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Install Ubuntu Linux on a Computer

Installing Ubuntu Linux on your home computer, laptop, and Netbook is easy as long as your computer has a CD-ROM drive for you to start your computer from the Ubuntu Live Install CD. First, you need to make sure that you have a computer with a 1GHz CPU, 384MB of RAM/Memory, 5GB of free space on your hard drive, and a video card + monitor which have a resolution of 1027 x 768 pixels. Secondly, if you are using a Windows computer which still have important files like documents, photos, music on the hard drive, back them up to CDs, DVDs, USB flash drives, or an external hard drives. If you are planning to make a dual boot computer which is a computer which can start into Windows, or Ubuntu Linux, I recommend a disk defrag of your hard drives before you begin the installation of Ubuntu.

To get a copy of the Ubuntu Live CD, you can buy it from shop.canonical.com, and have canonical ship the Ubuntu install CD to your house. You can also burn your own copy to a CD-R burnable CD disc. All you have to do is download the ISO file from Ubuntu.com/download . Once you downloaded the ISO file, you can use Roxio, Nero, CDBurnerXP, DeepBurner, ImgBurn, or any other paid or free CD burning software to burn Ubuntu linux to with their built in ISO burning program. “Do not just burn Ubuntu Linux to a CD-R with the CD data backup feature.” You need to use the CD image or ISO to disc burning wizard to burn the ISO. In Windows 7, you can right click ISO files and from the right click menu there is an option which lets you burn your ISO file to a CD-R disc.

Once you have a copy of the Ubuntu Live CD, you need to leave it in your computer CD or DVD drive when you turn on your computer. If you are in Windows or Mac, just leave your Ubuntu Live CD in your CD or DVD drive, and restart your computer.  In most cases, your computer will see that you have the Ubuntu Live CD in your CD drive, and will start your computer from the Ubuntu Live CD. You may need to go into your computers BIOS/CMOS during computer start up to tell your computer to look for a bootable CD disc before it looks for a hard drive to boot from.

If you use a Netbook, Laptop, or computer without a CD drive, but have a USB drive, you need to make a bootable Live USB flash drive with Ubuntu pre-loaded on it. Unetbootin.sourceforge.net makes a easy to use program to make it possible for you to use a USB drive with at least 700MBs of free space to install Ubuntu to. However, you need to make sure your USB flash drive is marked as active, so your computer can start from the USB drive. You use an Administrative command prompt to mark a drive as active in Windows by logging in as an administrator to start a command prompt window by going to the start menu in Windows XP  then clicking on the run button, and lastly typing cmd.exe and pressing OK. In Windows Vista, and 7, you go to the startmenu and type in “CMD.exe” then right click CMD.exe, and pick “Run as Administrator”.

1. Type Diskpart in CMD.exe

2.  Type list volume

3. Type select volume #

#=volume(flash drive) you want to make active.

4. Type Active in cmd.exe

Now your Flash drive is mark as active, and can be used to start your computer into Ubuntu once you created the live USB Flash drive with UnetBootin which can use the Ubuntu Install ISO image or download it from Ubuntu to make your USB live Ubuntu install flash drive.

Leave your Ubuntu Live Flash drive in your computer’s USB port during computer start up, and it should boot into Ubuntu Linux from your Flash drive. In some cases, you may need to set your computer to look for a USB flash drive to boot from instead of a hard drive. You need to enter your BIOS/CMOS boot manager to set your computer to look for a USB flash drive which is bootable before it looks for a hard drive.

Now that your computer is booted into Ubuntu LiveCD or Flash drive. Ubuntu will ask what is your language you speak like English, and your time zone and location. you can pick to install Ubuntu Linux or Try it out. You can try it out before you install, or go straight to the install tasks. Ubuntu will also ask you what type of keyboard you use, and for you to test out your keyboard in a textbox.

After you are done setting up your keyboard, Ubuntu’s hard drive wizard will show up, you have the option of using an entire disk for Ubuntu, and erasing your current operating system like Windows if you have an OS installed on your computer. You also have the option to make a dual boot computer by manually adjusting the amount of space you want to use for Ubuntu Linux or Windows.

After you have done partitioning, and formatting your hard drive to work with Ubuntu, Ubuntu will ask you for your name, to pick a username which can be your name like johnson, and a password which you have to type twice. Do not forget the password since you will need the password to log-in to Ubuntu on your computer, and to install, update, and remove software in Ubuntu.

You’ll be ask yo press the install button for the Ubuntu install to begin. After Ubuntu Linux is done installing, there will be a “restart now” button which will restart your computer. Be sure to remove the Ubuntu Linux LiveCD or Live Flash drive before you restart your computer.

You’ll see a start up manager which list Ubuntu, Memtest, Ubuntu recovery console, and Windows if you decided to make a dual boot computer with both Ubuntu and Windows on it. After a minute or less, your computer would be in the Ubuntu login screen. Type in the password you made during the install process of Ubuntu. Now you can use Ubuntu as your home PC operating system.

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