Let’s take a tour of the Ubuntu Desktop.  The Ubuntu Desktop, really the Gnome desktop, is divided into three main sections: two panels, which are the bars along the top and bottom, and a desktop in the middle.  The top panel bar has menus, icons, date and time, and a power icon with your name on it, which is used to shut down the computer. The bottom panel has a desktop switcher, a trash icon, and icons for your desktops.

The Application Menu & Accessories Category

I think you’ll find the menus are laid out much better than the Windows layout.  The menu applet contains three menus, and you can customize your own menu if you like.  The first menu, the Applications menu, provides easy access to every program installed on your computer.  The menu is laid out a little different than Windows, because menus are grouped into categories: Accessories, Games, Graphics, Internet, Office, Sound and Video, and the Ubuntu Software Center.  If you run through each of these sub menus you’ll find that Ubuntu provides you with a lot of applications when you first load your operating system.

The Ubuntu Software Center

The last choice on the Applications Menu, the Ubuntu Software Center, is a little like Windows “Add & Remove” programs only laid out a tad better with more functionality.  The Software Center tracks all installed programs, let’s you remove them, locates free software on the internet that will run with Ubuntu, and installs the program of your choice on your system, installing the program in a category in your Applications Menu with an icon, program name, and brief description of the program, nice.  What’s nice is that you don’t have to go looking for a download site, download the file, unzip it, and install it, the Software Center takes care of all of that for you.  You can go ahead and open all of these initial Ubuntu programs and check them out, to shut a program down, click the X in the upper right corner of the application, just like in Windows.  I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at the functionality that Ubuntu provides with the operating system.

THe Places Menu

The Places menu is like Windows, My Documents, Explorer, and recent Documents all-in-ome.  This is where you can find all your files on your computer.  All of your music, video, documents, and other data are stored in the Places folders and are easily available to you.  This is your files system, places on your computer where your data is stored.  Double click on any folder and an explorer like windows opens to show you the files in your folder.  Want to move a file to a different folder, click on it and drag it to the new folder.  Want to make a new folder, right click, like in Windows.

The Systems Menu is like the Windows Control Panel and Device Manager, in it you can change the appearance of your desktop, configure your system, install printers, networks, drivers, and run various system utilities.

The Systems Menu and Update Manager

One program I want to have you run right now is under Administration->Update Manager.  This program keeps all the software on your system up to date.  Click “Check”, put in your password, and let the program go to work.  When I initially installed Ubuntu, I had 41 things that needed updating, let the program run and do it’s job. Presto your system is updated.

Icons, like icons in Windows, are used to launch or start programs.  You should find the help icon and probably the firefox icon in the top panel.  You can add more icons by right click->Add to Panel, find the program you want to put on the top bar your done.  When I initially loaded Ubuntu I was playing with the desktop and had all my menus disappear.  If this happens to you, don’t panic, go to the top panel, right click, Add to Panel->Main Menu.  You can also add your own custom menu.  I did say every thing on the desktop could be moved, if you don’t like where the icons are, move them by unlocking the “Lock to Panel” in the right click menu for each item and then drag the icon to a new location and lock it again.   The other icons toward the right in the top panel are for: sound with a volume control, networking with information about your network connection, and empathy and email applet that you can use to set up your emails.

This brings us to the date and time.  Right click and you can copy time and date to place in your documents, left click and you’ll see a calendar with a day/night clock which allows you to edit date and time and put locations on the world map.  When you put in a location in the world, a clock will appear below the day/night clock showing the time at that location.  To close this application, you’ll have to click on the top icon again. This is much better than the Windows calendar and clock set up.  The last icon in the top panel with your name allows you to turn off your computer.

The next main section below the top panel is the desktop.  The desktop is like the Windows desktop, it can contain files, folders, and icons to start applications.  You can create a new folder, document, or launcher, an icon to start a program.

The bottom panel starting from the left, has a desktop swithching applet, if you click on it you’ll switch between your open windows and another desktop.  A desktop is the same as the main section described in the last paragraph, only you can have as many desktops as you want. In each desktop you can have a series of open applications which will appear as tabs in the bottom panel just like in Windows.  A desktop for your spreadsheet, one for email, one for playing a game. If you look over to the right on the bottom panel you will see desktop icons.  Each icon is one of your desktops.  Click on them to switch to a specific desktop.

