Installing any Linux distribution

Hello friends, today I decided to write about the Ubuntu operating system and how to install Ubuntu from a flash drive.

Just recently we talked about. By the way, Ubuntu is based on the Linux kernel. If you are interested, be sure to read it. P Let's get straight to the point.

Let's say you want to install Ubuntu on your computer, but you don't have a CD/DVD drive, as well as empty discs to cut Ubuntu into there. Therefore, we will figure out how to install this operating system from a flash drive.

This instruction is suitable for Ubuntu versions such as 12.04, 12.10, 13.04 and higher. As far as I remember, the latest version for today is Ubuntu 15.04, which I decided to install and test.

Making a bootable USB flash drive

If you do not yet have a distribution kit with Ubuntu, then you can download it for free on the websites Ubuntu.com and Ubuntu.ru

We will create a bootable USB flash drive using the WinSetupFromUSB program.
So, install and run the program. Do all the steps described below:
In the first step, select the required USB drive. Although for me it was detected automatically.

Select Auto format it with Fbinst. (do not forget that all dataon a flash drive will be formatted).
Next, select the Linux ISO /Other Grub4dos compatible ISO item and specify the path to the Ubuntu distribution.
After selecting the distribution, a window will appear where you need to enter any name or leave it as is.
Next, click GO. In the windows that appear, click “ok”. We are waiting for the process of creating a bootable flash drive to complete.

After everything has been done, we need to go into the BIOS and put this flash drive in first place. We talked about how to do this in this article. We save the changes made to Bios and proceed to install Ubuntu.

Installing the UBUNTU operating system

As I already said, I installed this operating system myself, and I can say that in terms of speed it is completely superior to Windows. Another big disadvantage is that you cannot install many programs, since most are created for an audience that uses Windows. But Ubuntu has one utility called Wine - an application that allows you to use programs intended for Windows OS family. But many programs are not supported.

So let's get down to business.

In fact, installing Ubuntu is very simple. After loading the flash drive, a window appears in which we will need to select a language and “Run Ubuntu” or “Install Ubuntu”, select the second option, of course.

Install Ubuntu next to the Windows operating system (then, when you turn on the computer, you will have to choose Windows or Linux).

You can select the item. In this case, it will delete all data stored on the disk where you will install the operating system.

Next point "Another variant ", but we won't need it.

We will select the first item, but when I installed it, there was only item "Replace Windows with Ubuntu". Perhaps this was due to the fact that I initially had Windows 10 installed. And the program simply did not identify it.

Next, a window appears that displays the hard drive partitions. The divider can be moved to choose how much space you allocate to the partition. For beginners, it is not recommended to change anything there.

Click on the item "Install Now", a prejudice appears that says that new sections will be created. Click "Continue ".

Then we select the time zone, as well as the keyboard layout.

Then enter the username and, if necessary, a password. When all
The last step will ask you to reboot your computer for Ubuntu to take effect.
That's all . We have installed Ubuntu. After rebooting, you will be asked to choose whether to boot windows or ubuntu. Next, enter the password, if specified. The operating interface appearssystems

That's all, enjoy working with Ubuntu.

"We looked at the pros and cons of the Linux OS. In this article, we will look at how to install Linux Ubuntu, one of the common operating systems based on the Linux kernel.

To install Linux Ubuntu we need:

The Ubuntu distribution itself;
Computer or laptop with Internet access and DVD-ROM.

Well, the desire to do everything that I will talk about below.

So let's get started.

Download the distribution kit for installing Linux Ubuntu. Downloading is available in two ways: the first is direct, you simply go through your browser to the server, select the desired file and download it (Ubuntu-14.04.3-desktop). This is a universal method, but the second method is more preferable and convenient - downloading the disk via torrents. (Ubuntu-14.04.3-desktop)

After downloading the ISO image, we create a boot disk for installing Linux Ubuntu by recording its contents onto a DVD disc. How to burn disk images and other information to CD/DVD discs is described in the article:

We insert the recorded disc into the computer drive. Now we need to configure the computer to boot from the DVD-ROM, and not from the hard drive. To do this you will have to configure the BIOS. You can enter the BIOS when the computer boots before the operating system starts, that is, when the picture with the logo of your motherboard appears. Below it is usually written “Press Del to enter Setup” or “Press F2 to enter Setup”. This means that while this message is visible on the screen, you need to press the Del or F2 key to get into the BIOS settings.

