Let's Install Linux on Moonlight's Spare Computer!
 

Hey Moonlight! I hear you have a spare computer and would like to try an Operating System Which Is Not by Microsoft. And you asked for step by step instructions. So let's install Ubuntu Linux on that puppy!

It used to be that I surprised a lot of people by saying "Internet Explorer is a very useful browser!" And they would say "Say what???" And I'd say, "it's very useful for downloading Firefox or Chrome."

This is going to like that. We're going to use Windows to fetch its replacement. Shhhhh!

The first thing we'll do is sashay over to https://www.ubuntu.com/

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Now just click on Download. You'll get this page:
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Now if you scroll down you'll run into incomprehensible possibilities piled on top of each other. If you're not happy with being totally confused you can click on Ubuntu Flavors and check out all the different varieties of Ubuntu. It'll just make your head spin 360º. All that stuff can be left until later. Just click that down arrow in the orange circle beside where it says "Ubuntu Desktop."
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Welcome to the teaser screen! You're asked to contribute toward the development of Ubuntu. But you aren't required to. Once you have it up and running you'll see that there are a lot worse ideas than sending them $20.00 for an operating system which is already where Windows should be at $100 a pop. But not now. Once they show you some value, THEN consider it. Click on "not now, take me to the download."
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And here you are! Save the file. Your desktop is a good place. I have a directory for ISO files. Just make sure you can find it.

What you are downloading is a disk image of an Ubuntu Live DVD. A live DVD is one that you can actually boot up and run the operating system right off the DVD. You can also install it from there. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Firefox tells me I have 13 minutes remaining. There are bit torrent downloads if you want it to go quicker. In a universe where software is free Torrent software has no stigma. It is as legitimate as marriage.

At any rate, the file you are downloading is somethingorother.iso. The extension .iso means that it is a disk image. By burning the disk image properly to a DVD we can produce a bootable DVD with Ubuntu on it. The Windows program I used to produce DVDs from disk images is ImgBurn. You can find it at imgburn.com. This is absolutely free software equal to any commercial program you can buy.

Now I'm at a disadvantage, because lacking Windows I can't walk you through. Installing ImgBurn is straightforward from the website. Run it and at the top of the window you have a place to click to choose the iso file. Do that and select ubuntu-16.04.1-desktop-amd64.iso. Insert a blank DVD -R or +R into your disk drive and select the button at the bottom to write it to the disk.

Now you have this little guy!
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Camera: Oh, you want a shot of a shelf sticker? What's that round thing messing up the foreground. It won't matter so much because it'll be out of focus.

So put him in the DVD drive of your spare computer and start it up. It is set up to boot from DVD isn't it? If not, do that first so it boots first from the DVD then the HD.

Click, click, burrrrrrrrrr! I'm doing this in a virtual machine so I can actually to through the install and show you how it all works. Please wait!

Choices, choices, choices! The disk boots up and gives you a choice:
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Now I suggest you stab the button "Try Ubuntu." This will actually boot Ubuntu up on your computer so you can see it before it's ever installed. And then you can use Ubuntu to install Ubuntu. This is good because you can play Aisle Riot Solitaire while it installs instead of searching for navel lint. It's a much more constructive activity. So push Try Ubuntu now.

Booting....booting......booting......takes awhile. DVDs are a lot slower than hard drives. But the fact that you can run the whole operating system off a DVD gives you incredible flexibility in repairing Windows! Later you can make a bootable USB drive and that is faster.

Here it is!
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I have Ubuntu running in a VirtualBox, so you don't see it quite full screen. I don't have a lot of time so I'm not cropping the image. Your screen will be filled with the purple window there.

You can play with Ubuntu without installing it. I'm going to continue this tomorrow evening so you will have time. Since Ubuntu is running entirely in a RAM disk, you can even install software in this DVD booted instance of Ubuntu.

