Installing Ubuntu Desktop

1. 1

   Using a CD?

   It’s easy to install Ubuntu from a CD. Here’s what you need to do:
   Put the Ubuntu CD into the CD/DVD-drive.
   Restart your computer. You should see a welcome screen prompting you to choose your language and giving you the option to install Ubuntu or try it from the CD.
   If you don't get this menu, read the booting from the CD guide for more information.
   

   Using a USB drive?

   Most newer computers can boot from USB. You should see a welcome screen prompting you to choose your language and giving you the option to install Ubuntu or try it from the CD.
   If your computer doesn’t automatically do so, you might need to press the F12 key to bring up the boot menu, but be careful not to hold it down - that can cause an error message.
2. 2

   Prepare to install Ubuntu

   • We recommend you plug your computer into a power source
   • You should also make sure you have enough space on your computer to install Ubuntu
   • We advise you to select Download updates while installing and Install this third-party software now
   • You should also stay connected to the internet so you can get the latest updates while you install Ubuntu
   • If you're not connected to the internet, we'll help you set up wireless at the next step

   
3. 3

   Set up wireless

   If you are not connected to the internet, you will be asked to select a wireless network, if available. We advise you to connect during the installation so we can ensure your machine is up to date. So, if you set up your wireless network at this point, it’s worth then clicking the Back button to go back to the last screen (Preparing to install Ubuntu) and ticking the box marked ‘Download updates while installing’.
   
4. 4

   Allocate drive space

   Use the checkboxes to choose whether you'd like to Install Ubuntu alongside another operating system, delete your existing operating system and replace it with Ubuntu, or – if you're an advanced user – choose the 'Something else' option
   
5. 5

   Begin the installation

   Depending on your previous selections, you can now verify that you have chosen the way in which you would like to install Ubuntu. The installation process will begin when you click the Install Now button.
   Ubuntu needs about 4.5 GB to install, so add a few extra GB to allow for your files.
   Not sure about this step? Windows users can use the Windows installer, which will install and uninstall Ubuntu in the same way as any other Windows application. It's simpler and completely safe.
   
6. 6

   Select your location

   If you are connected to the internet, this should be done automatically. Check your location is correct and click 'Forward' to proceed. If you're unsure of your time zone, type the name of the town you're in or click on the map and we'll help you find it.
   

   TIP: If you're having problems connecting to the Internet, use the menu in the top-right-hand corner to select a network.

   
7. 7

   Select your preferred keyboard layout

   Click on the language option you need. If you’re not sure, click the ‘Detect Keyboard Layout’ button for help.
   
8. 8

   Enter your login and password details

   
9. 9

   Learn more about Ubuntu while the system installs…

   …or make a cup of tea!
   
10. 10

    That's it.

    All that’s left is to restart your computer and start enjoying Ubuntu!
     
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Install Windows XP

This procedure demonstrates how to install Windows XP Professional. The procedure to install Windows XP home edition is very similar to the professional edition. Since Windows XP Pro is more advanced operating system, it will be used to demonstrate the installation procedure.
The best way install Windows XP is to do a clean install. It is not difficult to perform a clean installation. Before you perform the installation I recommend that you check Windows XP Compatibility List to ensure that your hardware is supported by XP. If your hardware is not on the compatibility list you can check your hardware manufactures website to download the drivers for Windows XP. Save all the necessary drivers onto floppy disks or CD before you start the installation.
All versions of Windows XP CD are bootable. In order to boot from CD/DVD-ROM you need to set the boot sequence. Look for the boot sequence under your BIOS setup and make sure that the first boot device is set to CD/DVD-ROM. You can then perform the following steps to install Windows XP:
Step 1 - Start your PC and place your Windows XP CD in your CD/DVD-ROM drive. Your PC should automatically detect the CD and you will get a message saying "Press any key to boot from CD". Soon as computer starts booting from the CD your will get the following screen:

Step 2 - At this stage it will ask you to press F6 if you want to install a third party Raid or SCSI driver. If you are using a an IDE Hard Drive then you do not need to press F6. If you are using a SCSI or SATA Hard drive then you must press F6 otherwise Windows will not detect your Hard Drive during the installation. Please make sure you have the Raid drivers on a floppy disk. Normally the drivers are supplied on a CD which you can copy to a floppy disk ready to be installed. If you are not sure how to do this then please read your motherboard manuals for more information.

Step 3 - Press S to Specify that you want to install additional device.