The Trash Folder

The final icon on the far left is your trash folder.  It operates just like the Windows trash folder, in that a deleted file will not be removed from the system, until you specifically “Empty Trash.”  If you click on the trash icon you will open an explorer window showing your trash folder.

I think you can see from this overview that the Ubuntu Desktop has everything you need to take charge of your computer.  As I mentioned earlier, I think the layout is easier to use and more understandable then Windows ever was.

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.

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.

Well, were back!  That took a good month, well, to be honest in the middle of that my wife and I took a trip to Europe to celebrate our anniversary.   The rest of the time, I’ll call part problems which happen sometimes, and when it does you have to do a couple of things to get up and running.  So let’s talk about how to solve hardware problems.

First, it’s a good idea to start with all new parts, which I didn’t.  I tried to patch a system together, which if your just starting out, you should not do, but hold on a second.  Even new parts, sometimes, do not work.  Let’s review some troubleshooting.

A troubleshooting check list  to check to get your system together.
1. Are all the cables connected properly?  Sometimes when you put one cable in, you can knock a previously connected cable out of its socket.  When your done connecting everything, recheck all your cables.
2. Plug all your mouse, monitor and keyboard cables in, and turn on the power to the monitor.
3. Plug the computer power cable in and turn on the switch on the back of the power supply.  Depending on the board, a light will illuminate on the motherboard to indicate you have power to the motherboard.
4. Press your computer start button on the front panel and your computer should start.
5. When your computer comes up you should see the motherboard logo screen on the monitor, if the monitor is blank, you have problems.

Sometimes you will get an error message, like I did.  No disk, or the disk is not recognized or something along those lines.  If its not the cabling, then you have a hardware problem.  Not recognizing a disk, can mean many things,
1. The disk is bad.
2. The disk controller on the motherboard is bad.
3. Some other part of the motherboard is bad.
4. The computer chip is bad.
5. Or simply, you bios software is not configured properly to recognize the disk.

No video, usually means the graphic cars is bad, but that could be the motherboard, or monitor.

Since most memory is tested on start up, memory problems come in the form of programs that don’t operate properly, because a part of the memory is faulty.

Another trick you can use is simply to see if a part you suspect is bad, is making noise, or is not cold to the touch when it should be warm.

If you have a problem, all you can do is return the parts one at a time, until you find the problem.   This can be very time consuming.  To do this:
1. You have to call or email support at the manufacturers website.  And trade several emails.
2. Work with their tech support to run tests on your system until they say you should send the board back to them, because all their tests have not worked.
3. Ask for an RMA number (Return Materials Authorization) to mark the package, so they know its your board that is getting sent back.
4. They usually test the board or component on their tester and if its good, the send the same part back to you.
5. You go nuts when this happens, and move to another part that could be bad.

You get the idea.  Then you have the pain of packaging the part for shipping, taking the part to the shipper, paying for the shipping, waiting for a part to return in a return shipment.  Very time consumming and frustrating until you find what is causing  the problem and preventing your computer from running.  It’s quite common to send a motherboard back to the manufacturer.  They usually test it and send it right back to you.

Long story short, disks are cheap now, so to short circuit a lot of the above headaches, I just purchased a new motherboard and disk.  That did the trick, and I’m up and running, and have installed Ubuntu on my system.

Ubuntu 9.10 is loaded on my disk, stable, and the computer runs fine.  More on loading Ubuntu and the software in my next post.

Well, folks sorry for the delay, but we’re having some hardware problems.

Just because you get the system to come up and “Post” does not mean that everything is connected and operating properly.  And that is the case here.

When I started putting this system together, I used parts from previous systems, instead of purchasing all new components, and now it seems I’m paying the price in terms of delays.

First initial troubleshooting, when I went to put in the operating system disk, I uncovered the first problem.  The DVD drive drawer would not open and the drives disk access light was always on.  The drive open button did not work.  If you using newer IDE cables this will not happen. I wasn’t, and I got unlucky.  The newer IDE cables have a blocked off pin, so you can visualy see which way to plug in the cable.  The older ones do not.  I had a 50-50 chance of getting it right.  And of course, I put the cable in the wrong way.  Simple solution is to pull out the IDE plug, turn it around and reconnect it.  Problem solved and the DVD drive now works properly.