Right click the desktop and look at the options. Click the swirly thing button on the top left and type aisleriot in the searchbox. Run it for a game of solitaire. You'll have to amuse yourself until tomorrow because I'm out of time for tonight. You can't do any harm. If you screw things up as soon as you shut your computer down it all vanishes forever!

Here we are. Welcome to the Aperture Science Enrichment Center Testing Facility. Is anybody here? What were we doing? Yes, we were getting ready to install Ubuntu. We left poor Moonlight marooned with a foreign operating system, baffled by many intimidating alternatives. We were cruel. I apologize. After we are finished installing Ubuntu we need to talk. We will talk about what an operating system is. We will talk about what it should do. We will talk about what it should not do. Then we will talk about whether you would want to install Ubuntu alongside Windows on the same hard drive. Then there will be cake. We will have a party and there will be cake....:yep:

Ahem! I think we were looking at this screen:
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So double-click the Install Ubuntu 16.04 icon (see, you already know how to use Ubuntu! Windows was a decent training ground).

And it will begin installing. While it is doing so it will give you some choices:
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Yup, select both of those.:D

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Yes, erase disk and install Ubuntu. I'm assuming that you have only one disk here. We can talk about alternative possibilities later.

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I understand that this is a foreign language to you right now. Explanations will follow. Just be reassured that Ubuntu tells you what it's going to do and gives you the option to step back and do something else. Microsoft could learn from that!

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More questions. Click on your time zone and click Continue.

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If you use a different keyboard layout or language (Ubuntu tries to figure you out and give you the right default choices but also lets you override here). Then click Continue.

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This should look familiar, but look at all the options you don't have with Windows! It judges you on password selection. Don't be intimidated. Press Continue.

Now as it installs you get to watch the dog and pony show sort of like Windows does during installation. But there's interesting stuff here and options to select to investigate things while you wait:

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You'll have lots of time to explore all the splash screens. But finally you'll be told that the installation is complete and you must reboot to actually start using Ubuntu!

So as you do that and your computer begins functioning for the very first time without Windows at all, I leave you until tomorrow for the next installment.

The cake is a lie.

Comments? Questions? In the absence of feedback, it's commentary time. I'll be adding to this post during the day while I'm at work, hopefully filling in the gaps. Of course, foremost among the gaps is the question, "Why are we doing this?" This is closely followed by "Why would one operating system be preferred over another?" and related questions to that, "What should an operating system do and not do?"

And, of course "Why Linux?" and "Which Linux?" Stay tuned.

@Rockin Robbins, where do I sign up to your fan club :D
This is the best post I've ever had the pleasure of reading in the GT section, how do you recommend it for a post of the year award? :hmmm:
I've got up to this part today, tomorrow I'll install it, I'm not going to try it out as I need another OS anyway.
If I can do this it should be a piece of cake for the rest of you.:yep: :up:
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Rockin Robbins covered this very well as you have said. He has been carrying the banner for alternative operating systems along with a number of others for some time now. The best part of Linux based Distros is that you can tailor how it works to reskinning it to look like a more familiar Microsoft windows application.

One of the nice things about Ubunto and Linux Distros is they can be booted from using a disc or flash drive without actually installing the system. This will enable one to " try out " the distro without actually installing it. As Rockin Robbins has pointed out, It's not advisable to install two operating systems on the same hard drive as that can complicate doing a system recovery/ partition if there is a virus issue that can't be resolved. It's especially bad if one tries to partition the hard drive and install a Microsoft based windows application and Linux as it's inevitable that the Microsoft windows operating system will disable the Linux application.

As mentioned, other browsers like Mozilla and chrome work fine with it. There is also Office programs to work with it as well. The issue remains working with other apps to determine how well they work with Linux.

In talking with Rockin Robbins, he has detailed that he has it working with Silent Hunter 4. Further, Rockin Robbins has detailed issues with getting Linux to play nice with Silent Hunter 3. The Wine component was meant to create an interface of sorts to enable Linux to work with Microsoft applications.

