Installing Operating Systems
I had just bought a new PC from Komplett. I installed Ubuntu last weekend, and last night I installed Windows XP Pro.
Installing Ubuntu was a case of clicking yes, yes, yes. It asked me a few questions about country and timezone, and asked me to set up a user account. All very standard. Installing Windows was very much the same. With both OSes I choose to configure my drive partititons myself.
Ubuntu booted fine, and I was online in seconds after logging in. My sound didnt work, so I played with the settings for a few minutes, gave up, and searched the web for my sound card. I found that the drivers were only checked into CVS in December last, so I may have to go without sound for a while in Linux, I don’t know how I will fix it. To load the Nvidia driver I have to edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf and one occurance replace ‘nv’ with ‘nvidia’. Typical user-friendly Linux. I logged out and logged in again, and I was given the NVidia logo when X restarted. So all was working bar my sound, and Ubuntu did (only one) big update to get all the latest packages. I didn’t need to install any software, but I did need to know how to use the terminal and sudo to edit xorg.conf.
Windows booted, but didn’t detect my graphics card. Or my network card. Or my sound card. Luckily, my DSL modem router has a USB connection, so I was able to plug into that. Unluckily, I needed drivers, which I had on a CD somewhere. I was able to get online. I was then able to download (in this order) Zone Alarm, Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice, NVidia Drivers, (restart), Windows Update (restart), VLC, Windows Update (restart). I still have no ethernet network working. I was unable to find drivers for my graphics card on Creative’s website, I will see if a CD came with the PC later on tonight with the correct drivers. I still have more Windows Updating to do. I did not need to know how to use the terminal or sudo though.