Before delving into the Ubuntu Desktop, let’s go over some general concepts that will lay a foundation for things to come.  Let’s start with Open System Software.  Open System Software is high quality software, and free.  It is written by a dedicated, caring, group of developers.  The software is continually improved, leading, sometimes, to frequent updates, which adds  new features, and bug fixes.  You’ll sometimes find several different programs for the same application, as each group of developers endorse a different design philosopy, trying to create the best possible product.

This is one of the reasons that the Linux operating system has not had the mass appeal that Windows has experienced.  You’ll notice Microsoft only comes out with one version of Windows at a time.  In contrast, there are many different versions of Linux available, called distros, as each development team tries to create an operating system that addresses their particular specialized needs, whether for scientific users, internet server needs, or desktop users.  Ubuntu, is the most popular desktop distro of Linux, mostly because the makers of Ubuntu are dedicated to making a distro for the desktop user that is easy to use, and continually improving their product by releasing a new version of Ubuntu every six months.

Because using an operating system from the command line is not user friendly to the non technical user, graphical user interfaces, GUI’s, were developed as applications the are run on top of the operating system that makes using your computer easier.  Windows is a good example of a graphical user interface that for a long time ran on top of the DOS operating system, and the Ubuntu Desktop is another.  In each of these applications, you can get to the command line of the operating system, and operate the computer that way, but of course, the GUI is easier.

Just like with the distros, there are several GUI’s available for Linux.  The two leaders are, KDE and Gnome, each has a slightly different feel and desktop arrangement, and are about equal in functionality.  Ubuntu 9.10 uses the Gnome version 2.28 graphical user interface, here after known as the Ubuntu Desktop.

The Ubuntu Desktop

You’ll find the Ubuntu desktop has the same functionality as the Windows desktop, however, the Ubuntu Desktop is not Windows. What I mean is you’ll find that the Ubuntu Desktop has the same functionality as Windows, but the two desktops are implemented differently with different menu names, menu layout, and commands, as they should be, their different GUI’s.  I personnally think the Ubuntu desktop is laid out better than Windows.  In other words, there is a learning curve as you learn how to drive a new interface, the Ubuntu Desktop.  Once you learn how to drive, you might not want to go back.

There are some similarities and outright borrowing from Windows.  All the applications use the same three symbols, the _ to minimize the window, the box to maximize the window, and the X to exit the application in the upper right corner of the application taskbar, just like Windows uses.  The Ubuntu desktop, just like Windows, makes use of the right mouse button.

Every thing on the Ubuntu Desktop is movable, if you don’t like where an icon is you can move it.  This is done with the right mouse button.  You can lock an icon to its position on the desktop, or remove it completely, and you can add icons to the desktop by clicking, “Add to Panel.”  A little caution here, I want  to make sure you know what the right mouse menu is when you encounter it.  I do not recommend reconfiguring or removing anything from your desktop at this time.

Icons and menus are initially located in each of the four corners with most being in the top task bar, as opposed to windows putting icons in the bottom task bar.  We’ll go over each of these icons and menus in later posts, unitl then, the first thing every one wants to know is how do I shut off the computer.  The upper right corner has an icon that looks like a power button with your name next to it, give it a left mouse click.  There you’ll find the Switch User, Log Out, Restart, and Shutdown with a couple of other choices.  Hmmm…looks suspiciously like what you find in Windows, except Windows takes three mouse clicks to turn off your system, Ubuntu only two.  I think you’ll find that Ubuntu is a lot quicker turning off the computer than Windows ever was.

If you’ve installed the Windows operating system before, you’ll find that loading Ubuntu is easier than loading Windows, and it’s quicker.  Plus you’ll never be asked to type in your disk number, and then contact Microsoft to authenticate your software.

Let’s get started.  Put your Ubuntu CD in the cd drive, with your bios set up to boot from CD.   The first screen that will come up will ask you what language you would like to use; then the initial menu screen will appear .  First, I would recommend that you “Check the disk for defects.”  This will check your cd to make sure the disk is clean and has everything needed to load the operating system.  If you remember my last post, if the disk is corrupted, you could get an error message that you will not relate to the disk.

