Ubuntu Rising on Two Dells

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In all it took about 6-hours to install Ubuntu on its own partition on my two Dell laptops and most of that time was unattended while running defrag on the Windows machines. The process is simple and I find the speed and power of the Ubuntu system to far outweigh my Windows environment. For now, I have kept Windows installed on the system because there are a couple applications I’d like access to and I’m not sure how well they will work in a virtual space. Perhaps at some future point I will recoup the Windows space too.

Here are the steps I took to install:

  1. Download and create Ubuntu CD. Just follow their simple directions for creating and testing the installation CD (1-hour).
  2. Remove any unnecessary applications from my Windows environment to free up space. Useful step on a smaller hard drive systems like mine (30-minutes).
  3. Defrag Windows environment (4-hours).
  4. Restart computer and boot to Ubuntu CD to begin install (30-minutes).
    1. During the install, I manually created three new partitions (2 GB swap, 10 GB root, and 10 GB home) from the Windows partition.
  5. Reboot and choose the OS to launch (Ubuntu or Windows).

That’s it! The Ubuntu install comes with Firefox, Open Office, Email application, and many other software options.


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4 responses to “Ubuntu Rising on Two Dells”

  1. fredila Avatar
    fredila

    Can you give us some examples of what Ubuntu does better for you than Windows?

  2. Kenley Neufeld Avatar

    Since I do most of my work in a web-browser or a word-processor, my application needs are not overly sophisticated. What is important is speed of the machine.

    Aside from being free, Ubuntu can easily operate in 10GB of hard drive space (though have mine set to around 20GB total) and it doesn't need much RAM either. My 2005 Dell laptop with WinXP was becoming slower and slower, making it unbearable to work with even after a fresh install. By running Ubuntu, I should get several more years out of the system.

    Ubuntu has some built-in networking tools that are not standard in Windows (such as secure telnet, terminal services, etc.). For a linux-based platform, it is very user friendly but with a strong backend. In general Ubuntu is more Mac-like than Windows, with the same sophistication under the hood that the MacOS has now.

    Did I mention that is fast?

  3. fredila Avatar
    fredila

    Can you give us some examples of what Ubuntu does better for you than Windows?

  4. Kenley Neufeld Avatar

    Since I do most of my work in a web-browser or a word-processor, my application needs are not overly sophisticated. What is important is speed of the machine.

    Aside from being free, Ubuntu can easily operate in 10GB of hard drive space (though have mine set to around 20GB total) and it doesn't need much RAM either. My 2005 Dell laptop with WinXP was becoming slower and slower, making it unbearable to work with even after a fresh install. By running Ubuntu, I should get several more years out of the system.

    Ubuntu has some built-in networking tools that are not standard in Windows (such as secure telnet, terminal services, etc.). For a linux-based platform, it is very user friendly but with a strong backend. In general Ubuntu is more Mac-like than Windows, with the same sophistication under the hood that the MacOS has now.

    Did I mention that is fast?