Installing Ubuntu: CD or DVD?
 

I can't decide whether i should install ubuntu from the install dvd or the cd. I want a plain, no nonsense installation, and wouldn't mind installing a few programs via synaptic.

I installed slackware first, then decided to use debian; but with all the dumb hassle grub put me through (and the fact that x.org was screwed up when i installed the ATI drivers, god i hate them more than i hate windows) , i turned my attention towards ubuntu. I'm hoping that ubuntu will flawlessly detect my hardware (the live cd did) and configure which packages to install without putting me through much hassle. My experience with the ubuntu live cd has been quite satisfactory. I am fond of the dependency handling and ease of use that synaptic offers (not that i don't like the console; i LOVE the console, i just don't like hunting for libraries and typing tons of lines to compile/install a program. I just want an easy start with linux, and i intend to delve deeper into it later , and probably switch to slackware at some point (or not?) ).

My disappointment in slackware was that it is advertised as the os that comes with just what you need and nothing more. Yet there were so many packages that i didn't have a clue about, that i had to choose a guided install (or i installed all the packages, can't remember :) ). Dependencies are really annoying, at least when you are installing slackware. You leave out something that looks totally redundant, then a whole lot of programs fail. Even though i installed tons of packages, just to avoid leaving out required stuff, gnome worked awkwardly. I realized that a library it depended on was missing :mad: It is frustrating that such a thing should happen after a "full install". Other than that, i had no problems with slackware, except for a few trivial things like kde being the only desktop environment capable of using the lock machine function, and the absence of acpi routines to physically turn off the machine in the shutdown procedure (i'm guessing i had to edit the .rc scripts? anyway, i would be much happier if it were to be "ON" by default).

I'm guessing that installing ubuntu won't require much user intervention, and that even though the resultant installation is unsatisfactory, i'll be able to use the package management tool to easily add/remove whatever components i see fit.

My problems/ideas are all over the place, but my main question is which install method (cd/dvd) to use. Thanks in advance, and a thousand apologies if any of this has been posted before.

Oh btw, i know it's irrelevant, but it would be ABSOLUTELY TERRIFIC if i could get miranda to work on linux. I'd be glad to hear from people who can.

Another thing, as i mentioned, my experience with grub has been unpleasant. I installed debian on to my primary slave, and configured grub to be installed not to the mbr, but to the root partition of hdb (and yes i flagged the partition as bootable). Everything went great until i booted from the hdd (using the boot device selection menu that the bios offers). The grub menu came up, but when i tried to boot debian, it said it couldn't mount the partition. Then after a few installs and trying partitioning different partitioning schemes, i accidentally chose to boot windows (from the grub menu), and there popped debian. ???????
I did the same with slackware, except i used lilo, and i experienced no problems. Now when i reinstalled debian, and chose lilo, i would still get the grub menu when i booted from the hdd. I hope i won't have this problem with ubuntu.

Hi,

If you're looking for a no-nonesense install of Ubuntu, then you may be interested in the Ubuntu server edition. This is new release with Breezy.

It installs the base system, plus a number of services and servers.

To install the server edition, simply boot from the install CD for Breezy, and at the first boot prompt, type 'server' (sans quotes).

I've got the server running as a filer at work and it's running great. It's been headless (and mouseless and keyboardless) for about a month now and I've not had an issue at all. I run a samba share off of it with several disks (about 250GB worth of share space) and it sees a fair amount of traffic.

The server install has no windows manager, but you can always use apt to install Gnome or KDE or some other windows manager of your preference.

As for the ATI issue, I've got a T42p that I'm currently typing this on. It's got an ATI 9700 in it and it detected and ran from install.

Hope this helps!

Cheers,
Ben

That's a sensible solution. Thanks.

Perhaps it is not sensible after all. There are a couple reasons for this. It is generally not advised to install any kind of server software on a desktop machine unless you intend to make use of that server. Otherwise it becomes an unnecessary security risk. And, the reason why it would be so easy to install at first is that it's meant for use a server so the installation is minimal. I'm thinking you'll spend significant time later configuring it for use as a workstation because there's "no-nonsense" during the original installation, and so either.;)


As a side note, Miranda should work under Wine.

Well , i admit that i expected the post-install configuration and customization issue with the server installation to be a problem, but the fact that a minimal & functional installation is provided with the server installation seemed sensible (if the other option is to do a full install).


That's the answer i was looking for :)
If the original ubuntu installation is not bloated, there's no problem.

I still don't know which install media to use though, is the install cd sufficent?

I'm really looking forward to running miranda under wine :)

I don't feel the initial install is very bloated, at least using the regular Ubuntu (gnome desktop), I think there's a few more things with kubuntu as KDE in general is supposed to have a bit more as part of it. I can't say for sure though since I've only used ubuntu.

I'd say the cd is sufficient, since you can get almost anything else you want through apt-get, or synaptic if you prefer a graphical method. You might need to add some repositories, but this site has a list of repositories that are good to add.

I'm not sure what is extra on the DVD, except I think it is a combination liveCD and installation CD, though there could also be other things.

Thanks mcmillan.