On some computers (mostly laptops), you can select the device from which you want to boot without changing the BIOS settings. In this case, when loading, you will see something like “to one Time Boot Menu”. This means that you need to press F12 to select which device to boot the computer from this time. If your computer does not support selecting boot devices when turned on, you will still have to change the BIOS settings.

Once in the BIOS settings, you will most likely see a text menu with a blue background. You can navigate through it using the arrow keys on the keyboard, select items using the Enter key, and return back using the Esc key. You need to find an item in one of the submenus called something like “Boot”. It probably contains a list of four lines called "1st boot device", "2nd boot device", "3rd boot device" and "4th boot device", or something similar. Typically, the first boot device is your hard drive, and the second is your CD/DVD drive. You need to swap them and press F10 to save the changes and exit the BIOS settings.

More information on how to configure the BIOS to boot from the device you need is described in the article:

If everything was done correctly, it will boot from the DVD-ROM. And we will see the following window.

The installer will check that there is space on your hard drive to install Linux Ubuntu and that you are connected to the Internet. We make sure that everything is in order and click the “Continue” button.

After clicking the "Install Now" button, the Linux Ubuntu installer will warn you about making changes to the partition table.

ATTENTION!
After clicking the “Continue” button, all information on this hard drive will be deleted. If it contains information that is valuable to YOU, then click on the “Return” button. And refuse installation. After saving the necessary information from this hard drive to another medium, you will need to repeat the previous steps.

In the next step, select our time zone. And continue the installation by clicking the “Continue” button.

In the next window you need to enter the first username for your Ubuntu. The user you specify will be an administrator with full access to system management. It is advisable to enter your login in small Latin letters. The selected password must be entered in the appropriate field. The system will check the strength of your password and inform you about it. If the password complexity is low, then it is advisable to change it. The recommended password length is at least 6 characters. Allowed characters include letters, numbers and special characters. characters (! @ # $ % ^ & * () - _ + = ; : , . / ? \ | ` ~ ( )) .

After filling out all the fields, click the “Continue” button.

The Linux Ubuntu desktop will open.

That's it, the installation is complete. Now, having studied this material, you probably will no longer have any questions about how to install Linux Ubuntu. There is practically no need to do or configure anything in your new system, and right now you can start working fully with it.

Linux can be useful to you for many reasons. For example, your old computer can't be upgraded to new versions of Windows or macOS, or you need Linux-specific applications, or you're just curious to try something new. Or maybe you just bought a new computer without an operating system and want to save money by choosing free Linux.

Installing Linux is easy. Of course, there are distributions like Arch, which are quite difficult to install for a beginner. But most modern distributions are very easy to install. Perhaps even simpler and faster than Windows.

Before installing Linux on your main computer, make a copy of your important data. When working with partitions on your hard drive, you may accidentally erase something important. Of course, if you follow the instructions and carefully read what you are doing, then nothing unexpected will happen. But it’s a useful thing in any case.

You can install Linux on computers running Windows and macOS or on an empty hard drive. You can choose Linux as your main system or use it in parallel with your old system.

1. Download Linux distribution

First of all, you need to choose a Linux distribution. The DistroWatch.com rating will help you decide.

Then you need to download the selected distribution. This is easy to do: open the website of the desired distribution, find the downloads section and select the one that suits the bit capacity of your processor.

As a rule, Linux distributions on official websites are offered for download in two ways. The first method is a normal download. The second is via P2P using a torrent client. The second method is naturally faster. So choose it if you want to save time.

When the distribution kit in ISO format is downloaded, you need to burn it to a CD or a regular USB flash drive.

