Walk-through Installation of Ubuntu

• The default installation route has changed from previous releases of Ubuntu, now a live CD environment is used to provide a graphical installer. This walk-through is centered around version 6.06, but later releases should be similar. As with any software installation (especially that of an entire operating system) there is a chance that things will go wrong so all important data on your computer should be backed up before continuing. If things do go wrong there are a number of options to get help listed on http://www.ubuntu.com/support

Getting an Installation disk

• There are many ways to get an Ubuntu installation disk, these are detailed on the GettingUbuntu page. If you are planning on downloading and burning your own installation disk, please refer to BurningIsoHowto.

Booting the CD

• Ubuntu install disks are bootable, put the disk into your computer's drive and restart your computer. You will then see a boot menu where "Try Ubuntu without any change to your computer" is highlighted by default. If you are just installing, you do not need to start ubuntu. You can select "Install Ubuntu". Press enter to select an option. If you reboot your computer and do not see the following screen, please refer to BootFromCD

  

LiveCD

• Once Ubuntu has finished booting (this can take some time) you will be presented with an Ubuntu system running from the CD. At this point you can try the system and decide if you like it before installing it permanently. If you want to use the LiveCD environment for more than a short trial there is information on storing data on the LiveCDPersistence page.

  

Installing

• When you are ready to install, double-click on the install icon on the desktop. This launches the Ubuntu graphical installer.

  

Language

• The first screen is language selection, where you choose the default for your installation. Once you have selected, click on the Forward button.

  

Time zone

• Clicking once on the map zooms in so that you can more easily select a location. Alternatively, clicking on the Selected City box below the map allows you to choose from a list of available options. The "Set Time..." button can be used to enter the current time if the displayed time is still incorrect after you have selected a location. After the time is correct, click on Forward.

  

Keyboard Layout

• Select your keyboard layout; if you are unsure, try typing something into the text box as a test.

  

Who are you?

• Enter your name, the username, password, and computer name.

  

Select a Disk

• The first part of these options is a list of the hard drives that Ubuntu has detected. To use the guided partitioning, select one of these and click Forward. Most users will want to choose one of these options.

The lower part of the list has an option to automatically use the largest area of free space, and an option for manually editing the partition table using a graphical tool. The free space referred to in the former of these options is an area of a disk without any partitions on it. Please note that this is not the same as space that does not have any files in it. This option is for if you have made space on your drive before starting the installer, or if you are installing to a blank drive with no partitions yet.

• If you selected a drive from the first part of the available options, the next screen asks what you want to do to the drive to make space for Ubuntu.

  The default is to shrink an existing partition. The slider lets you select a new size for the existing partition. You can also choose to delete an existing partition to free up space. Doing so will erase all data on that partition, so proceed with caution if you choose to do so.

Confirmation

• This is your chance to check everything is right before the installer starts making changes to your system.

  

Installing

• The installer will make the changes to your partitions and install Ubuntu. This can take some time, especially resizing partitions, as all of the data in the partition needs to be moved into the part of the partition that is going to remain.

  

Finished

• When the installer is done you get the choice to remain in the LiveCD environment or reboot your computer.

  When your computer reboots, it will load Ubuntu if it is the only operating system on your computer. If you have more than one operating system, it will give you a choice of which one you want to boot.

  You can now log in with the username and password you selected during installation. Documentation on using Ubuntu is installed on your computer and can be accessed from System->Help->System Documentation or online at http://help.ubuntu.com/

  

CategoryInstallation