Installing for the first time
 

Well, when i say first, i mean first serious install.

A few years ago, i installed linux (i remember it being Mandrake 10) and had a play, didn't get very far and didn't know what i was doing!

Recently my XP install messed up somehow, and my mouse and keyboard didn't work. I decided to try USB Linux to rescue my data, and this sparked off the interest in Linux again.

I've been playing around with Slax for a while, booting from USB, so no danger if i mess anything up, just simply copy and paste it back onto my USB stick! I managed to get my wireless network card working with it (using ndiswrapper, didn't try the proper drivers, i was happy i got it on the internet!) and tried installing my graphics card drivers, which is where i came to problems of running from a USB stick. Got them working with a slax module in the end though.

I'm now interested installing Linux to my harddrive and dual booting with XP, so i have no restrictions of a USB key or CD.

I'm thinking of Ubuntu, or Kubuntu, i don't know if i like Gnome or KDE best yet. I've downloaded and burn't the 64bit Ubuntu ISO to cd, and it starts fine.

My few questions are:

Upon putting the CD in, and clicking install to HDD, will this option configure partitons itself? I have a 250GB HDD, and thinking of giving linux 40 - 50 Gig, for now, and can i extend it if i need to later on?

In Ubuntu, can i install KDE too, so i can switch between both Gnome and KDE to see which i prefer, without having to download and install Kubuntu aswell?

I have an AMD64 5600 2.9ghz processor. Will i benifit from the 64bit version of Ubuntu, or will some drivers / appliactions not work? (Such as graphic card and network card drivers)

Lastly, i've read about the swap size, i have 2gig of ram, so will the swap size need to be 4gig?

I wont be able to completly change to Linux, as i'm a graphic design student, and need many products from Adobe!

Thanks in advance!

Many distros (especially the user-friendly ones) will set up the partitions for you, but also give you the option to create your own.

You can, though, unless you want to install every single Linux program, the only thing that'll really need that much would be your /home directory, which I'd recommend having on a seperate partition.

You can install as many GUIs as you want. None depend on using a certain distro.

Some things might work better. As long as you have the 32-bit libraries installed you shouldn't have too many problems running 32-bit programs.

The "double the amount of RAM" arguement was created when computers had a lot less RAM. With 2GB, you shouldn't need a large swap partition unless you're doing something really intensive (e.g. rendering a 3d scene). My swap partition is only 512MB and I've not had any problems.

Thank you for the quick reply!

Linux is going to be mainly for experimenting really, a challenge i guess, and just a nice change to using windows, though i do use a mac at university. When not using any Adobe products, or dabbling in recording my guitar (cubase), all i'm using windows for that can be done in linux is the internet and msn, and listening to music.

I'd even be willing to try any alternate recording software for linux, but not any industry standard applications (the likes of any Adobe sofware) as i need to know how to use them, though i guess for personal use i'd give anything a try :)

As i know how to use ndiswrapper, i'll see if i can get it up and running with that first, but would that conflict a proper driver for my wireless card if and when i install it? It's a WG311v2, and would be using the acx111 driver.

It could conflict if the card is detected and automatically installed. If that's the case, the easiest thing would be to stop the driver loading.

I had another look at the Live CD, to see if i could figur out if Ubuntu detects my card. As far as my knowledge with linux goes, it seems so, as in the top right where the wireless network thing is, it finds all the wireless routers that are in my area, however, when i click on mine, and enter my WEP passphrase, it doesn't really do anything, it just says something like no network available. I'm hoping that this is because it's running from a Live CD, therefore nothing can be inputed or saved, and i hope that when i install it to my harddrive, it will work perfectly! Can you confirm this?

Just going to find out how to resize my current windows partition to give me space to install Ubuntu, and hopefully i'll be up and running with Linux soon!

On a live CD, you can input and save what you like, it just won't be persisted between reboots. Wireless should work just as well as on a hard-disk installed system.

Having said that, you're more likely to get it to work on a hard disk install, if only because there are more options to play with the configuration. My experience has always been that wireless is tricky to get working, particularly after waking from hibernate, but it really depends on your wireless card and router.

