Adventures in Linux: Chapter 2: Installing

Man, my Adventures in Linux series has had a slow start... I've actually had half this one completed in a file for months and never got round to finishing and posting. Until now! Of course, now I have a million other posts to do with stuff like printers, video and upgrading to 9.10. So expect those to be done by 2015... at which point I'll need a break to go to cafe 80's on my hoverboard!

So, (way back in the distant days of last June) I’m ready to try Linux. I visited the Ubuntu site and downloaded an installation disc image, burnt it to CD and powered off. I restart the machine, boot from the CD and prepare to begin the installation. Ubuntu will install itself onto a seperate partition to Windows.

Oh, wait, I don’t have partitions. In fact, I don’t know a lot about partitions. Or setting them up. Maybe there’s something in the installer that will do it for me?

Hurrah! There seems to be! Brilliant. So what are my choices?

I can either install over windows, but that would defeat the dual boot option. Or it will set itself up on a new partition. Lets go with that!

Right, I want my Linux partition to be large as I hopefully will end up using it more than windows. So I set the utility to half the disc, 100GB for Windows, 100GB for Linux. It warns me it’ll take a while, which seems fair to me. However, after about 45 minutes, it all crashes. Oh.

I try it again, this time I allow a smaller partition for testing purposes. Just 20GB for Linux. So it goes through fine and Ubuntu installs! Hurrah! Right time to see what works.

Hm, the screen resolutions not great, and I don’t seem to have option to change it to anything else. Interesting. So I better figure out how to install my wireless adaptor so I can search the web for a solution. Oh, it’s installed. Log into my wi-fi. Hurrah! That was easy!

I do a search on my monitor type in Ubuntu. It's an HP w1907v. My search quickly turns up this blog which has someone with a similar situation. Right, so apparently I have to modify my xorg.conf file. Ok, how do I get to that?

Turns out I need to use the terminal. So I start that and I quickly find out about the 'sudo' command, which I need to prefix my commands with. Ok, so 'sudo gedit/etc/X11/xorg.conf' seems to work. Asks for my password and then opens up the xorg.conf in a text editor. Ok, so far so simple. I make the advised changes, which to my relief are really straightforward. You make a new subsection in the file and instruct it with the resolutions. I do this, save the file and restart the machine.

On restart the screen resets itself a few times, and is still at a low res setting. I go to check what I've done, as I do this I get a window pop up asking if I want to activate some drivers for my graphics card. I do. I restart and now my screens fine! Hurrah!

For some time I assumed this was due to the xorg.conf alterations, but recently it occured to me that maybe it was activating the nvidia drivers for my graphics. I'm thinking the latter as on re-installs, I haven't modified the xorg.conf and once the drivers are on the screen resolution is fine.

Next time: Getting my IPod working

Rick's Adventures in Linux - 1. The Beginning!

I spoke once before about how much I enjoyed my initial foray into the Linux world. Well, I’m still largely enojoying it! Hurrah! I’m keen for any future netbook I may own to have Linux on it too and would happily work in an all Linux world, but sadly my employers will not be convinced of the beauty of being run with Ubuntu. Even if you point out the inherent savings on software. Though given the amount of time I spend instructing computer novice ladies at my work how to use various things, I think the appearance of a different OS would cause mass panic. Or complete obliviousness. But probably panic.

Anyhow, I’ve found in my Linux journey that there’s a fantastic community of users out there who are sharing out their expertise to help newcomers like myself with any issues and difficulties they encounter. While my knowledge and experience is paltry compared to these guys, I feel it would be remiss of me if I failed to at least attempt to offer some assistance to those who brave the world of open source OS’s for the first time. So I shall tell the tale of my Linux journey, it’s successes and failures and links to the places that helped me out. I can only hope that at some point a new user with the same monitor as me, or a similar motherboard, or any generic problem I had, stumbles upon this and it helps them. Or that it is in some way an entertaining or interesting read. Hm, that last one might be a vain hope...

Chapter 1: The Linux Decision

As I’d stated in a previous blog, I was finding that life with Windows was becoming dull. I was missing the days of playing around with settings to make stuff work. I’d just built my new PC from components and was feeling technical. Then I read Stephen Fry’s blog about his new Asus EEE with Linux on it. He sounds pretty please and enthusiastic about this Linux business. So I wondered whether it might be worth giving it a try. So I did a little research. To sum up the pertinent points of Linux. That I discovered.

