6 and browser plugin (32 bits Ubuntu only).
Set the Sun's (non-free) Java VM as default.
Set the Sun's (non-free) browser plugin as default.
Restart Firefox/Mozilla/Opera after changes
Note: If you want to keep both the free OpenJDK Java and Sun's closed-source Java, read this document... how to set the default choice. 7d) Activate firewall: Choose either alternative 1 (ufw) or alternative 2 (firestarter). Do not activate both. Alternative 1: UFW firewall (user friendly firewall) is a command line tool. Start it (enable/disable) with this command.
Read its manual page
Alternative 2: Install firestarter firewall with graphical gui.
7e) 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
Note: We have here
used
the command
line to install some programs and packages. But normally we use the
Synaptic Package Manager (from the System -> Administration
menu) or the Applications -> Add/Remove... dialog to install
packages / programs. Command line is snappy but GUI is often
easier to use. See pictures 7e...
and 7ee...
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Add
items
to the toolbar panel: 8a) 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) Install some additional programs: Start the Synaptic Package Manager from System -> Administration menu. In the Synaptic, search and install the programs listed in the table. But first, study the picture_8b... Search and install each program - one by one.
Other software you should know about. You may install these programs later !
I also want to mention these programs: streamtuner ( a picture... ), streamripper (both pretty old apps), penguintv and frozen-bubble. They are all in the Ubuntu's repo ;-). And do not forget the new Miro TV... Google's Picasa photo album is also a great application. Download the .deb package from http://picasa.google.com/linux and let the package manager install it. Start Picasa from the menu. However some people opt for F-spot. Software for kids... ------------------------ Note: You can easily change and add new items to the main menu. Press right-mouse-button on the menubar and select "Edit Menus". See picture 8c... |
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Test
your installation: 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 can also list all plugins by typing about:plugins in th Firefox's address field. Picture_9aa. 9b) Take a Java test... You should see a dancing Duke logo. 9c) Watch this music video... (video 2...) to check the Flash 9 browser plugin. 9d) Browse to this http://www.linspire.com/file_types/... site and perform a file compatibility test as well. Check if Ubuntu launches an appropriate application when you click or double-click a file name. 9e) Moreover study the file samples in your home folder's /Examples... directory. Start the Nautilus file manager from Places -> Home Folder menu and browse to the Examples directory and test the samples. |
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Compiz Fusion is an
advanced display system (read: composition and window manager) that can
boost your
Desktop with many splendid and useful 3D effects. Compiz is not only
beautiful but also very functional and productive desktop scheme.
Luckily Ubuntu 8.04 comes with the Compiz ready installed. You just
need to activate
it.
But there is a one important
pre-requirement: Your machine must have a proper (hardware
accelerated) graphics card as described in step 5).
If your computer is
relatively new then this should not be a problem. So let's
activate Compiz.( ps. Here is a script... that can check if Compiz can run on your computer. ) 10a) First, start the Synaptic Package Manager (from System -> Administration menu) and search + install compizconfig-settings-manager. It is a configuration tool for compiz. Just start the Synaptic and search for word "compiz" and it will appear in the list. Install it. See picture_10a... 10b)
Then start the appearance and visual settings dialog from the System -> Preferences -> Appearance menu. See picture_10b...
Select the "Visual Effects"
tab
page and choose the "Extra"
options to activate
Compiz as shown in picture_10b.
Ubuntu will
try to switch to advanced graphics mode. It will tell you
if it cannot activate it correctly. Set the visual effects to
"None" or "Normal" if you experience problems.10c) Changing the desktop effects: The default desktop anatomy is a "Desktop Wall", but most users want a rotatable cube (4 walls) desktop. Do you want it? You can have it by activating the Compiz' cube-plugin. Start the compizconfig-settings-manager from the System -> Preferences -> Advanced Desktop Settings Effects menu. Or start it from the command line by typing ccsm. I simply press ALT + F2 keys and type the command: ccsm Let's do some nitpicking in the dialog that appears. First, select the "Desktop" category from the list at the left. Checkmark the "Desktop Cube" option. It will ask whether to the "Disable Desktop Wall" because the Wall and Cube plugins cannot run at the same time. Click on the [Disable Desktop Wall]-button. Check mark the "Rotate Cube" option too. See picture_10c... 10d) Modify the cube: Set the "form" of the cube. The default "cube" has only 3 walls. You can easily change its form. Do this While still in the ccsm dialog. Select the "General" category and press the [General Options]-button. See picture_10d... Click to the "Desktop Size" tab page and set the values as instructed in picture_10dd... Transparency of the cube: Size of the cube (zoom) This is actually a distance from your eyes (or nose) to the cube. See picture_10d4... Skydome (background) picture: Skydome is an image behind the cube. It can be static or animated. The following commands will download couple of nice skydomes (compiz bakcground) images. Type copy & paste these commands in a terminal window, one line at a time and press ENTER.
Then start the ccsm dialog and browse to Desktop -> Desktop Cube preferences. See picture_10d5... Next picture, picture_10d6... shows how to set the skydome image. Then rotate your cube (with CNTR + ALT + LEFT mouse button). Try different images. Note: You can add cube caps in this dialog.