Next, I put the operating system disk in the drive, started loading, and I got an interupt error which halted the process.  It turns out the SATA disk drive is not recognized.  This may mean, I have a bad motherboard, disk drive, or computer chip.  In no particular order. So I am in the process of troubleshooting the problem or problems.

The ultimate solution is to purchase a new motherboard, chip, and disk drive and make sure I have all new components.

So I beg your patience. I may need to order components, which means shipping and delay.  When I get back to the stage where the operating system loads, because all the hardware works properly.  I will fill you in on how things worked out, and we’ll pick up loading the software.  In the meantime, we’ll blog on some other topics until we’re ready to go again.

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.

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.

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.

It’s time to see how well you’ve done.  We’re going to test your hardware installation, before moving on to the software installation.  To do this we have to hook up your outer components, that is the monitor, keyboard, mouse, and power supply.

Get out the monitor you want to use.  Preferably a monitor you have tested on another computer that you know works.  Attach the video connector to the back of the graphics card.  Plug in the monitor power cord.

Your mouse if its a PS2 connector attaches to the green colored plug and your keyboard attaches to the purple PS2 connector.  If they are USB connectors, just plug both of them into any available USB port.

First, turn on the monitor.  On your computer connect the power cord to the back of the power supply, make sure the switch is on “0″, which means “Off.”  Connect the power cord to your electrical outlet.

Here we go.  Switch the power switch on your power supply to “1,” or “On.”  You should see the power light on the motherboard.  All is well.  Turn the power off by using the front case on-off switch.  Hold it in until the system shuts down.  Push the front panel power switch again to turn the system back on.  Your front panel power light should come on as well as your system.

If all of the above works fine, you’ve tested you case hook ups, and your power supply.  Let the system run for awhile and an image with the motherboards name should appear on the monitor.  This is called “posting.”  If it doesn’t post initially, try it a couple of more times, before panicing.  Sometimes on a new board it takes a couple of cycles to get everything in sync.  You’ll see people complain on forums about not being able to get their system to “post.”   What there saying is they don’t get an image on their monitor.

Posting

If your system posts, has an image on the monitor, you’ll see an instruction to hit a key to enter “set up.”  Usually it’s either the “delete” key, F1 key, or the F8 key, depending on the manufacturer.  Go ahead and enter set up.  By the way, Congratulations! You did a great job putting your system together.

Set up is a system of menus that configures your bios settings, and where you tell your computer how you would like to configure the computer and let’s you set some settings.   You do not have to go into every menu choice, for now, all we want to do is make sure we boot from your DVD drive first and your hard drive second.   This lets you load your operating system from the DVD drive, which is the first thing we’ll do when we start the software installation.

In the set up menu, you can look around and make changes if you understand what the choices mean.  They should be explained in your motherboard Users Guide.  The way you change a setting is with the arrow keys on the keyboard, you pick the top menu and hit the return key on the keyboard.  This will open that menu, go to the choice you want to change, and hit a return to see your choices, you change with the arrow keys and the return key.  When you done hit F10 to exit and save your changes.

Use your arrow keys on your keyboard and move to the boot menu page.  This is where you change your boot configuration.   Look for a choice called “Boot Device Priority” or something like that.  Hit the return and you’ll see your devices.  Set the DVD to boot first then your hard drive that your going to put the operating system on.  Hit the F10 key.

Bios Setup with Boot Device Priority shown

If you don’t post, something is wrong, obviously.  No display means your monitor is not working or your graphics card is not working.  Plug your monitor into another computer to check it out.  No motherboard light can mean either you have a bad motherboard or power supply.  Check your power connector plugs.  You get the idea.

That’s it for this post, pun intended.  Congratulations again, on getting the computer to post,  great job.   Put the sides back on your computer case, and let’s get ready to load some software on this puppy.   I will pick the rest of the build up under a new category, software installation.  See you there.

The power supply seems like an easy install, but get ready for spaghetti.  Now that you have your drive data cables connected, your fans connected, and your case wires connected to your motherboard, your computer inside may seem like a jumble of wires, but you haven’t seen anything yet.  We’ve saved the power supply until the end because the amount of cabling is about to double.

When you consider that each DVD drive, your hard drive, maybe your graphics card,  and the motherboard requires power and that power has to arrive at the device needing power via a power cable, then all of a sudden you’ve got twice as many cables running all over the inside of the case.  But there is a method to the madness, so let’s get started.