Ubuntu Start Up Menu

Before going further, if you would like Ubuntu to install your Internet connection during install, plug an Ethernet cable connected to the Internet into the back of your computer.

After checking the disk, you can select “Try Ubuntu without any change to your computer.”  This will load the operating system into your memory from the CD without loading it on your hard drive.  If you go this route, once the operating system loads, the Ubuntu desktop will have an icon on it to install Ubuntu.  Click on the “Install Ubuntu” icon on the desktop to start the install to your hard drive.  Or, you can select “Install Ubuntu” from the CD menu, and go directly to loading Ubuntu to your hard drive.

Installing Ubuntu: the first screen will ask you to select your language, and click Forward.  Next you’ll set your computer time zone, and then your keyboard.  You can just click the “Suggested option: “USA,”  and test your keyboard in the bottom part of the window.

If your building your computer from scratch, you’ll get a screen to allow you to use the entire disk, or partition the disk.   Without a previous operating system,  the installation is easy, select “Use the Entire Disk.”   The disk will be formatted with the “ext4″ file system, which is new with this release, the old file system was called “ext3.”  In contrast, windows file system is called, “NTFS.”   I recommend giving an entire disk to Ubuntu, rather than partitioning part of a disk, even if you decide to dual boot.

If you already have an operating system on your computer, you’ll get the disk partitioning screen with some choices.  You can: dual boot the operating system, erase the operating system and use the entire disk, use the largest continuous free disk space as a partition, or partition the disk manually.

The only reason to partition a part of the disk is if you want to dual boot with Windows.  I personally don’t care for dual booting.  If you want to learn to use Ubuntu, dedicate yourself to doing that, use one computer for Windows and another computer for Ubuntu.  You can use the same monitor, mouse, and keyboard with a KVM switch.  You won’t have to mess with partitioning your disk, and every time you start your computer, you won’t have to select which operating system you want to use.  Ubuntu will load smoother and quicker, and you’ll be much happier.  In the end, you’ll have Ubuntu set up just like your Windows computer, you’ll have two computers both fully operational, and you’ll have learned to use Ubuntu.  Bye, bye, Microsoft.  Let’s continue.

We come to the username and password screen.   Fill in your name, the name that will appear in the log in window, and your password twice.  Give your computer a unique name for use with a network or future network.  If several people are using your computer, you probably want to require a password to log in to the computer, if it’s just you, select “Log in automatically,” and the computer will start without a password.

The next screen reviews the installation.  There is an advanced button for installing the boot loader to another disk like a USB jump drive.  I do not recommend doing this until you become a little more familiar with Ubuntu.

Click Install and we’re off.  After about 10-15 minutes you will get a reboot screen.  Reboot the computer, remove the CD, and watch Ubuntu load, put in your password, if applicable, and welcome to the Ubuntu desktop.  We’ll talk about that in our next post.

Well, I’ve just thrown down another Wrox book in disgust, and I have to say something.  I’ve read enough technical books on web development now, and my book shelf is crammed with books from all publishers.  I haven’t seen any one comment or review of technical book publishers yet,  I thought I’d  give you my opinion, and maybe save a few of you folks some dollars.

There are a small group of publishers in the world that make a living publishing technical books.  Here is my short list in no particular order: Wrox, O’Reilly, Apres, Packt, and Manning.  This list is not a complete list of publishers.  There are the big houses that publish some technical books like: McGraw Hill, Addison Wesley, and Prentice Hall, but have not created a recognizable technical brand yet.

The first group has taken the time to establish a distinguished look and type of technical book that may appeal to some readers and not others.  Let’s take them one at a time.

Wrox is the brand name for Wiley.  These books are distinguished by there red covers and the book itself is printed on cheap paper.  The cover is cheap, the book easily bends and flops.  I have been consistenly disappointed with the content of these books.  In general, they are poorly organized, the writing is poor, and the editing is poor.  The code usually has errors, which the editors or authors do not catch before publishing.  My impression is that these books are thrown together rapidly with writers, not technical experts, just to get a title published in a new hot technical topic.  Don’t waste your money.  ONE STAR.