Burning to a CD can be done using standard system tools: “Burn a disk image” in Windows or “Disk Utility” in macOS. Just right-click on the downloaded image and select the appropriate item in the menu.

To burn ISO to a flash drive, you will need special utilities. For Windows it is better to choose Rufus, and for macOS - UNetbootin. These programs have a very simple interface, it is quite difficult to get confused in them.

3. Prepare the disk partition

This step should be followed if you want to keep the system installed on you and use Linux at the same time as it. If you decide to switch your computer completely to Linux or are installing the OS on an empty hard drive, skip this paragraph.

Windows

Open Windows Disk Management. Select the drive or partition from which you plan to carve out some space to install Linux. For most distributions, 10 GB is more than enough. But if you plan to install a lot of apps, get more. Right-click on the partition and select Shrink Volume. Enter the size and click OK.

The process can take quite a long time, so be patient.

When Disk Management finishes resizing the partitions, there will be empty unallocated space on the disk, marked in black. We will install Linux there.

Later, if you don’t need Linux, you can delete the partitions with it and give the free space back to Windows using the same “Disk Management Tools”.

macOS

You can allocate space for installing Linux through macOS Disk Utility. Select your drive and click on the “+” icon to create a partition for Linux. Creating a new partition may take some time.

4. Prepare the bootloader

Windows

This point only applies to new computers running Windows 10, 8.1 or 8 pre-installed. These computers use a UEFI boot loader, which will not allow you to boot into anything other than Windows.

To fix this, go into your computer's BIOS settings and disable the Secure Boot option. Then reboot. Done, you can now download and install other systems next to your Windows.

macOS

Unlike most computers, a Mac requires a couple of additional steps to install Linux on dual boot with macOS.

First of all, disable SIP. Restart your Mac and press Cmd + R. The Recovery menu will appear. Select “Terminal” in it and enter csrutil disable .

Reboot your Mac again. SIP is disabled.

Manual

Suitable if you want to set the sizes for your partitions yourself or, for example, create a separate partition for your files. To do this, select “Other option” and click “Continue”.

Linux will display what partitions you have on your computer. You can delete them, format them, or, conversely, leave the sections with the information you want to save intact.

To install Linux instead of your system, select the partition with the installed system and delete it with the “–” button. Then create new partitions in the free space.

Root partition for Linux system files. Select Ext4 file system and mount point /.
A swap partition, or swap partition, is useful if you do not have enough RAM, but have a fast SSD drive. In the list of file systems, select "Swap Partition".
Home partition where your files will be stored. Select the Ext4 file system and the /home mount point.

Click Continue and confirm the changes. The installer will erase the partitions you selected and create new ones in the free space.

How to install Linux next to your current system

There are two ways to install Linux next to your system.

Auto

Most Linux installers will immediately detect the systems you have installed. If you haven't created a separate disk space for Linux, you can try selecting the "Install next to Windows" option. The installer will automatically create the necessary partitions, and you will not have to do anything manually.

Manual

If you want to determine for yourself how much space to allocate to the system, and have followed the instructions in step 3, click “Other option” and click “Continue”. You will see your disk partitions and empty space that we have prepared for Linux. Create a root partition there (mount point /) as described above. A home partition is not necessary in this case: you will be able to copy and modify files on your main system.

Click Continue. The installer will leave your files in place. It will simply create new partitions on the free space. You will be able to choose which system you want to boot at startup.

8. Complete the Linux installation

You will then be asked to introduce yourself. Enter your name and create a password. Don't forget your password, as you will constantly need it to perform tasks on behalf of everyone. If you wish, you can encrypt your home folder.

Then just wait. When the installation is complete, you will be prompted to remove the installation disc and reboot. Don't forget to disable booting from external drives in the BIOS if you enabled it.

What to do after installation

When you reboot and your Linux desktop appears in front of you, you can do everything you can do in Windows and macOS: surf the Internet, edit documents and listen to music. Don’t forget to update and look at the “App Store” (or its equivalent, depending on the distribution) to install the applications you need.

