LAMPDocs » OS Installation

Ubuntu Starter Kit

Vadim Cissa — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 15:43:40 +0000

You have just installed Ubuntu, logged in for the first time and don’t know what to do next? It’s understandable that the system should be configured the way that would ensure decent experience. Of course, depending on your needs you may want different software to be installed. So we would recommend you to check the following steps and list of applications in order to choose the ones which may be useful for you.

1. Enabling all the repositories

Repositories represent software archives were thousands of programs for Ubuntu are stored. Repositories make it very easy to install new software onto Ubuntu using an Internet connection. In addition to that they provide a high level of security, as each program available in the repositories is thoroughly tested and built specifically for each version of Ubuntu. Thus enabling all the repositories you ensure the access to the bigger amount of applications.

It should be mentioned that Ubuntu software repositories are organized into 4 separate components, according to the level of support offered by Ubuntu. Here is the list of those components:

• Main – Officially supported software.

• Restricted – Supported software that is not available under a completely free license.

• Universe – Community maintained software, i.e. not officially supported software.

• Multiverse – Software that is not free.

There are two ways to enable/disable repositories:

a) System > Administration > Software Sources

b) System > Administration > Synaptic >> Settings >> Repositories

Here is the window you get, which gives you the opportunity to choose the repositories you need:

As soon as you’ve done which choosing enabling/disabling of repositories (we suggest you to enable all of them), click “Close” button to save your changes. A dialog box should appear, asking whether you’d like to update the list of repositories. Select “Reload” to update the list. Make sure that you click “Reload” button, because repository information will not be updated until the “Reload” is selected.

IMPORTANT: In case you use Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty) all the repositories are enabled by default, so you can skip this step.

The last thing to mention about repositories is that you can use command line instead of graphical interface to manage them. Here you get more info about this method.

2. Installing the system components

a) Adding the fonts

When you first start Ubuntu there are no decent fonts to work with, but this problem can be easily solved. Open the Terminal (Applications > Accessories > Terminal) and enter the following command:

sudo apt-get install msttcorefonts ttf-larabie-straight ttf-larabie-deco mplayer-fonts xfonts-terminus xfonts-terminus-oblique xfonts-mona tv-fonts ttf-tuffy ttf-sjfonts ttf-sil-padauk ttf-sil-ezra ttf-paktype ttf-georgewilliams ttf-fifthhorseman-dkg-handwriting ttf-farsiweb ttf-nafees ttf-mgopen ttf-freefont ttf-dustin ttf-devanagari-fonts ttf-dejavu-extra ttf-dejavu-core ttf-dejavu ttf-bpg-georgian-fonts ttf-bitstream-vera ttf-alee

b) Installing different archivers

sudo aptitude install rar unrar zip unzip p7zip-full p7zip-rar cabextract

c) Installing themes

If you don’t like the default look of the system, you can easily install a lot of different themes. First of all you should run the following command in the Terminal:

sudo apt-get install gnome-themes-extras metacity-themes ubuntume-themes community-themes gnome-art

Of course those themes are not the only ones you can get. Probably you saw a great deal of cool themes on the screenshots of Ubuntu. Here are the things you should do to get much more themes.

Visit Gnome Look and download from GTK 2.x the themes you want. After that go to System > Preferences > Appearance > Theme and simply drag and drop the theme file you downloaded.

d) Installing CompizConfig Settings Manager to add effects

Given application brings 3D desktop visual effects that improve usability of the system and provide increased productivity. To install run the following command:

sudo apt-get install compiz compizconfig-settings-manager compiz-fusion-plugins-main compiz-fusion-plugins-extra emerald librsvg2-common

e) Installing file managers

In fact standard file manager is pretty decent and the majority of the users, at least at the beginning, will hardly feel the necessity to use another application instead. However you can try to install default file managers for Xfce and KDE desktop environments, just to check if they are more convenient for you. Here are the commands you need to run in order to install them:

sudo apt-get install dolphin

After installation you can find this file manager by going Applications > System Tools > Dolphin

sudo apt-get install thunar

To find this program go to Applications > Accessories > Thunar File Manager

If you like two pane design you can install EmelFM2:

sudo apt-get install emelfm2

This application as Dolphin can be found in System Tools.