O’Reilly has two recognizable brands.  One is the “Head First” series, and the other brand has green and white covers with a picture of an animal done in black pen.   O’Reilly focuses on technical book exclusively, and has a huge catalog.

The “Head First” books are unique.  They feature a series of diverse activities or learning activities that interupt the writing.  The idea is to engage both sides of your brain.  These books are very good.  They run about 600 pages, but because of a large number of illustrations and white space, they read like a 250 page book.  If you want a thorough grounding in a topic, these are good books to learn the fundamentals.   Their depth is not great, but their coverage of the fundamentals are in depth.  The drawback of these books is that you can not return to them and use them as a reference.  The index is poor, and even if you found what you wanted you have to read several pages to get the entire gist of the topic you were researching.  They’re read once and remember the fundamentals books.  FOUR STARS

The other O’Reilly series is what I’ll call the “Animal” series since they always have an animal on the cover.  I think of these books as reference books.  The writing tends to be dry, but it is to the point, well indexed, with good chapter organization.  I buy these books for references, not to read.  They have a sub series entitled “Cookbooks” which are code snippets on small technical problems with explanation, which I like.  FOUR STARS

Apres books are distinguished by their yellow and black glossy covers.  The paper is a higher quality than the Wrox books and the covers are stiffer. They feature well organized chapters, detailed indexes for reference, and  good writing.  The editing is good, and the code is accurate.  The writing seems to carry you logically from one topic to the next in an order that is understandable.  The topic is covered just to the right depth.  You can tell the publisher didn’t just throw a book into the world, they took their time to get it right.  I have been pleased with every Apres book I have purchased.  Apress is my favorite publisher.  I tend to look for their titles when considering a new book.  FIVE STARS

Packt books are done in orange and black with a color picture on the cover.  They feature the same glossy cover as the Apres books and the paper is about the same.  They tend to print in a slightly larger font, and their books come in at about 350 pages.  They give you a good overview of the topic and the organization is good.  Like the writing the index is an overview and thus not great for a reference.  I leave Packt books feeling like I could have gotten more.  It’s almost like the publisher wanted to keep the book small on purpose to appeal to the technical person that does not have a lot of time and wants to get through a topic quickly.  I’ve found Packt books somehow disappoint me in the end.  The problem is you feel like the topic was brushed over and you missed something, the extra detail that you wanted.  If you want a slightly beyond a basic introduction to a topic, what I would call an extensive overview, these books fill the bill.  I don’t walk away feeling like I know the topic, but I can fake it.  THREE STARS

Manning books are distinguished by a drawing of an old 17th century costumed figure on the front.  Their titles are called, ” X in Action,”  or “X in Practice.”   The covers are glossy and the paper is good.  The font tends to be smaller than the other publishers.  They have good indexes and organization.  The Manning books tend to be the opposite of the Packt books.  They are overly dense and detailed.  The topic is covered in depth.  It’s too deep.  You read on and on about a topic that may be of interest to you, or why you purchased the book, but the rest of the book is like this, and in the end, after you grok your topic of interest, you get bored, and throw the book down.  THREE STARS

There you have it, my overall impression.  Here comes the disclaimer.  Every book has a different author, and you may find a gem in my lower rated publishers.   Ultimately, the publisher controls what they publish and their care in publishing a book says something about their care in picking their authors and editors.

There are two ways to obtain the Ubuntu operating system.  You can go to the Ubuntu web site at https://shipit.ubuntu.com/ and ask them to send you the lastest distribution on CD.   You are cautioned that although Ubuntu is free, it could take up to ten weeks before the CD will arrive in the mail.  The “ship me the CD option” exists for those who do not have access to another computer to download Ubuntu.  Almost everyone I know burns their own CD image.  We want it now, why wait ten weeks.

To download Ubuntu go to:  http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download , select a site, begin your download, save it to you hard drive, and go get a cup of coffee.  At the moment the current distribution runs 690 Mb.  Expect it will take a little bit of time to download depending on your connection.