Power Cables

Unwrap your power supply from its packaging, and take it out of the wrapping material.  If you didn’t get a modular power supply you’ll see a bunch of cables coming out the back of the power supply.

Modular Power Supply

If you got a modular power supply, you won’t see as many cables coming out the back, but you’ll still see some.  You’ll also see ports on the back for the modular power cables.  I like modular power supplies because it reduces the number of non-useful cables in your computer.  You only use the cables you need.   If you have a modular power supply, make sure the extra cables snap into the power supply ports with a click so it won’t come out inadvertently later when using the computer.

Let’s install the power supply in the case.  The power supply fits into its own notch in the case.  Fit the power supply into the case so the on-off switch comes out the back of the case, and the power supply fan is pointed toward the open air on the inside of the case.  Do not block the fan by having the fan pointed at the case side.  Also make sure none of your previouse wires are trapped by the power supply.

The power supply is held to the case with four Phillips screws attached from outside the case.  Make the screws tight, but not super tight.  The cables should come out the back of the power supply inside the case.

There should be at least three cables coming out the back.  One is a big wide 24-pin ATX connector that is the main power to your motherboard.  You should easily find where that goes on the motherboard.  It has a latch on the side that matches with a hook on the plug so you put the plug in the correct direction.

There should be at least one 8-pin ATX 12v and one 6-pin PCI express coming out the back of the power supply.  One of these will go into the second power connector on your motherboard.  This may be a 8, 6, or 4-pin socket, and usually the 8-pin power plug can be broken in half to make two fours.  Check your motherboard, or your motherboard diagram to find this connector.

Your graphics card may take a 6-pin power cable.  Some graphics need additional power and some don’t.  Look for a power connector plug on the graphics card, if you don’t see one, the motherboard will power the card.

Molex Connector

Each drive needs power.  The IDE drives use a 4-pin Molex connector.  The Molex connector is rounded on two edges to match the connector which is also rounded on two corners, so you can’t put it in the wrong direction.

SATA Power Connector

The last power connectors you will need is the SATA power connector.  This is a 15-pin slim connector with an L-shaped appendage on the end, like the data cable had, so you can’t hook it up the wrong way.  Make sure they’re pushed in tight to the disk drive.  You’ll need one power connector per drive, one power cable usually has two connectors.

Congratulations!  You’ve installed all your hardware inside your case.  Before we put the covers on the case we’ll will want to test things out, which we’ll write about next.

This one should be relatively easy.  There are two types of data cables for connection to storage devices, such as: solid state drives, hard drives, and DVD drives.

The first is the old version which is called IDE or EIDE, or ATA.  This is a 16 bit wide bus that transfers data from anywhere between 16 Mb per second to 133 Mb per second depending on which version your using.  Each IDE connector on the motherboard can hook to two IDE storage devices, a master and a slave.  Remember when we installed the DVD drives, we put a jumper wire over two of six pins to designate master or slave drive.  IDE stands for Integrated Drive Electronics, just a little tidbit.

IDE cable

IDE cables look like flat ribbons 2″ wide with three connectors attached to the ribbon.  The cable is normally 18″ long, but you can get round cables that go up to 36″.  Round cables are nice, because they do not get in the way of other cables in the case, are more flexible, and do not redirect or impede air flow.

The three connectors on the IDE cable are spaced two close together and one at the othe end of the ribbon.  The stand-alone connector at the end goes to your motherboard.  The other two cables go to the master and slave drive.  There are 40 holes in the connector consisting of 2 rows of 20 holes.  One of the holes in the middle is blocked to let you know which way to insert the cable into the socket.  So do it.  Put the cable in the motherboard and the other end in your DVD drive.  If you do not have a 2 rows of 20 pins to put the cable into, then you probably have a SATA drive.  Read on.

SATA data cable

Starting in 2007 a new horse rode into town for both power and data cables, called serial ATA, or SATA.  This is gradually replacing all the IDE ribbon cables, as you can get SATA DVD drives now.  SATA cables transfer data anywhere from 1.3 Gb per second (first generation) to 3.0 Gb per second (second generation) to 6.0 Gb per second (thrid generation), with the most common SATA hard disk drives transferring at 3.0 GB per second, at present.  Almost 22 times faster than an IDE cable, you can see why they are replacing the old technology.

