Installing Ubuntu Desktop

THE SERVER SERIES EPISODE 1

Linux is now becoming an even bigger player in the OS market; and one of the most popular Linux Distros is Ubuntu.

In this tutorial; I'll show you how to download Ubuntu Desktop to a PC.

Let's Get Started.

Creating a bootable USB

There are many ways to do this;

The ideal way is to download the files off the Ubuntu website, and then use software like Rufus or etcher to write the ISO file to the USB.

So, install an .ISO file from the Ubuntu website.

Then you'll want to put the files onto a USB; But you can't just "copy-and-paste" them, you must use a bootable drive maker to create a bootable USB.

Once Rufus is up, plug your USB in. It should look like this:

Click the SELECT button, select and locate the file you downloaded earlier and ensure that you've selected the right USB in the Device option.

Beware, all existing data present on the USB will be deleted.

If you're ready, and you've cleared any existing files on the USB, click START.

This process should take about 45 mins, and will produce a bootable USB Drive.

ALTERNATIVELY: if you're lazy, you could just use UNETBOOTIN

Using the drive

You should next plug in the USB drive and start the computer.

While it is booting up, and the OEM (Dell, Lenovo, HP) logo is showing, attempt to press F12, F11 or F2 to put the computer into boot mode.

You're looking for something similar to "Boot Mode" or "Startup Menu"; For some computers, this is locked down and hard to get to, so if you run into trouble it's recommended to do a Google search for boot menu access for your particular pc

At this point, you should select something similar to "USB FLASH DRIVE" as opposed to "INTERNAL HDD". It's different for each computer, but with common sense, it shouldn't be too hard.

After that, Ubuntu Install wizard will appear and show you a nice GUI to help you answer the next few questions.

Once this is done, you've got yourself a fully functioning Ubuntu Desktop Machine.

In the next blog, we'll utilise Docker to turn this into a super-simple server.