For those who have been with these postings from the start, you’ll know I had a little beef with Microsoft about their licensing policy for OEM licenses, which I documented in another post.  Maybe it was just me, but I decided to rid myself of the dreaded Microsoft strangle hold on software.

I started assembling a new computer with one mission in mind.  To prove to myself and my audience that I could assemble a PC that would have the functionality found on a Windows system without paying for any Microsoft software or products.  The aim here is to not directly load or pay for any Microsoft products.  That doesn’t mean that a Microsoft product will not somehow be on my system, it will, but it will be a freebee and I will not have given Microsoft any direct revenue for the software.

This mission has led to the “Building a Computer” section of this blog, and that section has progressed to the point where all the hardware is running and we are ready to load software.

We have come to a crossroads.  If you just wanted to build your own computer, and load the latest Microsoft Operating System, like Windows 7, along with Microsoft Office, etc. more power to you.  We wish you well, and see you on your way.

If you are interested in loading a free operating system, like Ubuntu, then keep reading, that’s what this blog is all about.  Goodbye, Microsoft, Hello Open Soruce software.  Let’s get started.

Before we begin our installation, let’s pause for one post, and talk about Open Source Software.  Open Source Software is software that is open and in the public domain.  Open Source refers to the source code which is also in the public domain, thus open.   In other words, it’s free.

There are a couple of different license types for Open Source Software, but basically, if it’s Open Source, you can go ahead and download it, and use it on your computer for free.  It’s free for private use and it’s free for commercial use.  There are no license fees, no one to notify when you download and use the software, and no license police out to see if you have paid for the current copy of the license.  Have at it and enjoy.

Now this begs several questions.  Why would anyone give software away that they’ve created?   Marketing software for sale takes quite a bit of revenue and effort.  As soon as you become successful, then big brother will come along with a competing product, and with big brothers marketing muscle, your out of business.

In fact, there is a business model for open source software and a way to make money for developers.  Usually a robust, free version is given away, and a pro version is sold with additional features.  Adobe pioneered this method.  Also commercial customers want support from developers, and are willing to pay for that support.

Isn’t free software shoddy, not up to commercial standards?  Your in for a shock, but a lot of Open Source Software is just as good and in some instance better than commercial versions.  Why? Because, some developers just like developing an application to see if they can do better than any other product on the market.  Sometimes it’s not just one developer, but several with a common mission.  The developers are in it for the love of building good software, and for the most part they do an excellent job.  They know if you don’t like it, your going to delete it and not use it.

What can I expect when downloading open source software?  You can expect high quality software, with very few bugs, good install programs, and with all the bells and whistles of the commercial equivalent software.  A lot of times this will run on all operating systems.  Some of this software was developed by major corporations, like Sun, who developed Open Office and gave it to the public as a way to diminish Microsoft Office.

What are the drawbacks from using Open Source Software?  Well. just like any commercial software you would buy, don’t expect Open Source Software to do things exactly like, and have the same exact look, as the leading commercial version.  The controls may be slightly different, or in a different place, or the menus are slightly different in wording or placement.  If your developing competing software you want to make it slightly different, and have more or better functionality.  Now having said all that you’ll find Open Office is very close to Microsoft Office in the way you interact with the software.

Free software has been around since 1983, that’s 26 years, a long time.  Some of the open source software has had a decade or more put into its development, so you can expect non-trivial, high quality software that will have the good functionality.

So with this intro.  What were going to be doing with this software installation is loading Open Source software.  Our goal is to have a computer system that will have the functionality of a Microsoft based system with out any of the cost.  Let’s see how close we can come.

Ok, let’s get back to getting our computer system built.  Now that we have installed our hardware components in the case, hooked all the cables up, and got the system to “post,” so we know that the hardware is working correctly, it’s time to load the operating system.