Try Linux and you will see that in everyday life it is no more difficult than Windows or macOS.

The biggest, most important and, as many people think, difficult step in getting started with Ubuntu is installing it. However, I argue that this is not true at all, and installing Ubuntu is no more difficult than Windows! But since the file system of Ubuntu, like any other Linux system, is fundamentally different from Windows, users often have problems identifying the partition to install and specifying mount points. In order to deal with these issues once and for all, I decided to write a new article about installing Ubuntu on one computer with Windows (the old one can be read) and this time literally “explain everything on your fingers”, adding screenshots of the process with a detailed description. Questions, as usual, can be asked in the comments =).

I repeat once again that in this article we are considering the specific case of installing Ubuntu on a computer on which the Windows OS is already installed and running!

You can find the counter settings in Yandex Metrica here https://digitalnews.ru/.

Creating a boot disk or flash drive

So, you have downloaded the ISO image of the Ubuntu system (if not, then download it here: http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop). Now we have 2 options:

Create a bootable DVD. Instructions: .
Create a bootable USB flash drive. Instructions: .

Then we reboot the computer from the disk or flash drive. If you don’t know how to do this, this is the topic of a whole separate article. Briefly, I can only tell you that on most computers you need to press F12 or ESC at the moment when the computer screen lights up to get a choice of what to boot the computer from. It is also possible that on the loading screen at the bottom you will see hints about which button to press and why. Look for "Boot menu" in the tips.

Installing Ubuntu

After the computer has booted from the installation flash drive or disk, you will see the following window:

Here you need to select the Russian language in the left menu and click on the “Install Ubuntu” button, and you will proceed to prepare for installing Ubuntu:

Here, the installer will tell you whether there is enough free space on your hard drive to install the system, whether your computer is connected to an electrical outlet (to avoid surprises, it is better to plug your laptop into an outlet), and whether you have access to the Internet.

An Internet connection is necessary to be able to update the system immediately after installation, even before the first launch. If you have unlimited Internet access, it is recommended to connect to the Internet and check the box " Download updates during installation". You can connect to Wi-fi using the network icon in the upper right corner of the screen, next to the clock.

Paragraph " Install this third party software" will install some codecs on the system for playing multimedia formats. By default, they are not installed on the system due to patent restrictions in some countries.

Click "Continue" and proceed to selecting the "installation type":

Here we are offered 3 options:

Install Ubuntu next to Windows. In this case, the installer will automatically shrink your Windows partition, create a new disk partition in the resulting empty space, and install Ubuntu there. Despite its apparent simplicity and convenience, I DO NOT RECOMMEND using this method, because... in this case, you have no control over which partition of the disk to shrink (if there are several of them) and how much space to allocate for Ubuntu.
Replace Windows with Ubuntu. In this case, you will lose not only Windows, but also ALL DATA on your computer. This item should only be selected if you really don’t need to save anything on your hard drive, and you are only going to work on your computer with Ubuntu. When you select this type of installation, you will be able to select 2 additional options:
- Encrypt the new Ubuntu installation- this means that the entire Ubuntu partition will be completely encrypted. This will reduce the hard drive's performance slightly, but no one will be able to read your data from outside Ubuntu without knowing your password, or by connecting your hard drive to another computer. For novice users, I DO NOT recommend doing this in order to avoid difficulties if you want to redo everything later.
- Use LVM with the new Ubuntu installation- includes the LVM logical volume manager - it’s better for novice users not to touch this, and since our article is intended specifically for beginners, we won’t stop here and explain anything =).
Another variant. Allows you to independently determine the structure of your disks and partitions for installation. This is the method we will use.

Select “Other option”, click “continue” and move on to the most important step.

So, here is the structure of your hard drives and the partitions on them. In the screenshot above you can see the structure of my hard drive - yours may look a little different. Let's try to understand mine, and then yours will also become clear to you.

