Crossing Over

I got the software update notice this morning that there was an Ubuntu upgrade available for me.  I clicked the software update thing, told it I wanted to install the upgrade and away it went…

The upgrade was pretty easy, though quite far from quick.  Several times during the day the install was interrupted by some prompt and I’d have to click “Forward” or something to that effect.  Certainly nothing involving brain power, but it would have been nice to just be able to leave it alone.

After the upgrade to 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon was done, I rebooted my system, logged in and gave it a go.

The desktop effects are much improved and functional.  No weird crashes when trying to run them this time, and also WINE seems to have reinstalled and corrected itself into working properly (there were no icons for anything WINE related before).

There is one major problem so far - the upgrade to Gusty Gibbon broke my install of Pidgin Instant Messenger.  I get error messages telling me that I need to install some SSL libraries or something.  I ran into this problem on my windows computer when I wanted to use Miranda IM to connect to GoogleTalk.  I’m sure there’s a fix for it on Ubuntu, I’m gonna have to look for it though.

Installing Ubuntu Linux onto my Windows XP Professional machine turned out to be much easier than I thought it would be. After downloading the CD Image, I burned a copy of the disc while still in windows - for anyone who may be sitting there with a PC that has no operating system on it at this point, you can also order a CD from their website.

To install, all you have to do is make sure that your BIOS is set to read from the CD or DVD drive before reading boot information from your hard drive. Most computers already do this, but in the event yours doesn’t, just hit the F key (i think it was F12 on mine) that your computer tells you to hit when you restart to get into the BIOS setup screen and make the appropriate changes there.

Once you restart with the Ubuntu install disc in your drive, you’re taken directly into the operating system. For anyone unfamiliar, most linux distributions use a “Live CD” method of facilitating the install process and giving you a good introduction to the OS withouth forcing you to install something you may not like or be able to use.

Right from the Live CD, I could connect to the internet using FireFox, connect to MSN using GAIM messenger (not Pidgin though, Ubuntu still comes with GAIM) and draw pictures using GIMP.

As my C: drive was serving no purpose for windows, installing the OS to my hard drive would present no real problems - my data had all been backed up, and Windows XP Professional is installed on F:. I double clicked the install icon on my desktop, answered a few quick questions presented by the software (where did it want me to install, did I want to partition or format the drive). Mostly I chose default selections and the install program ran quickly and silently in the background.

Compared to my last Windows XP installation (at 90+ minutes, then windows updates - another 60-90 minutes), this installation was a breeze. I would be surprised if the installation of the entire operating system AND formatting the 40 GB drive took a full 30 minutes. After it was all finished, the OS politely asked me if I wanted to continue running it from the Ubuntu Live CD or if I would like to restart and run from the installation. I restarted, and happliy was presented with a boot menu - with the default selections it allowed me to keep my Windows XP installation in addition to the Ubuntu installation. I chose Ubuntu, logged in and everything appeared to be working fine.