SATA cables are much smaller than the IDE cable, although they are a little stiff.  The data connectors have only 7 pins with an L like notch on one end, so the connector will only go into the interface one way.  There is a slightly different SATA power connector which will talk about when we get to power cables.

SATA connector showing notch

Let’s hook up the data cables.  There should be one SATA cable per drive to one socket in the motherboard.  Go back to your motherboard diagram and look for your SATA connectors.  They should be labeled SATA1, SATA2, SATA3, etc.  Your main drive, the one with the operating system should be connected to SATA1 and so on.  Go for it.

You should now have the data cables to all your drives attached to your motherboard.  Now that wasn’t so bad.  Now all we have to do is get power to the system, something we haven’t written about yet and the topic of our next post.

For me, the hardest thing to do in building a computer is hooking up the computer case wiring.  You are handling very small plugs and pins.  Most of the time, you can’t get to the plugs, because other wires and boards are in your way.

You might be asking why are you hooking up wires when you don’t even have the power supply in the case yet.  Well, there’s a method to my madness.   These wires are difficult to get in place, I like to put them in before any other wires get in the way to make the job a lot easier.  So we’ll start with the computer case wiring.

What are all those wires attached to the case?  Most of you have seen the front lights on the computer when the disk drive is accessed.  You’ve turned the front power switch on and off, and you’ve hit the reset button when your software hangs up.  Well all that is controlled by the motherboard, the lights and switches on the front of the case are hooked to the motherboard through these wires.  If you have any USB or Firewire ports on the front of the case they’ll have to be hooked up also.

Let’s get started.  Get out your motherboard user’s guide that came with your motherboard.  Look for the diagram of the motherboard.  What your looking for is where the ports are on the motherboard.  Keep this page open as we proceed so you will know where plugs and cables are connected to the motherboard.  Most User’s Guides also show the connector pins in a diagrams so you know which pins are for what.

Look for a block of pins usually called “panel,” or “front panel connector.”  The power on/off switch plug and the reset swith on/off plug usually are two-pin plugs.  They should slide over their respective pins which should be labeled “PWRSW” and “RESET.”  You’ll find a four pin plug which is your system warning speaker for beeps and warning signals when something is wrong, slide that over the four “SPKR” pins.

Computer Case Wires

We have two lights on the front panel.  One lets you know there is power to the system, the power on light, and the other is when the disk drive is accessed.  Each are two pin plugs.  The system power is usually labeled, “PLED,” and the disk drive light is usually called, “IDE_LED.”  After you slide all these small pins over the posts on the motherboard, the hardest wiring is taken care of.

Most of the current cases, have a USB port on the front panel.  These USB port(s) are different from the USB ports in the back of the computer.  The ones on the back are already hooked up directly to the motherboard.  So we’re hooking up the front USB ports.  Look for a connector on the motherboard labeled “USB58″ or “USB76″ or just plain, “USB.”  The plug from the front panel should be labeled, “USB.”  This is a 10-pin plug with one pin plugged up so there is only one way to install this on the motherboard.

The next cable is the audio cable, usually labeled “HD AUDIO,” or “AUDIO.”   There may be another plug on this wire labeled, “AC97.”  Ignore this, and use the “HD Audio” plug if you have digital audio on your motherboard.  If you  don’t the motherboard diagram will give you the AC97 port.  The HD Audio plug is a 10-pin plug with a different pin blocked than the USB plug had.  On the motherboard diagram is usually called “Front Panel Audio connector.”  This connector usually just looks like 9 pins sticking up in the air.

Audio Cable

The last front panel cable you may or may not have.  This is for your 1394 “Firewire” port, and this depends if you have a Firewire port on the front of the case or not.  The plug is usually labeled “1394″ and the motherboard diagram is usually called an “IEEE 1394a connector, or simply, “Firewire header.”

That should be it for the computer case front panel cabling, except there’s still a wire, or maybe two, floating in the case.  These are for the case fans.  Most motherboard have a couple of connectors for fans called “Fan header,” or “Pwr Fan2″, “Pwr Fan2,” etc.  These are three-pin connectors.  Hook up your case fans.

You should now have all the loose wires in your case hooked up to the motherboard, congratulations.

The graphics card is a fairly easy install.  Graphics card fit into the PCI Express X16 slot.  Huh?  Well, if you don’t know what one of them is, and there might be two on your motherboard, don’t worry about it.  The graphics card will only fit into one or two slots on your motherboard, the longest ones, and they are keyed so you can fit them into any other slots.

