Handle With Linux

This is a guide for windows users who want to know how to use linux ubuntu, I'm going to describe everything you need to know to do the usual things many people do with their computer in this series.

In the end of the series I will describe some of the more complicated stuff and I'll try to mix in some easy things that will help you impress your friends.
For starters I will explain the complete basics of using ubuntu linux and after that I'll take it step by step to an higher level. So if your already a bit experienced with Linux in general or ubuntu itself you can skip reading this article. If you are not interested in advanced things you can stop following at the later parts of the series.

step 1 installing Ubuntu linux:

Installation of Linux used to be not for the faint of heart and you used to need a reasonable amount of technical knowledge to get it properly working, especially on newer hardware. Those days are over, at least if you choose the right distribution. A distribution is what you could call a brand of Linux, and ubuntu is such a brand. There are a few distributions aimed at beginner or less technical users and ubuntu is one of them. Ubuntu linux is a good choice if you like to use your computer and it's not your direct aim to learn about the inner workings of your system.
The first thing you need to do when you want to try ubuntu is of course download a Cd. There will be a choice for downloading the server edition or the desktop edition, you need the desktop edition(that's for laptop's too). You can download an iso image from ubuntu and burn as image with for instance NERO burning rom or any other cd burning program.
I'll assume you can get trough the process of burning a Cd in windows, if not ask someone in your direct surroundings to help you with this.

It is possible to use this Cd like any other Cd in windows it will run if you start it while you have windows on your computer. This is not what we want to do, the other possibility is running it directly when booting your computer that's the approach we'll take.

To do this you insert the Cd and restart your computer, in many cases your computer will start directly from the Cd which is what we want. Some computers are configured to boot from the hard disk before they try the Cd drive. Sometimes you have to push a button while starting your computer to get a menu where you can choose to boot from cd rom (try esc, F1, F2 or del while booting). If you can't get the computer to boot from Cd consult your hardware manual, or try google with the type and manufacturer of your computer and start from Cd as search terms.
Sometimes you have to change a setting in the BIOS which is the build in software of your computer, again if this is the case, I'm sure you'll find the information how to do this in the manual or on the internet.

The first thing you'll want to do is test your computer for compatibility with ubuntu linux, I'm specifically stating ubuntu here because compatibility with Linux in general is a completely different story. Most hardware can be used with Linux nowadays only some are easier than the other. The best way to do this is running ubuntu as a live cd, this means the operating system will run completely from Cd without touching your hard disk. This is also a very nice option if you just want to know if it's anything for you.
If you boot the computer you will be asked if you want to run as a live Cd, you should always do this the first time you install ubuntu on a system or if you made major changes to your system since the last time you installed ubuntu. This because it is a great way to test if everything will work with your system upfront. If you start the live Cd version you can check if everything is working, and if it's not you can choose to not install, just eject the Cd reboot and everything is back to normal.

How should I check? I hear you ask. Well many thing are quite easy to see, for instance if your graphics device is unsupported you won't get a graphical interface (no background image, no menu's, no icons, only text!) that's no problem, just eject the Cd and reboot if this happens. Sound is the same, if you know for sure your speaker system is on, ubuntu should make a sound at the end of the startup process, no sound? than you have some kind of compatibility problem. Most things you can find out pretty easily, and if you follow the rest of this tutorial series while in the live cd modus you'll definitely notice most other things.
Don't worry the change of anything not working is not too big, but if it does happen you do have a few options:

1. Try another distribution. While this may sound strange, many times I noticed the one linux distribution working "out of the box" with a system while another was very difficult to get fully configured. If you have a problem with ubuntu, you should try linux mint for instance. That's based on ubuntu and you can still follow this series if you want because it is almost the same, the hardware support is different though.

2. Try searching the internet for you specific problem, sometimes it's very easy to fix and if not you can post your problem on a forum about ubuntu. Be sure to try and find the solution for your problem yourself on the internet first, sometimes people get annoyed by questions on forums that have been answered many times before. (if you get a not so nice answer, try searching the forum for your question big change the answer is already there)

3. Ask a technical person for help, many people who have computer knowledge know how to find a solution to many of the small problems you can experience with linux.