Step 4 - You will be asked to insert the floppy disk with the Raid or SCSI drivers. Press enter after you have inserted the disk.

Step 5 - You will see a list of Raid drivers for your HDD. Select the correct driver for your device and press enter.

Step 6 - You will then get a Windows XP Professional Setup screen. You have the option to do a new Windows install, Repair previous install or quit. Since we are doing a new install we just press Enter to continue.

Step 7 - You will be presented with the End User Licensing Agreement. Press F8 to accept and continue

Step 8 - This step is very important. Here we will create the partition where Windows will be installed. If you have a brand new unformatted drive you will get a screen similar to below. In our case the drive size is 8190MB. We can choose to install Windows in this drive without creating a partition, hence use the entire size of the drive. If you wish to do this you can just press enter and Windows will automatically partition and format the drive as one large drive.

However for this demonstration I will create two partition. The first partition will be 6000MB (C: drive) and second partition would be 2180MB (E: drive). By creating two partition we can have one which stores Windows and Applications and the other which stores our data. So in the future if anything goes wrong with our Windows install such as virus or spyware we can re-install Windows on C: drive and our data on E: drive will not be touched. Please note you can choose whatever size partition your like. For example if you have 500GB hard drive you can have two partition of 250GB each.

Press C to create a partition.

Step 8 - Windows will show the total size of the hard drive and ask you how much you want to allocate for the partition you are about to create. I will choose 6000MB. You will then get the screen below. Notice it shows C: Partition 1 followed by the size 6000 MB. This indicates the partition has been created. We still have an unpartitioned space of 2189MB. Next highlight the unpartitioned space by pressing down the arrow key. Then press C to create another partition. You will see the total space available for the new partition. Just choose all the space left over, in our case 2180MB.

Step 9 - Now you will see both partition listed. Partition 1 (C: Drive) 6000MB and Partition 2 (E: Drive) 2180MB. You will also have 8MB of unpartitioned space. Don't worry about that. Just leave it how its is. Windows normally has some unpartitioned space. You might wonder what happened to D: drive. Windows has automatically allocated D: drive to CD/DVD-ROM.

Select Partition 1 (C: Drive) and press Enter.

Step 10 - Choose format the partition using NTFS file system.This is the recommended file system. If the hard drive has been formatted before then you can choose quick NTFS format. We chose NTFS because it offers many security features, supports larger drive size, and bigger size files.

Windows will now start formatting drive C: and start copying setup files as shown on the two images below :

Step 11 - After the setup has completed copying the files the computer will restart. Leave the XP CD in the drive but this time DO NOT press any key when the message "Press any key to boot from CD" is displayed. In few seconds setup will continue. Windows XP Setup wizard will guide you through the setup process of gathering information about your computer.

Step 12 - Choose your region and language.

Step 13 - Type in your name and organization.

Step 14. Enter your product key.

Step 15 - Name the computer, and enter an Administrator password. Don't forget to write down your Administrator password.

Step 16 - Enter the correct date, time and choose your time zone.

Step 17 - For the network setting choose typical and press next.

Step 18 - Choose workgroup or domain name. If you are not a member of a domain then leave the default settings and press next. Windows will restart again and adjust the display.

Step 19 - Finally Windows will start and present you with a Welcome screen. Click next to continue.

Step 20 - Choose 'help protect my PC by turning on automatic updates now' and press next.

Step 21 - Will this computer connect to the internet directly, or through a network? If you are connected to a router or LAN then choose: 'Yes, this computer will connect through a local area network or home network'. If you have dial up modem choose: 'No, this computer will connect directly to the internet'. Then click Next.

Step 22 - Ready to activate Windows? Choose yes if you wish to active Windows over the internet now. Choose no if you want to activate Windows at a later stage.

Step 23 - Add users that will sign on to this computer and click next.

Step 24 - You will get a Thank you screen to confirm setup is complete. Click finish.

Step 25. Log in, to your PC for the first time.

Step 26 - You now need to check the device manager to confirm that all the drivers has been loaded or if there are any conflicts. From the start menu select Start -> Settings -> Control Panel. Click on the System icon and then from the System Properties window select the Hardware tab, then click on Device Manager.

If there are any yellow exclamation mark "!" next to any of the listed device, it means that no drivers or incorrect drivers has been loaded for that device. In our case we have a Video Controller (VGA card) which has no drivers installed.

