I've been thinking about doing a fresh installation of Ubuntu Gnu/Linux on my now venerable Sony notebook for some time. I had a number of reasons for this - firstly I wanted to eliminate the two partitions associated with Vista (spit, spit), which really wasn't able to run effectively on the limited resources the notebook had to offer. Secondly, over the last couple of years of 6-monthy updates, I've installed a variety of now unnecessary software (including much installed outside of the excellent packaging system) - much of this seemed to lead to fairly lengthy boot-up time, and I wanted to see how Karmic performs in this regard. Finally, I was interested to see how the Ubuntu installer works nowadays.
One of the stumbling blocks to wider acceptance of Linux (as far as I can see) is the installation of an OS - most PC users never do this: they buy a computer with a stock install of some version of Windows. I recently received the January 2010 issue of Linux Format (it's always struck me as quite bizarre that the cover dates of computer magazines )are set so far in the future!) with a DVD containing Mandriva, OpenSuse 11.2 and an LXF remaster of Ubuntu 9.10.
The installation process (if defaults are selected) seems to be about 8 steps, including easy setting up of language, time zone etc. The partitioning step is something that I always get nervous about (I am often reinstalling and I worry about losing data. There are a few options: to install alongside the existing OS, using the whole disk, or the advanced partioner. I chose the advances option and removed the Vista and Vista backup ntfs partitions, the existing Ubuntu root partition, and set up the partition table afresh, maintaining the partition mounting as /home. It's never seemed sensible to me that the default install doesn't set up a separate /home partition. The partitioner is really very straightforward, if you have a bit of experience, and for the beginner, the default partition is easy to select.
Installation, from accepting the partition arrangement to a bootable system was very quick - unfortunately I didn't time it, but it did seem rather quicker than I'd found in the past, well under an hour to reach a functional state. Once into the system, I installed a shed-load of software I routinely use, mostly through Synaptic, and did a system update. It was really easy to restore all my desktop settings to the way I like them.
- There are the usual irritations related to US patent law affecting sound and video codecs, but the Ubuntu forums and wikis steer one very clearly through stages required to enable (for example) DVD playing. This page - Restricted Formats - in particular was very helpful.
- The installation of Crossover Office (now named Crossover Linux - a user friendly implementation of Wine) went west, but I wasn't too depressed about that as I'm not overwhelmingly convinced I need Windows software at the moment. In any event, I checked my account over at Codeweavers and was able to download a deb installer.
- The GRAMPS genealogy database installed straight off from the deb file (the repos always lag), and there were no problems with the existing dataset.
- Firefox was a bit of a pest until I persuaded it to look at the correct config folder in my home directory
- I installed the Bibus bibliography app from the Karmic repositories - I still have to configure it, though I'll probably install the latest deb from the Bibus site first.
- Various bits and bobs from Google: Chrome browser; Picasa;
Still remaining: I need to set up ssh connections to the backup computer (notebooks are backed up daily using backuppc). I dare say there will be one or two issues...
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