In 1997, Microsoft was in court on Anti Trust litigation regarding the monopoly Microsoft had with software originating from other companies being able to work with Microsoft operating systems. Very little has changed in the intervening years.

Since Silent Hunter 3 is still a viable simulation 11 years after introduction and many Subsim members and I'm sure others are still playing it. Getting Linux to work with SH3 is still a priority. If a work around is found, I'm sure it will have applications to other games of that era as well.

Okay, so we've charged into this "install Ubuntu" thing and we haven't even visited what we are basically doing and why we want to do it. I know Moonlight knows, but others reading the thread are probably saying "Big deal!"

My opinion is that trends in the Microsoft Corporation ethically and functionally have limited the future of Windows to the point where we're in danger of losing the use of Windows as our operating system. So, what's wrong with Microsoft right now?

• Microsoft no longer looks to Windows and PC software as its major business. Their future plans are to gain the majority of their income from subscription cloud services. You already rent Microsoft Office. That's only the beginning. We, the users of Windows, are no longer the focus of their existence. As you will see, they no longer deserve to be the focus of ours.
• Microsoft has been showing moral lapses of staggering proportions. If you are using Windows 10, you have given them the right to access every file on your system. You have given them the right to delete any file on your system for any reason they see fit. You have given them the right to collect any data they want, including confidential commercial secrets, to package and send it to Microsoft and they are doing this twice daily at your expense. What are they doing with the "data" they collect? They don't say.
• An operating system used to be a servant, sitting in the background, quietly helping you to run and organize the software and data on your machine. Microsoft has turned that into a tertiary function. The primary function of Windows 10 is to advertise stuff to you. Half of the tiles of the facetiously named "start menu" are advertisements, trying to sell you stuff. The secondary function of Windows 10 is collecting your personal information so they can target you more appropriately for the primary function of Windows 10: selling you stuff. In the pursuit of collecting your data you have given Microsoft rights to every single bit of information on your machine to do with whatever they choose without even notifying you. I think that is abusive and I won't stand for it. Windows 10 will never live on any machine I ever own. For those of you who would say "Google does the same thing with Android" I say no! They do not do any such thing. You can go into your preferences and shut off data collection and targeted ads any time you wish. You will still receive ads but they won't be based on your personal information. Windows gives you no such choices.
• During the last two months of the "free Windows 10 upgrade" fiasco, Microsoft was invading your system, resetting your upgrade preferences ONCE PER HOUR! and actually starting the upgrade process, which could only be exited by pressing the x in the upper right corner of the upgrade window.
• During the last month, in order to be sure you knew they could care less about what you want for your system, they redefined that "close window" x to mean "slime me with Windows 10." They took a rule established for over 20 years of consistent use and trashed it just so they could trick you into doing their thing on your property.
• So we know that Microsoft cannot be trusted. We know they do not feel your computer is your property and they will do with it as they please. If you work for a company which has confidential information in their system, that information is not confidential. Microsoft has it. Therefore your system is not and cannot be made secure.
• The "update" process is totally in Microsoft's control now. You are not advised and you cannot refuse to accept "upgrades" no matter what the consequences. Many businesses have software that will not function in Windows 10. Microsoft says "tough toenails."
• Having seen this conduct by Microsoft, knowing that they do not see us as the focus of their company any more we know that Microsoft is an untrustworthy company. Their conduct has been an abomination. We don't have to put up with that.

What's right about Linux? Why is it better than Windows?