We look at the table shown above and see that I have one hard drive in my computer (/dev/sda), and on it there is only one partition (/dev/sda1) of the NTFS type (standard type for Windows), its size is 32210 megabytes and Windows is installed on it. This is the same partition that is called “Drive C:” in Windows. You may have one or even more sections. Your task is to select from the existing partitions the one that is suitable in order to reduce its size by 10 GB and create partitions for Ubuntu from the resulting empty space. In my case, there is nothing to choose from, so I will reduce my Windows partition.

So, select the partition that we want to shrink (I select the /dev/sda1 partition on which Windows is installed) and click on the “Change” button. After clicking the button, the following window opens:

Consider this window:

Size- here we indicate the new disk size. My disk size was 32210 Megabytes and I want to allocate about 10 Gigabytes for Ubuntu, so I specify the new disk size as 22000 Megabytes.
Use as- here you need to select the disk type. Because Our disk type is NTFS and we are not going to change it, we select “ntfs” from the list.
Format partition - DO NOT enable this item, otherwise it will erase all data on this disk, including Windows OS. We want to save Windows and our data, so we DO NOT check this box.
Mount point- this is the very thing that confuses all newcomers to Linux. The file system structure of Ubuntu and Linux generally implies that there is a root folder ("/") in which the operating system is installed. All other folders, disks, flash drives and other devices are connected inside it. If you still don't understand, don't be scared, just select the "/windows" mount point from the drop-down list so that you can access your files and folders on that partition through the "/windows" folder in Ubuntu.

After you have filled out all the fields, look again at my screenshot, then at your filled fields, think again whether you did everything correctly and click the “OK” button. The installer will warn you that this action cannot be undone (meaning that it is impossible to simply click “cancel” and return everything to the way it was, but, of course, the disk structure can be set back to the same as it was if you suddenly change your mind).

Click continue and wait. You may have to wait no more than a minute, or perhaps several hours - it all depends on how much free space you have on the selected disk partition, and how it is “distributed”. Do not under any circumstances turn off or restart your computer during this operation - most likely, you will be left without all your data. Be careful and better make sure in advance that the laptop is connected to charging. After the operation is completed, we see changes in the disk table: now we have free space.

Select the “free space” and click on the button with a plus sign (“Add”). A new window opens:

Here we will first create what is called a "swap partition" (or SWAP). The swap partition is used if the system for some reason does not have enough RAM on the computer. In Windows this is called a "swap file" and is stored as a simple file, but in Linux a separate partition is used for this.

Note: In old articles about Linux for beginners, you can find a recommendation to create a swap partition equal to twice the amount of RAM. Such recommendations were given at a time when RAM was measured in megabytes, and hard drive capacity was tens of gigabytes at best, and at the moment such recommendations are NOT SUITABLE for home and office computers, because in this case, the size of the swap partition will be too large and useless. You can often come across a recommendation to abandon the swap partition altogether, because... Modern computers have a lot of RAM. I don’t agree with this either, because... in a system even with a very large amount of RAM, a critical situation and memory shortage may occur. Therefore, for any amount of RAM on modern home and office computers, I recommend creating a 1 GB swap partition.

So, we indicate:

Size: 1024 MB. That is 1 GigaByte.
New partition type: If you can choose, then choose “logical”. We will not dwell on the types of sections in detail, because... We focus the article on a novice user who does not go into technical details. Those interested will find mountains of information and explanations on the topic “types of disk partitions” in the search engine.
: select "Beginning of this space". In short, the closer the partition is to the beginning of the disk, the higher the speed of reading/writing data to it, and for the swap partition this is especially important.
Use as: swap partition.

Done, click “OK” and see what happens:

Now we see that we have a new partition of type swap (swap partition). However, there is still free space left. Select it again and click on the button with a plus sign (“Add”):

This time we will create the main partition on which to install Ubuntu:

Size: maximum possible (must be entered by default);
New partition type: If you can choose, then choose “logical”.
Location of the new section: select "Beginning of this space".
Use as: Ext4 journaling file system. This is standard on most modern Linux systems. Ubuntu can be installed on other file systems, each of which has its own advantages and disadvantages, but we will not dwell on this in detail.
Mount point: "/". This means “root folder,” that is, the most important and main directory in the system. This is where Ubuntu will be installed.

