I installed Ubuntu 8.04 on my laptop computer last week Friday. I had been running Win XP Pro SP2 and Ubuntu 7.04 in dual boot. The reason I had both Linux and Windows on this system is because I have clients that require online support via VNC (Virtual Network Connection). I thought I might as well start this new year with a new outlook on life and further improve my Linux skills, more to the point my Ubuntu skills. I thought the best way was to rid my laptop of Windows XP and run Ubuntu only. Don’t misunderstand me here, I do like Windows XP very much but, I feel it’s at that stage of it’s life where people need to start looking at alternative options.Now for me Linux is the obvious alternative, I don’t particularly like Vista, not that I think it’s not any good, it’s just for my laptop with low specs, it makes absolutly no sense at all. The laptop specs is a measly Celeron 1.4 GHz with 768MB ram and a 40GB hard drive. Now with these specs you can run Windows XP fine, not great but it works fine. Now Vista on the other hand is so hardware reliant it’ll kill this laptop, not to mention all my hardware that might not be compatable with Vista.
This brings me to Ubuntu Linux. On the Ubuntu web site they list the bare minimum specs as
- 300 MHz x86 processor
- 64 MB of system memory (RAM)
- At least 4 GB of disk space (for full installation and swap space)
- VGA graphics card capable of 640×480 resolution
- CD-ROM drive or network card
And the recommended minimum as
- 700 MHz x86 processor
- 384 MB of system memory (RAM)
- 8 GB of disk space
- Graphics card capable of 1024×768 resolution
- Sound card
- A network or Internet connection
Now I’ve been working in the IT industry for a while now, I started working with computers when Windows 3.1 and DOS 6 was still all the rage. Those PC’s had 386 and 486 CPU’s with 4 or 8MB ram. When Windows 95 was going strong the Intel Pentium were clocking at some 100MHz………. ah I’m getting nostalgic here, let me continue with this article.
Anyway, this laptop won’t run Vista and XP has had it’s last Service Pack released last year. So this brings me to Ubuntu 8.04 LTS (Long Term Support). I put in the Ubuntu 8.04 CD and booted off it, being a Live CD you can boot up and have the system start without installing it. Great for people who just want to get to know Ubuntu without installing it. I tried it to see if everything was fine with my laptop’s setup and Ubuntu 8.04. Everthing was good and ready to go. The install takes about 20 minutes from start to finish and there is no searching for drivers, you just put a password in for your wireless network and a password for the keyring and your done. The next step was to update the system, this takes a while depending on your internet connection speed. I recommend you first install all the software that you want/need on your system before running the updates. This will help you get all the updates at once of all your software installed in one easy step.
After all your updates has installed you’ll have a stable secure easy working computer without too many hassles in future. If you need any help or advice, just check out the Ubuntu web site.
That’s it from me for now, happy computing and try Ubuntu…………