Cube caps appear on top and bottom of the cube. You can download cube
caps images from http://www.compiz-themes.org.
Keep top and bottom of the cube simple.
Fusion-iconDesktop wallpaper Get also a decent wallpaper... Ubuntu comes with some stock background pictures. Check directories /usr/share/backgrounds/ and /usr/share/pixmaps/backgrounds/cosmos/. Start the Appearance dialog from Preferences -> Appearance menu. Select [Background] page and [Add] new pictures to the dialog. Other really amazing wallpapers here... Taking screenshots You can take a screenshot of your desktop by pressing the [Prt Scr]-key or by using the gnome-screenshot tool in the Accessories menu. But the Compiz has its own handy screenshot utility. Activate the Screenshot plugin in the Extras category. See picture_10d7. Then take a screenshot by pressing the super key (your window key) and drag the LEFT mouse-button on the desktop. The screenshot is saved in your /Desktop folder by default (on the desktop). Fusion-icon is an icon on the system-tray that lets you toggle between Compiz and an ordinary flat (Metacity) desktop. Install it
Simple-ccsm Simple-compiz-config-manager is an easy way to configure Compiz.
10e) Learn how to maneuver Compiz Fusion: Rotate the cube Usage: CTRL + ALT + LEFT ARROW (or RIGHT ARROW) or press CTRL + ALT + drag LEFT-mouse pointer on the taskbar or desktop surface. Task switcher I like the "Ring Switch" plugin a lot. It's under the "Window Management" category (see picture_10e). Usage: Super + TAB to activate ring task switcher. The Super key is often called a window key or has a windows label on it. The ordinary task switcher is still ALT + TAB. Task overview Usage: Move the mouse pointer sharply beyond upper, right corner of the screen. I usually make a rapid mouse movement towards (and slightly beyond) the upper, right corner of the screen. Flat desktop overview Usage: CTRL + ALT + ARROW DOWN. Move from desktop to desktop by pressing ARROW LEFT / RIGHT keys. Change opacity / transparency of a window Usage: ALT + roll the MOUSE WHEEL on the window's title bar. I usually point at the titlebar and roll with the middle mouse button (which is a wheel button). My keyboard has also a wheel button which works similarly. Maginify (zoom) Usage: Super key + roll the MOUSE WHEEL on a window or desktop. Again, in my case the mouse wheel is the middle mouse button. Window preview on the taskbar If you want to see a small window preview in the taskbar, select the "Window Previews" option under "Extras" category in ccsm. See picture_10ee... Move a window (actually this is an ordinary GNOME thing) Press ALT + drag LEFT mouse button on the window (eg. middle of the window) to move it. Some fancy effects with basic elements; fire and water ! Start the ccsm and browse to "Effects" category. Activate eg. the "Water Effects" and "Paint fire on the screen" effects. See picture_10eee. "Water Effects" starts and stops by pressing SHIFT + F9 keys. "Paint fire" starts with Super + SHIFT + drag LEFT mouse and stops with Super + SHIFT + C. See picture_10e4. Further reading Test if Compiz is able to run on your laptop/pc. compiz-check... Howtoforge.com/compiz-fusion-ubuntu-8.04... A video that shows how to enable Compiz in Ubuntu... Five nice compiz features... Study also these guides: http://en.opensuse.org/Compiz |
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Additional
components: 11a) Install Avant Window Navigator... (coming soon) 11b) Various virtualization solutions... (VMware Player, VirtualBox, KVM) 11c) Start with C/C++ development... 11d) Decorate desktop with screenlets... 11e) Work with GNOME-do... 11f) Install IBM's Lotus Symphony (office suite) on Ubuntu. The guide is here... 11g) PlayOnLinux and Wine - the easy way to install/run Windows games on Linux. Follow this guide... 11h) Netfonds' PrimeTrader trading software on Linux... (for Nordic and Norwegian users) |
| Being
administrator with sudo ( superuser
do ): The "root" account
is
by default disabled (locked) in Ubuntu Linux. Instead, use "sudo" when
executing administrative commands and programs. Please read this guide...
and this thread...
on using sudo.
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| Firewall: Check step 7d) |
| Installing
software: Learn to use the Synaptic Package Manager... so you can install additional software. Start it from the System-> Administration menu in the GNOME desktop. Study also how to search and install packages via the command line interface. The Unix/Linux command line is available from Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal menu. Notice also that Applications -> Add/Remove... menu selection in GNOME is another easy way to install groups of software. |
| Tangents you
should know about: Press CNTR + ALT + BACKSPACE to restart the graphical GUI, the X. CNTR + ALT + F1 (in fact any of F1...F6) vil send you to the text console. ALT + F7 will bring you back to the GUI. CNTR + ALT + NUMPAD + or - will adjust screen resolution up/down. The NUMPAD + and - are keys on the numerical keypad. Depends on how many Mode entries there are in the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file, Section "Screen". Nvidia and AMD/ATI do everything pretty automatically now a days. CNTR + ALT + ARROW LEFT / RIGHT will switch between workspaces (desktops), also in compiz. |
| Getting
help: Visit support and help department... |