Click "OK". As a result, I ended up with this table:

Yours should be about the same. Here we must once again make sure that the "Format?" It should only be located on the ext4 partition with the mount point "/" and in no case should it be located on those partitions on which you want to save your data.

Click on "Install Now" and the installer will begin making changes to the partition structure of your hard drive and copying Ubuntu files to the disk. And at this time we answer secondary questions:

"Where are you at?" - a question to determine the time zone and regional standards. If you are not in the default location, you can click on the map, or you can enter the name of the area in English.

To the question "Who are you?" you must write your real name (or any name you like), the name of the computer on the network (you can not change it and leave it as is), username - that is, your login with which you will log in to the computer and password .

You should also indicate how you will log in:

Login automatically. That is, when you turn on your computer, you will not be asked for your login or password, and you will immediately be taken to your desktop. In this case, you still need to remember the password, because... the system will ask you every time you change some global settings or install programs.
Require a password to log in. This is a more secure login method, which is especially recommended if you store confidential data on your computer, work with money, or simply do not want anyone in your home or office to have access to your account.

By selecting the second item you can also enable the option " Encrypt my home folder" - in this case, your personal files cannot be read from another system, or by connecting your hard drive to another computer.

That's all! All you have to do is wait for the Ubuntu files to be copied and the system updated (if you selected the appropriate option at the first stage of installation). Once completed, the installer will prompt you to reboot your computer in order to log into your new Ubuntu system!

Before deciding to install Ubuntu as a second system, test the Windows OS recovery so that if something goes wrong, you won't find your backups unusable.

The reason for such a big effort: when installing Ubuntu in parallel with Windows, problems may arise that are not only related to the Linux system. For example, the difficulties associated with the interaction of modern UEFI implementations.

Each motherboard manufacturer behaves in its own way and only tests for compatibility with Windows. Additional barriers to consider may include signed bootloaders, fast startup, and power-saving mechanisms.

BIOS or UEFI?

On modern hardware, your computer probably has UEFI firmware and Windows is installed in UEFI mode. If you have had a PC or laptop for a long time, it may also have a classic BIOS. To install Ubuntu, it is important to know exactly the situation, since you need to select UEFI or BIOS mode.

To check this, enter the query “System Information” in the Windows search bar and find the line “BIOS Mode”. If it says Legacy, Ubuntu should be installed in BIOS mode. In this case, both Secure Boot and the Fast Boot option must be disabled in the BIOS and the mode cannot be switched to “UEFI”.

If the system information says "UEFI", Ubuntu should be installed in "UEFI" mode and use the 64-bit version. To run Ubuntu alongside Windows in UEFI mode, Windows 8 and 10 users must disable Fast Startup. This is done in the power settings through the “Power button action” item.

In the Shutdown Options section, make sure that the Enable Fast Startup option is unchecked. Windows 7 users should disable hibernation mode from the Start menu with the command “powercfg /h off”. Finally, disable the Fast Boot option from the UEFI firmware.

Preparing space for Ubuntu

To install Ubuntu alongside Windows, you will need enough space. The Ubuntu installer is capable of reducing the space of your existing Windows. You can do this in advance, manually and directly from Windows. To do this, go to “Disk Management”, which is called up through the Start menu with the command “diskmgmt.msc”.

Typically, Windows takes up the entire disk, but can free up space for Ubuntu

Even if you only use Windows, your hard drive often contains various partitions, including Recovery, UEFI Boot, and, of course, Windows System. The more complex the initial conditions, the higher the likelihood that Ubuntu Boot Manager will later break its teeth on your system.

To shrink an existing Windows C partition, right-click on it on the main utility screen and select “Shrink Volume.” Now you need to specify the size of the compressed space of the required space in MB. If you enter "20000", Windows will free up 20GB for Ubuntu. This is enough to get started with Linux. To reserve a place, click on the “Compress” button.