• Linux is quite like Android for your cell phone. In fact, Android has Linux at its core, so you are already using Linux and the world has not ended. You already know there's nothing to be afraid of.
• Linux is not a commercial product. Commercial companies support Linux, but they are not the source of Linux' ethics and morals. When companies step out of line, the Linux community steps down on offending companies and they do it HARD.
• The whole moral concept of Linux is that your hardware is your property. You have the sole unquestioned right to decide what will live on it and how it will behave. User choice is the mantra of Linux. Service to users it's golden rule.
• Linux is secure. Any process wanting to make system changes gets a pop-up requiring administrative identity and password. If it fails, it gets the shaft. You yourself are not an administrator, except for that time when you log in that way to do administrative tasks. The system to do that is much smoother than Windows'.
• The operating system and just about all software is free. That doesn't mean it's poor quality. Chrome, Firefox, Open Office, Libre Office, Thunderbird, Inkscape, Keypass 2, Virtual Box, GIMP, VLC media player are all refugees from the Linux universe, where lots of other similarly excellent software lives for free: Gparted partition editor, Rhythmbox music player, Aisleriot solitaire, Boot-repair and others are waiting for you to discover.
• All this software lives in curated, virus-proofed Linux repositories, where you just pick it out and download. You know, it's existed for 30 years and the Windows Store is just now copying and warping the idea into laughable idiocy. Well, in Linux it's genius.
• The update process: when you start Linux, Update-manager pops up like a butler. "You have 14 system updates and 30 programs that need updating, okay?" You say "okay" and Linux updates your operating system and EVERY PROGRAM ON YOUR MACHINE in the background while you go back to work. You NEVER have to reboot the system unless you have a kernel update and then you don't have to reboot. You can just wait until you restart your machine in the morning.
• Linux is MUCH more stable than Windows. It's not rare for a Linux machine to have run for over a year without ever requiring a reboot or a shutdown. It's a reliability that you can just take for granted.
• Linux OWNS the Internet. The vast majority of Internet servers are Linux for security, reliability and user configurability, all vastly superior to anything Microsoft offers.
• Linux is completely cool! I had a client take me his laptop telling me it was slower than molasses. Of course I did malware scans but came up empty. Then the next thing I did was stick an Ubuntu Live CD into the optical drive and start it up. The text on booting immediately said "CPU running hot. Throttling back to avoid overheating." Shazaam! Problem solved. We cleaned out the cooling passages in the laptop and Linux had a new user. Linux solved the man's problem before it even started up!

Steam has tossed in the towel on working with Microsoft after Windows 8. Steam hardware is Linux hardware. That means that games either work with Linux or will work with Linux. Steam IS PC games. Gaming is moving toward Linux. Who buys more games? A person who bought Windows for $100 or a person with $100 in his pocket because Linux is free? Steam wants that $100.


Linux has a subsystem called WINE, which is a collection of Windows APIs that allow Windows programs to run natively in Linux. Apple, whose OSX is also built on a Linux bedrock core, also has a version of WINE to run Windows programs on Apple machines. Silent Hunter 4 runs magnificently in WINE under Linux. Silent Hunter 3 has been a bit more of a problem, but since Amazon has a downloadable SH3 which doesn't have the DRM, we can still get it to run. I don't know and don't want to know about SH5. I have no interest in that game at all.


Now let's get just a bit technical. One option you get while installing Linux is to shrink the partition Windows is on and install Linux on the same hard drive with Windows. I'm going to tell you that is a bad idea. Windows refuses to have anything to do with Linux. Suppose you start of with a 500GB hard drive and divide it in half. Windows will report you have a 250GB hard drive with 250GB of unformatted space! If you have a problem with Windows and do a repair with your Windows Repair Disk, Windows will set your computer to boot to Windows only and leave Linux unusable and unfindable! Microsoft could care less what your preferences for your property are.


Linux, however, reads and writes to Windows partitions better, quicker, more smoothly, more securely than Windows does. Start up your file manager while running Linux and it will show every partition on every hard drive, whether Windows or Linux without prejudice. Linux never forgets your computer is your sovereign property.


So what is the best way to install Linux on a dual boot system? Install Linux to a separate hard drive and set your system to boot that hard drive. While you are installing Linux, it will automatically sense your Windows drive and put it in your GRUB startup menu to allow you to choose Windows or Linux on startup. This respect for your preferences is all default and you don't have to override anything for it to happen. What should be expected is a very pleasant surprise.