There’s no such actual system as ‘Linux’. Instead Linux comes in various forms, known as Distros. These Distros are all based on the core Linux basis, known as the ‘Kernel’, (sadly not the one with the fried chicken). From there they vary in many different ways, looking and feeling different and coming with different bundles of software.

The linux kernel and a lot of software for linux is open-source. Meaning, anyone can look at it and improve it and or use it for their own needs and styles. Hence how come the different distros, as people have come up with versions tailored to specific areas. For a better explanation of Open-Source and free software, go here.

One of the most popular distros currently, is Ubuntu. It’s considered to be friendly to newcomers and generally all round brilliant. Even this comes in different versions, as you can get Kubuntu, which is Ubuntu with a fancier desktop. Plus apparently Ubuntu gets a new version release every six months.

While you can’t run the same programs under Linux distros as you can with Windows, some highly regarded alternatives have been created. There’s Gimp in place of Photoshop and Open Office in place of Microsoft Office. There’s a plethora of music players, video players, media editors and programs for the ipod. I’m not much of a gamer on the PC, that’s what my playstation is for, but I was pretty happy to see Oolite, an open source version of a game that I loved in my youth along with Freeciv and some others. Web browsing, e-mail and IM’ing is all covered too. Ok, so if I was to change to a Linux system, I should still be able to do things I was able to do before.

You can dual boot. This basically means you can install a Linux distro onto a machine with Windows and then choose which system you want to use each time you turn the machine on. Ok, sounds useful, that way I can ensure a smooth transition over with Windows there for anything I can’t get working straight away.

These were the main points I needed to make my decision with. Obviously the dual boot thing was particularly important as it meant I still had Windows to fall back on. So I decided I’d begin with Ubuntu.

Next time: Ubuntu – The Installation

My PC is funtimes again!!

You know what’s a lot of fun in a nerdy way? Setting up a new computer! I remember with great fondness the olden days, over 10 years ago now, when my Dad bought our first proper PC (IBM Compatible was the old term), a P75 with Window 95. 8MB of ram, an 850MB hard drive and a 1MB graphics card.

Frankly, it was a sod to get working. We were fiddling with DOS memory managers and tinkering with the Autoexec.bat and config.sys a hell of a lot to get the thing working. But to me, that was part of the fun! The charm of a computer to me was always the tinkering, learning a little about the system and the files that make it go. In my younger days I learnt a fair bit of BASIC on my old Amstrad CPC. That’s just me, I’m a little bit geeky like that!

So in recent years, Windows has become something of a disappointment to me. It never needs anything like that sort of poking around in system files anymore, it’s just frustrating driver installs and constant re-starting of the machine. Frankly, I was becoming a tad bored with it. So recently, I decided to try something a little different and downloaded a copy of Linux. The latest Ubuntu, 9.04, to be exact.

You know what? I fricking love it!

A lot of people say they enjoy Ubuntu because it ‘just works’. Now, as I explained earlier, that’s not exactly what I’m after. Now, that’s not to say I want an OS that doesn’t work, I want an OS that’s got one or two compatibility issues that I can tinker with and learn a bit about the system as I fix them. So i enjoyed the installation of Ubuntu, as my wi-fi receiver was immediately recognised and functioning, which was a relief, but my monitor wasn’t firing on all resolutions. Brilliant! A little internet research and I learnt about the X.config and was able to modify it so the monitor works beautifully.

Since then, there’s been no requirement for me to do anything else like that. No requirement, but lots of opportunities! Which has been brilliant, as I’ve been able to learn about various aspects of the setup, what various system files all do, at my leisure and for fun! Note the word requirement there, I don’t want to be responsible for people being put off Linux because they think that it’ll be a difficult thing to setup. I had that one issue with my monitor, which I very easily found a fix for. The time spent researching and implementing that fix (which was longer that necessary as I wanted to learn more about what I was doing for curiousity rather than just immediately doing it) has easily been made back in the easy and speedy installation, the much faster start up time my machine now has and the fact that every other component of my PC was instantly set up by Ubuntu itself, saving me a lot of fiddling about with a pile of installation CD’s/ So don’t ever be put off by notions that Linux is difficult to set up or use. It’s not.

However, if you’re a bit geeky, like I am, it’s a hella lot of fun!