Installing Ubuntu 11.10

The Ubuntu installation is straight forward. Once you’ve got the partitions and your install media ready, all you have to do is go through the process. This process was done on an Acer Aspire One but can be applied to other systems.

Booting off your Ubuntu Installer

If you are using a USB

If you are using a USB drive as your install media, all you have to do is boot off the Ubuntu USB key by changing the boot device settings in your BIOS.

To change the boot device, some BIOS will give you a hot key – Like on the Acer Aspire One, you are going to hit F12. Others don’t display one and may use F8. Otherwise, go into your BIOS set up – specified at boot – and go to Boot Priority.

If there is no way to make a USB drive the boot priority, then you should be able to change the hard drive priority where you will choose the boot loader. If this is the case, you will need to go back here to reverse the setting after the installation restarts.

If you are using a DVD

If you are using an Ubuntu disk, just change the BIOS settings to boot off the CD.

Starting the Installation

I have provided a step by step guide in the video, but here is the summary.

Choose your language and click Continue.
Connect to the internet using the menu on the top right.
Be sure to make sure that the check boxes for the Download Updates and Install third party software are checked before hitting continue – this will make your future uses a lot easier.
Click continue and select Connect to this Network and from the list, choose the network that you connected to earlier and hit continue.
The install will now give you two options: Erase disk and install Ubuntu and Something Else. Ultimately, if you only want Ubuntu, choose the first option, if you want to dual boot Windows/Mac OS X with Ubuntu, click the second option.

If you choose something else, you will need to recognize your dedicated partition using the file system and size and click Change. Ultimately, you want to shrink the partition by 2GB for swap but if you have several partitions, don’t bother. Then you choose the file system to be ext4, check off the format option and select a mount point – “/” will do.
Then if you were able to get the 2GB swap partition, select it and label it as swap.
It is important that you watch the last option on the main partition drive. It selects the hard drive as the default place too install its boot loader which can be a real hassle one day if you decide to get rid of Ubuntu. Change that option to the same partition that you formatted in ext4. Now that this is done, hit continue.

The Ubuntu install will now start copying its installation files, but in the meantime, you will need to enter some information.

It will first ask you to confirm your region for the time zone.
Then it will ask what language you use the keyboard in. For English keyboards, the standard is English US but depending on your region and language choice, this may be different.
Then it will ask for your username, password, and whether you want to enter a password at every boot up or have it log in automatically – much like on a Mac.
Then comes your profile picture, you will know if your webcam works at this point as it gives you the option to use it or a bunch of preloaded pictures.
If other operating systems are detected, it will offer you the ability to transfer files and settings – this is up to you.

It will now start its automated install process that can last about 45 minutes.
Once the install is done, it will wait for you to click Restart and once you click restart it will show some terminal code and wait for you to hit Enter (it won’t tell you that you need to hit enter).
Boot into your hard drive and you will be greeted by the grub boot loader and it will automatically choose the first one after a few second.
Ubuntu will log you in for the first time and you likely will have more updates to install.

There you have it, Ubuntu on your computer. Stay tuned as I explore the features, make some tweaks and show you some of the basics and essentials to adapting to Ubuntu.

Ubuntu 11.10 on an Acer Aspire One Series

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