The operating system we’re going to load is Ubuntu 9.10.  It was just released last Friday.  Ubuntu is a version of Linux.  Linux is an open source operating system,  many people have taken Linux and changed it to suit their needs.  There are a lot of different versions of Linux, one of which is the Apple operating system.  The different versions of Linux are called “distros.”  We talked about this in another post.

I choose Ubuntu, because it is one of the most popular distros out there, they are committed to making an operating system that competes with Microsoft, and finally they have a strict update schedule of a new release every six months, which means they are committed to continuously improving their software.

Before we load Ubuntu we want our own CD of the operating system.  The operating system installs from the CD.  It currently takes 690 Mb of space.  There are two ways to obtain the Ubuntu CD.  You can ask Ubuntu for it, and they will send you a disk, or if you’re like me, and can’t wait, you can make your own disk.  Let’s walk through creating your own disk.

Go to the Ubuntu web site at http://www.ubuntu.com/.  Click on the Download block, which will take you to the download page.  We are going to follow the directions on this page.

Click on the Begin Download Desktop 9.10 (32-bit), select your location, and start your 690 Mb download.  It will take a while depending on your connection.  This downloads a compressed file with an .iso extension.  Do not load the Windows Installer version, which is made to install over top of a Windows installation.

After you download the .iso file, you’ll need a CD disk burning software that will burn an .iso file. An iso file is an archive of a disk image, which is what we want to end up with.  Windows Media will not do that.  I recommend downloading the open source .iso burner recommended on the Ubuntu site, called  InfraRecorder.  To get this in Step 2. of the Ubuntu site, click on “How to Burn a CD Image.“  Scan down the page until you come to the operating system your using to obtain the .iso image.  Click on  InfraRecorder to download and install it.  After InfraRecorder is installed go bak to this page and follow the directions for your operating system.

After the CD is complete, were just about ready to load the operating system.  To check the CD, put it in the DVD drive you used to obtain the iso image, and reboot your computer.  The CD is set up so you can boot the Ubuntu operating system from the CD.  If Ubuntu comes up on the computer, the CD is ok.  Do not click “Install Ubuntu” on the Ubuntu desktop.  We’ll do that on the computer you built.

If you’d like to look around the Ubuntu desktop before hand, feel free to look around.  We’ll get into the operating system itself later.  When your done, take the disk out of the DVD drive, and reboot your computer to get back to your other operating system.   You may also want to tour the Ubuntu Features here.

We’ve built a computer.  We’ve turned it on, went through the bios setup to boot from CD/DVD and then the hard drive.  The next step is to load the operating system.  Before we do that it might be informative to answer the question: Why Ubuntu?

First off, an operating system is responsible for running the underlying programs that make all the applications on your computer operational.  It connects you to the Internet, makes your mouse and keyboard functional, stores your programs and data on your hard drive and reads the hard drive into memory.  In short, it runs all the hardware and software in your computer.

It might seem like it, but Windows does not make the only operating system that runs computer hardware.  Apple makes a pretty good operating system, which is Linux based.   Linux is a darn good operating system that comes in several different varieties, called distros.  Ubuntu is one of those distros, there is also Fedora, SuSE, Slackware, and Red Hat, to name a few.

Ubuntu has the reputation of having the most people friendly interface.  The closest replacement for Windows.  Ubuntu has a release every six months and are continually improving the distro to make it easy to use and install.  Linux has traditionally been an operating system for geeks.  Ubuntu’s approach is similiar to Microsofts,  that is to build an operating system that is easy to use for non-technical users.

Ubuntu is free.  Ubuntu also has good documentation and support.  It contains all the applications you need: a web browser, email, an office suite, multimedia apps, instant messaging and more.

In short, everything you need from an operating system, along with a bunch of free application software, internet connectivity and email.   It installs in less time than windows.  You don’t have to put a license number in and get in touch with Microsoft to get up and running, and it’s stable, and secure.

The drawback, it’s not Windows.  What do I mean, well there is a slight learning curve since it’s not Windows.  If your open to learning a slightly different way of doing the same thing you do in Windows, Ubuntu may be for you.

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.