Now you have a Windows disk that is totally untouched. You can run Windows restore routines all you want and it won't touch Linux. It will politely ignore it. Boot the Windows disk and it will start as if Linux didn't exist. Boot the Linux disk and you get a menu letting you choose to boot Windows or Linux. Having the two operating systems on two separate disks allows you to be king of your castle.


We'll have a complete post on the different Graphical User Interfaces for Linux. You're free to choose, even switch between them at will! And if you're a Windows user your mind can't comprehend what having different GUIs means to your ability to use a computer as you deserve to. Stay tuned for that post!

I thought I would comment on this part of RR's post, as I've been running both SH3 and SH4 on Linux for a while...

First, WINE versions: 1.X.Y
If "X" is an EVEN number, it is a "stable" or bugfix only version.
If "X" is an ODD number, it is a "staging" version. This is the one that they are adding new "stuff" to, such as the ability to run a game requiring a newer DirectX version.
"Y" is simply which "minor" version you have, higher number is newer.

As RR and I have commented in other threads (way too many other threads... although, relevant to the topic at hand)...

Ubuntu is currently (as of RR's post) on WINE 1.6.2, which means it's a stable version.

In comparison, I run Fedora, which as of this post the WINE version available is 1.9.20.
Which if you notice the "9", means it's a "staging" version (I'm running 1.9.17).

The Current stable, on the WINE website, is 1.8.5.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is currently using the 1.8.x version(s)

So to put all of this info into perspective and "plain language".

If you look at my "version" description above, there are "staging" and "stable"...
1.5 was a "staging", 1.6 is the "debugged" version of 1.5, nothing new, just fixing problems that came up with 1.5.

1.7 is a staging, finished last year (2015), was 17 months of development (https://www.winehq.org/news/25 scroll down to "1.8.0 released").
1.8 is again a "debugged" version...
Now 1.7 gets the same fixes to 1.5 code, as did 1.6. but 1.7 was adding new stuff.

Same goes for 1.9, once they are finished adding, then they will start on debugging it.
They do debugging as they go, but it's more in depth with a stable version.


THE POINT:
I ran SH3 from 1.7.30/31/32 (I forget) from Oct/Nov 2014, to 1.7.55, and only had trouble one time (1.7.40 The water wasn't semi-transparent, it was solid, flat black. I could see underwater, or above it, but I couldn't look through my periscope with it underwater and see the ships cruising by above water).
But SH3 ran fine otherwise.

SH3 has run fine on 1.9 since I updated to a newer Fedora on my new 8core.

For SH4, I'm running the Steam version, and as I posted here, http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=227058 has been running good.
I only had trouble with 1 version, but I had trouble with most of my steam games with that one.

I've also run newer games, I have played the DX11 update to Red Faction: Guerrilla and it looked and ran fantastic.

I mention all of this, for the following reason.
Some "distros" are easier to use if you are unsure how to "use" (that is do... anything) in Linux. These are good for beginners.

Other "distros" are running newer versions of software. But may suffer from "regressions" (it worked before, but doesn't now). They are also a "moving target".

Others are geared for "Business" (RHEL) and are "newer, but don't break anything" types. Simply because, "downtime" is expensive.

WINE has many/most older games covered. But I'm still waiting on the WINE that runs Fallout 4. :doh:

Barracuda

P.S. I'm running on little sleep. I tried to make this as simple as I could...

I'm reading all this with renewed interest after an enforced (and massively protracted) Windows 10 update yesterday left me with a computer almost crippled: everything's loading very slowly now.

I do get all that stuff about prioritising Linux using the partitions, too... I had been beginning to consider partitioning my PC with a reinstalled Windows 8, only that would probably only be buying me some time before an inevitable compulsory upgrade.