Your hardware should come with manufacturer supplied drivers. You need to install these drivers using the automatic setup program provided by the manufacturer or you need to manually install these drivers. If you do not have the drivers, check the manufacturers website to download them.

To install a driver manually use the following procedure:

(a) From the device manager double click on the device containing the exclamation mark.

(b) This would open a device properties window.

(c) Click on the Driver tab.

(d) Click Update Driver button. The Wizard for updating device driver pops up as shown below:

You now get two options. The first option provides an automatic search for the required driver. The second option allows you to specify the location of the driver. If you don't know the location of the driver choose the automatic search which would find the required driver from the manufacturer supplied CD or Floppy disk. Windows would install the required driver and may ask you to restart the system for the changes to take affect. Use this procedure to install drivers for all the devices that contain an exclamation mark. Windows is completely setup when there are no more exclamation marks in the device manager.

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Windows 7 Installation Guide / Tutorial

Preparing the DVD from the ISO image

Since most the people are installing Windows 7 in a real hardware, a DVD should be burned from the downloaded ISO image. You will need a DVD Burner, a DVD burning software and a blank DVD-R or DVD-RW to prepare the installation disk. I used a Sony single layer DVD-R as media and used Nero 8 as the DVD burning software. But for those who don't have Nero installed, CDBurnerXP  is a free Alternative.

So using the DVD burning software of your choice burn the Windows 7 ISO image to the DVD. Make sure you choose the a very low burning speed, 4x or 8x, for better results.

Setting up your Computer & BIOS changes ( If required)

Now reboot your computer after popping in the all new Windows 7 DVD you just created in to the DVD Drive. In most cases if you do this you'll automatically boot in to the Windows 7 Installation DVD. But in some cases if the Boot device order is changed in the BIOS it may boot in to your older OS, instead of our DVD. In that case you'll need to change the BIOS settings to gt it done ( More details in a different tutorial).

Booting Up and First Installation Steps

Steps from here are pretty straight forward. Read the descriptions in each pages before clicking the Next button to avoid any disasters. IF there is options to choose in these steps you may find them with each images.

You may choose your Language options by selecting the dropdowns 'Language to install', 'Time and Currency format' and 'Keyboard or input method' here. I decided to leave everything to 'US' but it would be better for selecting the correct settings here for non-english users.

This screen is where the installation wizard begins. The install now options will leads to the advanced install options. For repairing a corrupt installation the 'Repair your computer' button located at the bottom-left can be used. For fresh installs just click the Install now button.

Tick the 'I accept the license terms' checkbox and click 'Next' to proceed.

Which type of installation do you want?

This screen provides two options, Upgrade and Custom (advanced). The upgrade option is for those who wish to upgrade an existing installation of older version of Windows to Windows 7. It is confirmed that Windows Vista can be upgraded to Windows 7 with out any issues, but Windows XP is still a problem.

We will opt for the second option here, the Custom install.  

Where do you want to install Windows?

Clicking on the 'Custom' button brings the install location selection screen. In the test machine we have an un-partitioned empty disk. But in the case of a normal installation all your hard drive partitions (e.g. C:\ , D:\ etc.) will be listed here. Choose the drive as you like (a 15 GB size is recommended). Make sure the drive don't have any important data or the Windows 7 installation will wipe-out the contents of that partition. You can backup the data to another partition (e.g. for installing in D:\ drive move important files from there to say E:\ drive or to an external usb drive) for safe keeping.

Partitioning /Creating or Modifying Partitions  

Click the Drive options (advanced) for advanced partition management options like 'Delete', 'Format', 'New' and 'Extend'. To create a new partition click the New button. But if you have list of partitions in the previous screen, choose the one where you are planning to install windows 7 and click Format. Then click 'Next' to proceed.

The 'New' option provides a text box to enter the size of the partition you wish to create in MBs. A 15 GB (15*1024 = 15360 MB) is recommended. In this case I opted for the full size of my virtual drive, i.e. 9216 MB. Click the Apply button to continue. You may be greeted with a message To ensure that all Windows features work correctly, windows might create additional partitions for system files. . This is a new feature in Windows 7 to have a small boot partition for system files. Click Okto continue.

So here we are, A new primary partition of 8.8 GB is created along with a System type partition of 200 MB. Select the partition you just created and click Next to continue.

All right, we are all set. The Windows 7 installation begins. time to grab a cup of coffee for and wait for 15 - 30 minutes for the all new OS!

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