Installing Ubuntu

Start your computer again from the DVD or USB drive as described on page 85. In Live CD mode, click on the “Install Ubuntu 16.04 LTS” desktop icon. Follow the Wizard's instructions, first selecting your language. Connect via LAN or Wi-Fi to the Internet to receive updates immediately.

The key point during installation will be “Installation Type”. In this case, you should select “Install Ubuntu next to Windows Boot Manager.” Next, set the standard settings, such as location and account.

When the installation completes, you are given two options: remain in Live CD mode or restart your computer. Select “Continue acquaintance” and open the command line using the key combination “Ctrl+Alt+T”.

The command “sudo apt-get install efibootmgr” launches a small tool to configure the boot order. The "efibootmgr" command will display information about boot entries. In addition to the “Windows Boot Manager” line, the “Ubuntu” entry should appear. Use the command “sudo efibootmgr –o x,y” to change the boot order, where “x” is for the numbers before the Ubuntu entry and “y” is for the numbers before the Windows Boot Manager.

First steps in Linux

This operating system offers only a base for working with programs and web services. To ensure everything goes smoothly, you should become familiar with the system.

1. Introduction to the Desktop

Ubuntu uses what is called the Unity desktop. It looks simple, with a software panel displayed on the left side - the launcher. In addition, there is a menu bar at the top, similar to the implementation in Apple's Mac OS X. When you open a program, Ubuntu collapses the menu into this bar at the top of the screen rather than into a window. For a Windows-like experience, move the launcher to the bottom of the screen. At the moment, this requires entering a command in the terminal. "gsettings set com.canonical.Unity.Launcher launcher-position Bottom" moves the panel to the bottom. An analogue of the well-known Control Panel from Windows in Ubuntu are system settings.

2. Check for updates

Like Windows, Linux has regular security updates. They need to be installed

After installing Ubuntu, the system is considered up to date if you allow the Wizard to perform the update. For those who like to speed up the process, there is the command “sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade”. The first part of the command requests the latest package from Linux servers, the second starts updates. To upgrade to a new version of Ubuntu, for example from Beta 2 from a premium DVD to the final version, type also “sudo apt-get dist-upgrade”. If the command line scares you, look for the appropriate GUI in the update manager.

3. Installation of programs

There are many programs available for Linux that are familiar to you from Windows. With the command “sudo apt-get install vlc” you can, for example, install VLC media player. Gnome offers a graphical utility for Ubuntu similar to the App Store. In it, find “vlc” and click on the “Install” button.

Solving problems with Ubuntu

Parallel installation of Ubuntu 16.04 next to Windows does not create problems in itself, which was confirmed by our tests when installing in BIOS mode. However, the devil is in the details, as our experiments with various UEFI PCs and laptops revealed. At the same time, it seems that everything is going like clockwork, but then Windows boots again, and there is no word about Ubuntu.

If you too are facing a similar problem, search for a solution on Google with the exact model of PC or laptop in combination with Ubuntu. The quickest way to find advice is on specific BIOS/UEFI settings or special bootloader adaptation. So, we failed with a Sony Vaio Pro laptop and an NCQ-enabled SSD. Only after disabling this feature did Ubuntu start. In general, it is recommended to use the latest version of UEFI.

Instead of relying on Ubuntu to automatically configure your hard drive or SSD, you can resort to manual partitioning if an error occurs. The corresponding menu item in the “Installation Type” is simply called “Other Option”. Here you need to create three partitions: “/boot” with 250 MB (ext2 file system), a swap partition with 4092 MB, and you can allocate the remaining space to the root partition “/”. Let the bootloader write to the /boot partition.

Linux security under control

Even Linux is not invulnerable. In February 2016, hackers hacked the Linux Mint project server and changed the ISO files hosted on it. They hid a backdoor in the installation files to steal passwords. But you can protect yourself.

Checksum verification. Manipulations with Linux distributions pop up immediately if the checksums do not match. Windows utilities such as md5sums display values for ISO files. They must match the data from the developers.

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