Ubuntu downloads in an .ISO format also known as a disc image which includes all the files and file metadata in one file.  To load Ubuntu, we will need to burn this downloaded .ISO file  to a CD, that it can be read in a DVD/CD drive.  This creates a small problem.  Your popular DVD/CD burners do not support creating a CD from an .ISO file.

To burn the .ISO to a CD, Ubuntu recommends downloading an ISO burner program called, InfraRecorder, for free from: http://infrarecorder.org/?page_id=5 Download InfraRecorder and install it on your system.

The first gotcha to look out for is one that got me.  We are going to burn the 690 MB image to a CD, NOT a DVD.  What happens if you burn to a DVD is the burn may go too fast, and skip some things in the .ISO file.  The result is a corrupted disk.  When you go to Install Ubuntu, an error message something like: “Loading isolinux: Disk error 32, AX = 4222, drive 9F  Boot Failed” may appear, which will leave you scratching your head.

The solution is to use a CD, not a DVD.  Make sure the CD you put in the drive to burn can store 690 Mb of data.  Put the CD in your drive and start infraRecorder.  InfraRecorder will start and a bunch of disks will come up in a visual menu on the main screen, ignore them, and go to the top menu; select  Actions>Burn Image.  Find and select your .ISO image and click OK.  Screen shots for each operating system to show you the step by step process of using IsoRecorder are located here:  https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BurningIsoHowto

Burning the image will take some time, so go get another cup of coffee.  Get out a marker pen for the CD and label the disk, “Ubuntu 9.10.”  Your done.  You now have a bootable CD disk that will load the Ubuntu Operating system on your computer.  We will cover that in our next article.

Google just released a new version of their Chrome browser available for download.  This is version 3.0.195.38.  If you have Chrome installed you’ll get a new version annoucement pop up,  and its an easy install to upgrade from your previos version of Chrome, or you can download the new version by going to the Chrome download page.

I ran the Acid 2 and Acid 3 Tests on the new version, and Chrome passed with flying colors.  Safari, Opera, and Chrome are the only browsers to reach 100 on the Acid 3 test to date.  Firefox is close with a rather jerky 93 after an awkward pause at 69.  Internet Explorer 8.0 failed the Acid 3 test with a miserable score of 20 after a long stop at 12.  I guess we have to give Microsoft kudos for passing Acid 2 with Internet Explorer 8.0.  Maybe in another couple of years they’ll join the rest of the web, and stop trying to make every one conform to them.

Chrome is quick, a jaguar in loading internet pages.  It is the fastest browser out there followed by Opera, in both loading the browser window and returning web pages.

The Chrome Browser

Chrome has a different look than any other browser choosing to minimize menus and toolbars to increase the browser window space.  The tabs for individual browser windows are placed at the top of the page.  You can drag a tab off the tab bar and create another instance of Chrome with that window in it, and you can make the instance disappear by dragging it back to a tab in another open Chrome instance.  Tabs can be reordered by dragging them where you want them on the tab bar. Pretty slick.

The web url address box doubles as the search box. If you don’t know the http:// url for the web site you want, you can just type the name in the box and a drop down of possible url’s appears.  If you want to search on the name, hit the arrow key on the right and a full Google search page appears.

There is a stealth window called “incognito” that allows you to search without saving any history.  Hmmm, I wonder why you’d want to use that?  It reminds me of the old “boss” key.

There are some 95 themes that you can pick from to change the appearance of the initially loaded  browser window, although I must admit, they don’t do much for me, except change the color at the top of the page.  The themes are predominately female and kid themes, no good old American macho man themes, darn.  The browser’s initial window, in addition to loading the theme, loads the former pages you have just loaded in thumbnails for quick selection of previous browser windows, an idea originally started by Opera.  You can rearrange these thumbnails by dragging them to a new position.  No biggee.

You can also create desktop icons for web applications.  This gives us a good indication of what direction Chrome, and Google, plan on moving toward in the future.  Bye, bye, windows desktop.  The king is dead, long live the new king.  Hello, the Chrome internet desktop.