I'll assume for the rest of this story you noticed no specific problems and want to install ubuntu to your hard disk. So you reboot your computer again with the Cd in the drive. This time you choose the option of installation to the hard disk. From here you have the choice to wipe your disk completely and by doing so you'll lose all the data on the disk. The other option is to shrink the partition(s) on the disk.

I remember myself this was always a big problem when I was a starting Linux user myself, not the question if I would like to install and use the disk completely but what partitioning scheme to use. In windows XP most people don't use partitions in vista their used by default. A partition is a part of your disk or a part of several disks combined. Without diving to deep into this I'll explain some of the implications. Your computer "sees" the disk as parts and if you make the disk one big piece, it will work without any problem.
If you look at your disk you see maps (directories) and if you have one big partition you can write in such a map until it fills up the entire disk. This will stop your computer from functioning normally, that's why your always warned that your disk is getting to full(never happened? Happy you!) The computer needs some space on the disk to function.

So if you split your disk up in partitions the system becomes more stable, because when you fill a map with your complete mp3 collection, there's still some space left on the system partition. I'm not saying it's a smart thing to fill up a disk partition that's not your main system partition because you can get in trouble. But it's easier possible to recover from a problem if you use partitions.

There's one big problem with partitions:
If you choose wrong when configuring size, you can end up with a lot of space in the wrong place. Trying to download 200 dvd movies and it doesn't fit on your home partition while there's a lot of space on your system partition.

Well there are many considerations to make, and if you think you can make somewhat of an educated guess on how to use your disk I do encourage you to do so. For now I'll assume we'll just go with the default options, install on the whole disk and let the installer automatically make all the choices for partitioning.
This is probably not the optimal solution but it's the easiest. If you ever want to change this it is not too difficult too do when you've reached the knowledge level that makes you know why you would have it the one way or the other(then you'll probably looking at LVM very soon because that eliminates the problem completely).

You'll be asked a few questions, you should probably choose default in most cases. You'll be asked for a password, this is the password you'll use at the login screen if you don't choose the automated login option. It's also the password you'll be asked if you try to install software or changing system wide settings. If your live Cd didn't give you any problems the installation on a modern computer shouldn't give to much problems and it will take about 25 minutes.
Now you can boot into your brand new ubuntu system.

It will look somewhat similar to windows except there's no start, no big bleu E and some other differences, but there are menu's and if you look in the lower right corner you'll see a garbage bin icon.
First thing you'll want to do is trying the internet, if you're learning a new operating system your really going to want internet. In Linux there's no internet explorer (well,that's not entirely true, but if your not a web designer you probably don't want it in linux) in linux most people use firefox this is "the other web browser" which you might already know because it's also available in windows. If your only reading this and just want to know if you could live with it, just search the internet for firefox and install and try it for a while in windows, it works exactly the same in linux and I'm sure you won't be sorry about trying it. If your busy with it try open office or abiword in the process, those are the free office program's you'll use in ubuntu and they are also available for free in windows.

Of course you'll need a network connection, if the cable is connected you probably already have an icon with two computer monitors on the upper right on the menu bar. If there's no red in the icon, your ready to go. If there's red in it you can click on it an choose a network connection in the screen that pops up. In some cases when you use wireless internet for instance you'll have to choose your network and give your encryption key. If your asked if you want to activate unsupported drivers or anything like that always just answer yes (don't worry, unsupported is just because it's not open source almost everybody uses this).

If all that is working just go to the applications menu and from there choose internet, and firefox webbrowser. One click is enough and off you go. If you like to you can click on it and drag it to the desktop, then you'll have the icon of the fox on your desktop.

In the next post I'll explain a bit about:

customizing the desktop to feel more at home

installing software you really want

what's different on the surface

If you see anything that could be improved about this tutorial, or if you have any questions. Feel free to leave a comment.