Now I'm more and more interested in Linux or Ubuntu. BUT... if I start running my website on one of these platforms, will it affect communication with customers who are using Windows? Dumb question, maybe, but as I told CW the other day, I'm not a techno.

Actually, prioritizing is not what we're doing. We're isolating Windows on its own hard drive, as it refuses to play well with others! For all the kumbaya singing in the "Marriage of Windows and Linux" thread, there is no marriage, there is no kumbaya. Windows is only in the embrace mode of their overall strategy of "embrace, extend, and extinguish."

First they embrace an existing technology. Everybody sing kumbaya! Then they extend the technology so their version does things the others don't, breaking the Internet in the case of Internet Exploder. Suddenly the technology only works on Microsoft stuff and that extinguishes the originators of the technology. But note that didn't work with IE. It also won't work with Linux. We know full well who we don't deal with. They can pretend to embrace us all they want but it's a sham and they know it.

So on your own computer, it is best to quarantine Windows onto a hard drive all to itself. Boot the Linux disk. Let Linux give you the choice of running Windows or Linux. That leaves Windows a victim of its own shortsighted policy of not playing well with others and it is blind to the fact that Linux exists on your machine.


But your second question is the absolute best that could be asked! Did you know that the vast majority of websites you access are being hosted on a Linux server? That includes Steam, Photobucket, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if Subsim were hosted on a Linux machine. The Internet could not give a rip what operating system you use.

Even Silent Hunter 4 doesn't care what operating system you use. Fall of the Rising Sun Ultimate Edition is being created on my Linux computer. Other team members have Windows computers. Their work can be loaded on my machine, I can compile the mod, 7zip it and post it and every Windows machine runs the mod just fine.

Take it another step. Many programs: Firefox, Chrome and Chromium, Thunderbird, Inkscape, Keepass, Open Office, Libre Office and many others actually came from Linux. Linux is their home. Windows is a place they visit. This post comes from Firefox on Ubuntu 16.04. Everything I do is identical to what I do with Firefox in Windows. THERE IS NO LEARNING CURVE. It does run considerably faster in Linux than it does in Windows. Ubuntu takes no clock cycles serving me advertisements or collecting, encoding and sending my information to Microsoft.

Is it perfect? Heck no. But it does recognize that my computer is my property and that I use Linux because it serves my needs. Therefore Linux respects my status as in charge of my property and exists to serve me. And not for lunch, as Microsoft defines serving.

Thank You
 

Good place to jump in and say 'Thank You' for writing this Topic Mister.

In reading the tea leaves, and handwriting on the wall, Linux is the future for me once this Win 7 computer reaches its eol.

Another thing to keep in mind Eichhörnchen is that there are also 32 bit versions of Ubunto and Linux which makes it an ideal replacement for a single core computer that used Microsoft Windows XP or below. This 32 bit Linux distros are also fully supported, which windows XP isn't. The 32 bit systems have the advantage of being light on resources like memory. As you know, we are here to help or answer any questions that may come up.

Windows 7 was very well received and many of our forum members like Windows 7 above the other offerings from Microsoft. The problem is, Microsoft is sneaking spyware / Malware into those older applications like Windows 7 as well.

As mentioned to Eichhörnchen, one can buy a single core Computer and install a 32 bit version of these systems to try them out while still using your Windows 7 or other systems. As mentioned, these systems are fully supported.

I still have my old Vista computer, sooo.... why not try to download and install Ubuntu Linux on this oldies

Markus

Subscribed :Kaleun_Salute:

You bring up one of the finest uses of Linux. Running the same program in Linux and Windows, you'll find it will run twice as fast in Linux. I took a Windows XP laptop that a friend found was just too slow and gave it to me. Off came Windows XP and on went Lubuntu, the LXDE based version of Ubuntu 32-bit. The computer is downright zippy! I take it to my astronomy club star parties and use it to crunch my cell phone images into some pretty stunning astrophotos.

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So Linux can turn a computer that's ready for the garbage into something useful!