Sex offenders web site - CHAPTER 4 Preinstallation Steps The
CHAPTER 4 Preinstallation Steps The first part of this book discussed the pros and cons of using Linux as part of your day-today life. It was intended to help you evaluate Linux and understand what you re buying into should you decide to make it your operating system of choice. Now, we move on to actually installing Linux and, specifically, Ubuntu, which is included with this book on a CD-ROM. Installing any kind of operating system is a big move and can come as something of a shock to your PC. However, Ubuntu makes this complicated maneuver as easy as it s possible to be. Its installation routines are very advanced compared to previous versions of Linux, and even compared to other current distributions. What does saying that you re going to install Ubuntu actually mean? This effectively implies three things: Somehow all the files necessary to run Ubuntu are going to be put onto your hard disk. The PC will be configured so that it knows where to find these files when it first boots up. The Ubuntu operating system will be set up so that you can use it. However, in order to do all this and get Ubuntu onto your PC, you must undertake some preparatory work, which is the focus of this chapter. Understanding Partitioning Chances are, if you re reading this book, your PC already has Windows installed on it. This won t present a problem. In most cases, Ubuntu can live happily alongside Windows in what s called a dual-boot setup, where you can choose at startup which operating system to run. However, installing Ubuntu means that Windows must make certain compromises. It needs to cohabit your hard disk with another operating system something it isn t designed to do. The main issue with such a situation is that Windows needs to shrink and make some space available for Ubuntu (unless you install a second hard disk, which is discussed later in this chapter). Ubuntu isn t able to use the same file system as Windows, and it needs its own separately defined part of the disk, which is referred to as a partition. All of this can be handled automatically by the Ubuntu installation routine, but it s important that you know what happens. All hard disks are split into partitions, which are large chunks of the disk created to hold operating systems (just like a large farm is partitioned into separate fields). A partition is usually multiple gigabytes in size, although it can be smaller. You can view your disk s partitions using the Disk Management tool in Windows XP and Windows 2000, as shown in Figure 4-1. You can