Showing posts with label Lubuntu. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lubuntu. Show all posts

Thursday, 15 May 2014

Lubuntu 14.04 - Installing Your System

Now that you've checked your installation disk for errors, it's time to install Linux Mint 16.

If it's not already in the drive, insert your installation disc and reboot your pc. Make sure that you have set your pc to boot from the optical drive before booting from the hard drive. As you did when checking the disc, you'll boot to the Lubuntu splash screen

Highlight the Install Lubuntu option & hit Enter.

You'll be prompted for your installation language: if your default language is not already highlighted, use the tab, space, & enter keys to find and select your preferred option.

Do the same to select your location on the following screen.

The next screen provides an opportunity to detect your keyboard layout: if you choose not to auto-detect your keyboard, you can change it in the following screen or after the installation is complete. Just Enter on the No option (highlighted).

Select your keyboard from the Configure Keyboard screen and hit Enter. The next screen will provide additional granularity to your input options.

Now the system will detect your hardware and prepare for the installation proper. Time for a cuppa!

After some time preparing the hardware, the installation will require some user input in order to authenticate the system and the user on any network. The first screen requires a hostname for the network. Most of us can just make something up here or go with the default setting. All that matters is that you can identify this machine on your network - so give it something obvious! Use the Tab button to highlight the Continue option and hit Enter

Next comes the user name and credentials. Full name & username do not have to be the same! You'll also be prompted for a password. Once the user information has been verified, you'll be prompted to decide on whether you want to encrypt your /home directory. For the sake of brevity, I'll select the No option: but you may want to consider this option carefully.

Confirm your time zone - the default should be correct.

Now we get into the more technical aspect of the installation - partitioning. I'm a big fan of partitioned drives and usually have a separate partition for my /home directory. However, as this is a test machine (and this tutorial is aimed at XP users) I'll opt for the Guided - use entire disk option.

There's the obligatory warnings (yes, two chances to say "no") of dire consequences of erasing your disc - be sure that you want to continue before hitting the Enter button. On the second screen, you'll have to select the Yes option before hitting Enter.

Now sit back and relax - your system is being installed!

If you need to establish proxy access to the Internet, the next screen will give you the option to add you details (obviously, I can't help with this!). Most of us can just carry on with the installation.

If you're overwriting an existing operating system or writing to a new drive you should select yes to the warning about the GRUB boot loader and then accept the default for UTC time.

Now you're done - remove the Live CD and reboot!

Sources & References:

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Wednesday, 14 May 2014

Lubuntu 14.04 - Checking Your Installation Disc

The first thing that you should do after you have created your Lubuntu Live CD/installation disc is to check it for defects. Errors can occur on the disc for several reasons, but the most common is through burning the disc at too high a speed.

"If the CD writing fails, try writing at a slower speed. For better results, try the slowest burn speed reasonably possible. Most Gui tools have a "Properties" button to select speed but with Brasero those sorts of options appear after pressing the 1st "burn" button. This is the single most likely cause of problems but is much more widely known than Md5sum/SHA error-checking. Slower speeds ensure greater accuracy."
[source]

Insert your installation disc into your optical drive and reboot your pc. Make sure that you have set your pc to boot from the optical drive before booting from the hard drive. If the disc fails to boot to the Lubuntu splash screen (and your pc boots from the hard drive as normal), you can assume that either the disc is corrupt or that you have not set your boot order correctly.

On reaching the Lubuntu splash screen, select the second option on the navigation menu, Check disc for defects and leave the utility to run.

It takes several minutes to check the disc, but, if all's well, you should see a Integrity test successful message dialog.

Click to return to the splash screen and you're ready to install the operating system.

Sources & References:

Tuesday, 13 May 2014

Lubuntu 14.04 - Creating an Installation Disc

In April, Lubuntu announced that it was releasing the first LTS version of its lightweight flavor of Ubuntu. Its three-year support cycle takes 14.04 Trusty to 2017 & I thought I'd take a look at this latest offering.

In my view, Lubuntu has the potential to become an important operating system, particularly now that Microsoft has deprecated WinXP. Based on Ubuntu & deploying the Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment (LXDE) as its default desktop, it is aimed firmly at "normal users" using "low-spec machines" - filling nicely the potential gap in the market left by XP.

"Lubuntu is targeted at "normal" PC and laptop users running on low-spec hardware. Such users may not know how to use command line tools, and in most cases they just don't have enough resources for all the bells and whistles of the "full-featured" mainstream distributions."
[source]

The obvious machine to test this on is my DELL Dimension 8400: it's ten-years-old and was designed to run XP. However, I'll be testing this on VirtualBox first in order to decide whether I want to roll it out to my stable of operating systems on a permanent basis.

First things first, download the ISO file from the Lubuntu Download page - if you want a previous version, go here - depending on your Internet connection this may take several minutes. Once downloaded, check the integrity of the download by comparing the MD5 hash with the published hash of your particular download. Don't worry too much about what an MD5 hash is, just be content to know that it is unique alphanumeric string for any given file, so if your download is exactly the same as the baseline file provided by Lubuntu (i.e. not corrupted or amended in any way) the two hashes will match.

How To Check Your MD5Sum Hash Using Ubuntu

Open a terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and then navigate to your download location:

cd ~/Downloads

Note: your download may be in a different location; amend the code to suit.

Now create the MD5 hash with:

md5sum [name.of.download.iso]

For example, using the 32-bit desktop version, my ISO file is called, lubuntu-14.04-desktop.i386.iso so my code looks like this:

md5sum lubuntu-14.04-desktop-i386.iso

It will take a moment for the system to generate the hash code, but, after a few seconds, you should see a long alphanumeric string followed by the name of your ISO file.

The easiest way to compare the generated & published hashes is to paste one above the other in your favourite text editor.

If you are using Windows, go here to find instructions on how to generate your MD5 Hash. If all's well, you're ready to create your Live Disk.

How To Burn Your Live CD Using Ubuntu

One of the advantages of this lightweight OS is that, whereas Ubuntu must be written to a DVD or USB drive, Lubuntu's ISO file is still small enough to burn to a CD.

Place a blank CD into your CD/DVD writer and close any prompt or automatic burning program (such as Brasero).

Using your file manager, navigate to your ISO file and right-click. Select the Write to disc... option.

In the resultant dialog, select the Properties button and set the Burning Speed to the lowest setting (this should minimize copying & burning errors). Click Close and then Burn to start the burning process. The disc should auto-eject when the process is complete.

Now your disc is ready to check, run a live desktop session, or install Lubuntu to your hard drive.

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