The current version of Ubuntu apparently has some troubles with the WEP configuration GUI tool; these may well be ironed out in 8.10 (due this month). In the mean time, you may find these helpful:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Wi...eShootingGuide

https://www.ubuntulinux.org/support/...07.0031507315/

Hope that helps,

—Robert J Lee

I have successfully installed Ubuntnu!

It partitioned my Windows 250GB drive, and installed Ubuntu in about 20 mins! I gave linux a nice 60GB of space.

No harm done to my Windows partition, i'm posting from it now, as i got the same problem with wireless as the live cd.

Having played around and had my wireless card going before in linux (slax) i'm kind of familiar with the iwconfig command. If i enter the details using this command such as the WEP and other things, would that work better?

Just typing in iwconfig shows that my card is recognised and set as wlan0, plus the fact it detects my network, and others in my area.

I shall have a play about myself, and keep checking back for any other posts!

One other question, can i edit the boot loader order? It currently has Ubuntu as the first selection. I usually turn my PC on and walk away while it boots, currently as i'm using XP more, i'd like it to have XP as the first selection, so i don't need to sit and wait so i can select XP.

Edit /boot/grub/grub.conf and change the number next to "default" so it refers to the Windows option (it counts from 0, so 0 is the first option, 1 is the second, etc.).

Thank you, i shall have a look :)

I've got the internet working (posting from Ubuntu now!) I did a quick google search, and it pointed me to System/Administration/Network, and to set it up there, and it worked perfectly. I was looking for something like that yesterday, but didn't really have much time to look properly for it! Also found a page saying the WG311v2 card is supported in Ubuntu, which has saved me alot of hassle.

Just going to try install my latest graphics card drivers as 1024x768 resolution does my head in :P

In ubuntu it's the menu.lst file you have to edit.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Gr...hangeDefaultOS

Thank-you again :) At the moment, i shall leave linux at the top, because i'm quite enjoying it! I like the challenge!

I'm getting to grips with Gnome. I've only had expirience with KDE before, so i'm downloading the KDE 4 package files from Applications > Add / Remove. I hope thats the right way to do it!

I've got a few more questions:

Graphics drivers;

In System > Administration > Hardware Drivers, i enabled the "Propriety" nVidia Accelerated Graphics Driver, and then ran nvidia-xconfig from Terminal whilst X wasn't running. My resolution was poor, but adding 1280x1024 into my xorg.conf file sorted it, though only running at 55hz. I then stumbled upon installing the nVidia Settings app, i installed that, and from the nVidia settings app, i could change it to 60hz. Whilst it says 60hz in the nVidia settings, going to System > Preferences > Screen Resolution still only states 55hz, why is this?

When i try to get the nVidia Settings to save my settings to the xorg.conf file, i get this message:

"Unable to create new X config backup file '/etc/X11/xorg.conf.backup'."

Howcome this is?

Also, is there a way i can test that the drivers are working properly?

Fonts;

Seem blurry at times, cannot figure out how to disable anti-aliasing, and some fonts, especially in Firefox look alot smaller than when i'm using Windows on the same website, whether thats due to anti-aliasing i couldn't say. Can anyone suggest anything to help me with this also?

Hope all the questions aren't too much!

I've managed to answer this question myself, i found this on google:

http://www.stchman.com/ms_fonts.html

My font's look much much better! Looks exactly like how font's are displayed in XP now, and the font sizes are looking correctly displayed on this site now too, and on every other site!

Just need to know my other question on my post above now :)

Overall, very impressed with Ubuntu. One gripe would be that to edit say xorg.conf, i can't just open up the X11 folder, open the file, and edit it. I have to open it via a command. Is that the same for all distro's, or can other distro's login to root visually? I think it's from experience with USB Linux's; all the ones i tried log in as Root, so i can edit anything. Once i've got to grips with Sudo, and that i can't phsically login to Root (i don't think i can anyway) then it will be fine.

Given that edit (in my case vim) IS a cmd, I don't understand the qn?
As far as root goes, Ubuntu breaks the std by disabling

su -

and making you do everything through sudo (I've heard).

Some other distros allow you to login as root, but it's generally not recommended. If you want to open a file in a graphical editor, use sudo in a terminal to open the editor as root and navigate to the file using that.