Of course there are much more file manager to choose from. So check Synaptic Package Manager and install the ones you like.

f) Installing VirtualBox

VirtualBox is a free x86 virtualization solution allowing a wide range of x86 operating systems such as Windows, DOS, BSD or Linux to run on a Linux system. What for do you need it? It’s up to you. Maybe just to install Ubuntu for testing purposes. Here is the command you need to run:

sudo apt-get install virtualbox-ose virtualbox-ose-source

How to Install Linux from CD/DVD in Graphical Mode

Vadim Cissa — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 20:53:01 +0000

Many of users, though hearing a lot about free software and Linux in particular, have never tried to install any of Linux distributions. Of course, there are a lot of different reasons for that, but the one of them we are going to discuss consists in the fact that they don’t know how to do it and are afraid of “spoiling” the system (generally Windows) currently installed.

In fact Linux installation is much easier than the majority of users may think it to be; it can hardly be considered more complex than the one of Windows. The only thing users should remember is that they need to install it on a different disk because in most cases Linux distributions are installed as a second operating system; but we will talk about it in detail a little bit later…

As regards the system requirements they are pretty the same as the ones for Windows XP, so there is no need to have a high-end computer in order to try Linux. Moreover, the installation program automatically detects your computer’s hardware and you don’t usually need to supply it with any specific details about your system; though you should make sure that your hardware meets the minimum requirements of the distribution you’ve chosen.

In addition to that it should be emphasized that generally all distributions support graphical and text-based installations. Only systems with more that 192MB of RAM or that boot from the installation DVD or Live Media can use the graphical installer. For the text-based installation you should have at least 64MB of RAM.

Before we start it should be mentioned that in this certain case we will review the installation of Fedora 11. However if you decide to install different Linux distribution (please read this post to check the most popular ones), you won’t encounter any problems, because in general the installation process is very similar. Moreover it will be much better if you choose a Live version, because you will have the opportunity to check the way system works.

The Installation Process

First of all make sure that you have a separate partition prepared for the installation of the distribution (you can use Acronis Disk Director Suite, Paragon Partition Manager and etc); however this step is not an obligatory one. Burn a CD or DVD from the distribution image. Check if the system boots from CD- or DVD-ROM. If you using a Live version of a distribution, it’s a great idea to test the system.

Live system

As soon as you boot from CD or DVD with the Linux distribution the system will be loaded, though it doesn’t mean that it’s already installed on your PC or laptop. I would strongly recommend you to spend some time checking system in action, just to make sure that you’ve made a right decision as far as the distribution is concerned. Here is the way Fedora Live version works:

a) The screen you see while the system is loading to start

b) Choosing the language of the system and keyboard

c) The desktop of the system that has just started

d) Checking the functionality and the software available without the need to be installed

Finally when you’re done with the checking and are ready to start, just double-click “Install to Hard Drive” icon in order to initialize the installation process.

Choosing a Linux Live CD

Vladimir Usenco — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 05:40:44 +0000

Nowadays almost everybody knows about the existence of Linux. There is a very decent amount of people who use it as a primary or secondary OS; however the great majority of users are still not enough familiar with it. Though there are a lot of different reasons for that (most of them are subjective ones), we are not going to discuss them, because there is a plenty of information concerning that topic in the Web, so if you want to know what the advantages and disadvantages of using Linux or Windows are, you can easily find them out.

As far as the given review is concerned its intended audience includes the ones who would like to try Linux in order to form a personal opinion about it. Fortunately there is an extremely easy way to do so – Linux Live CD.

A Live CD (or DVD) represents a CD (or DVD) that contains a bootable operating system providing you a unique opportunity to run it as a usual fully functional OS without actually installing it. Generally all the live CDs include an installation utility so a user can easily install the system if he/she wants to; still before the user proceeds to an installation a live CD does not alter the operating system or files already installed on a computer’s hard drive. Thus it represents a kind of a “test drive” that helps you to see Linux in action with no risk of making a mistake, because as soon as a computer is rebooted it returns to its initial state.

Although being a “test drive” is a great feature of Linux Live CDs, it represents nothing but just one of the most important features which should be emphasized. The other purposes of using a Linux Live CD are:

Removing viruses
System recovery
Checking the compatibility of a particular hardware configuration
Making a drive image
Testing new versions of software
Providing a high-security environment for a guest and etc.

As you can see there are a lot of things you can do with that, so it’s a pretty multifunctional tool.

At this point we can go ahead with the most popular and easy-to-use Linux Live CD distributions, so you would be able to decide which one is the most convenient for you. Here is the list of the distributions we are going to talk about:

Ubuntu 9.04
OpenSUSE 11.1
Fedora 11
Linux Mint 7
Knoppix ADRIANE 1.1
Mandriva Linux One