While being in Greece (2, 3 weeks ago), my nephew asked if I could install Ubuntu on his desktop. His desktop already contained Windows Vista Home Edition and I was not so sure if it would work to install a dual boot environment. I had ordered, a while ago, via the Ubuntu web site 2 CD’s of Ubuntu 7.10 via their “ShipIt” service. One for me and one for my nephew. So, after pointing out the re-partitioning risks involved, I tried my luck installing the Ubuntu 7.10 version. We de-fragmented the disk and split up the disk in two partitions via the build-in partitioner program.
A guided tour can be found here (not that you need it with this release):
It went like a breeze but then half-way installing the Ubuntu 7.10 distribution we got a read error… After double checking the CD, via the check CD option in the start-up menu, and after retrying several times, we didn’t manage to pass beyond the read error. Stuck. We decided to download the new 8.0.4 distribution and burn it on CD so we could continue our exercise the day after.
The first thing I noticed during our retry was the improved GUI off the partitioner. The GUI now gave a nice representation of the different file structures per partition (NTFS, Swap, EXT3, etc), which made it easier in the general partition GUI to see “what is what”.
The partition we needed for Ubuntu 8.0.4 Desktop was already created during our attempts the day before, so we weren’t held back on work needed for de-fragmenting and repartitioning the disk. By the way all our de-fragmentation work and repartitioning while Windows Vista was installed was done flawlessly by Ubuntu.
The installation and configuring the desktop with all the goodies we wanted went lighting fast. After only 15 minutes Ubuntu was fully installed and updated via the internet. An experience I haven’t had a long long long time…
Ubuntu Tutorials
A while ago I found an very cool website dedicated to Ubuntu. Nowadays almost all my “desktop” needs are installed and/or configured based on tips that can be found on this site:
Installing and configuring Compiz (the flashy 3D desktop environment), for instance, can be easily achieved via instructions given in the post (or related posts) here:
The new updated Envy installer “EnvyNG” takes care of installation and configuration task for your NVidia or ATI graphics card. Of course you could also do a lot of stuff via the standard build-in software update manager, but the EnvyNG GUI works great.
Via the Medibuntu post on Ubuntu Tutorials: “Medibuntu : The Only 3rd Party Repo I Use“, you easily install all the codec’s and often used software like the Acrobat reader etc. like (as written on the site):
Adobe Reader – Adobe’s PDF Reader
Adobe Reader Plugins – Ability to complete fillable forms
Adobe Mozilla Plugin – Adobe Plugin for Firefox, Galeon, Konqueror
Google Earth – Google Earth : Explore, Search and Discover
Win32 Codecs – nonfree media playback (wma, realplayer, quicktime)
Amarok – The popular media player + mp3/mp4 integration
Skype – VOIP with Skype
ffmpeg – Multimedia player, server and encoder (mp3,mp4,h264,amr support)
A lot of other stuff like the installing VLC is also detailed and proper explained in a post:
Some other interesting posts on the site are:
- Install VMware Server 1.0.5 on Ubuntu 8.04 “Hardy”
- How To Do Seamless Window and Folder Integration with Ubuntu & VirtualBox
- How To Install Gnome-Do Plugins
- How To Set Default Workspace, Size and Window Effects in Gnome
Pythian and more
Mixing all this knowledge with a little bit of Pythian and “Oracle on Ubuntu” flavour and my Ubuntu desktop installation is just what I waited for so long…
- Installing Oracle 11g on Ubuntu 8.04 LTS (Hardy Heron)
- How To Set Up Oracle ASM on Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon
- Installing Oracle 11g on Ubuntu Linux 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon)
- Installing Oracle 11g on Ubuntu Linux 7.04
Of course, after the serious Oracle work, some extra enlightenment can be found here:
- 10 Games from the Ubuntu Universe
Version 8.0.4 is not only fast, it is very easy as well and it works. What do you want more? I am very tempted to set-up a Ubuntu Server with Oracle 11g, although it is an unsupported environment.
After reading “Ubuntu 8.04 “Hardy” Rocks My Servers Socks!” and effortlessly upgrading my laptop, a DELL Latitude D820 with an Ubuntu 7.10 environment to version Ubuntu 8.0.4, I am very very tempted to set-up a demo environment based on Oracle 11gR1 and Ubuntu 8.0.4 Server Edition…
😎
I upgraded my Ubuntu (with 11g) to 8.04
Don’t think they were right to have a beta version of Firefox 3 as ‘the’ browser. Given a browser is pretty much essential for a desktop OS, can you push out a ‘production’ OS with a beta browser ?
I agree, but until now I didn’t have any problems with it, but to be honest I also didn’t install my favorite add-ons with Firefox V3 beta…
Be aware of some of the annoyances mentioned over here with this release:
and some benchmarking over here: