Tired of Windows Vista slowness on my souped-up Dell XPS laptop, it was time I at least dual-booted into Linux. So I went ahead and downloaded a copy of Ubuntu to setup my computer.
To my delight, installing Ubuntu was a breeze! Though there was some back tracking I needed to do, this guide will help you get it setup in one shot. Once setup, everything on the laptop works - as if it is out of the box. This includes function keys, the mute/eject buttons and wireless.
You may face trouble with some applications though - be forewarned!
1. Make space for Ubuntu:
Shrink the volume size in Vista, so you can install Ubuntu
1b: Backup your data (Yes - ALWAYS play it safe :-) this will most likely go through just fine - but you want a backup for that hard disk crash you never planned for, anyway!
2. Write an Ubuntu Jaunty CD. You can try using Wubi - which is a windows Ubuntu installer. But I went the traditional way - this works just fine.
3. Boot into the CD (you might need to change boot sequence so your computer looks at the cdrom first)
4. Go through the partition steps and install Ubuntu into the free partition size you will see available.
Make sure you don't assign all of it to Ubuntu - otherwise you'll have trouble using Vista, or your install will fail.
5. Let ubuntu go ahead and install itself. I'd suggest giving it at least 20GB (I gave it over 100GB :-p
6. Now Ubuntu won't be able to connect to wireless just yet (I have the default Broadcom wireless card).
So connect to an LAN cable and go to System > Administration > Update System
7. Go ahead and install all the updates (there were about 140MB of updates when I ran it).
8. Restart your computer, and presto: you have ubuntu working!
You might need to take a moment to get the wireless setup - by entering your wireless settings.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
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