Graphics Card

Before you hunker on down.  Let’s take this a step at a time.  Graphics cards usually come wrapped in an anti-static bag and are susceptible to static, so ground yourself to the computer case before you start and handle the board by the edges.  Take the card out of the packaging and anti-static bag.  There should be an instruction booklet and DVD disk.  Put them aside for now.

Look at the motherboard in the case, you’ll see the slots the graphics card can be plugged into, but before you can do that, you’ll have to remove a panel in the bag of the case so that the outout ports on the back of the graphics card will come out the back of the computer.  That way you don’t have to open the case to hook up your computer monitor.

There are two ways to remove the back case panel and mount the graphics card.  One is to unscrew the panel screw, slide the plate out, mount the graphics card on the motherboard, and screw the motherboard down by replacing the panel screw and catching the metal outcropping on the  graphics card with the screw to lock down the graphics card.

The other is to lift a handle that lifts up and is hinged on one side, like a door.  You can then slide the back case plate out, put the graphics card in,. and close the hinged handle, which also catches the graphics card outcropping to secure it in place.

If there are any other cables supplied with the graphics card, look at the instruction manual to see how their hooked up.

If you have purchased two graphics cards, install the second like the first one, and you’ll need to install a cable connecting the two graphics card together which comes with the graphics card.

That’s it, your done with the graphics card for the moment.

The specs on the physical dimensions of a hard drive and DVD drive are deceptive.  Hard Drives are actually 4″ wide, but the spec calls it a 3.5″ form factor.  The DVD drives are actually 5.71″ wide, but the spec calls it a 5.25″ form factor.  Go figure.  It really doesn’t matter since the computer case gets it right.

What it does say is that hard drives are not as wide as DVD drives, which means there has to be two cage sections in the case one with a small width for the hard drives, and a larger width cage for your DVD drives.

The problem with installing drives is that there are several different methods of installing drives in the computer case depending on the manufacturer and the size of the computer case.

Some basics, if you look at your hard drive, you’ll see 3 screw holes along each side.  Most of the mounting methods consists of screwing screws in these holes through holes in the case, which holds the drive.  Some cases have pull out cages that make drive installation relatively easy.  You install the drive in the pull out cage and then slide the cage into a slot in the computer case.  I recommend you check out the installation booklet that comes with the case to see the recommended method of installing hard drives in that particular case.  Each case is different.  The screws you got with the computer case are the screws you will use to install the hard drive.

DVD drives install slightly differently.  The front of the DVD drive has to go through the front of the computer case so you can load the DVD.  To do this install, some cases require you remove the front panel of the case, which is usually held on with plastic latches.  You’ll have to remove a plate in the front of the case for the DVD drive to come out the front.  You don’t have to do that with hard drives, since they are entirely internal. Because of this, there are different methods of installing DVD drives.   Some DVD drives require you screw in slider rails that you can move the DVD drive back and forth to align it with the front of the case.  Some slide in from the front and are locked in place by a sliding brake mechanism.  Others have the same screws in the side as with the hard drives.  Again check your installation guide that comes with the case for you case particulars.

Let’s talk about the connectors on the back of the drives.   If you purchased SATA drives, your all set.  Just install the drives in the case with the interface connectors on the back of the drives facing the motherboard so we can hook up cables.

If you did not, that means your hard drives and DVD drives use an IDE interface.  If you have IDE drives, you have to be aware of the jumper on the back.  This is a 6-pin connector on the back consisting of two rows of three pins.  There is a jumper over two of the pins.  If you have more that one DVD drive one of the jumper should be connecting the “Master” pins on the connector panel, and on the other DVD drive, you’ll have to move the jumper to the “Slave” pins.  If you have only one drive, the pins should cover the “Master” pins.  The pins are usually labled, if not check your drive installation manual.  The same goes for the hard drive.  The good news is with SATA drives, you don’t have to worry about that anymore and you shouldn’t see any jumpers at all.

Jumper to select Master and Slave Drives

Install your drives, will do the cable hook ups in another post.

We’ve gone as far as we can putting components on the motherboard before putting it in the case.  It’s time to marry the case and motherboard.

When you unpacked the motherboard, it came with a thin 1 3/4″ x 6 1/4″aluminum plate with a bunch of stencil like holes cut in it.  Sometimes the holes are labeled.  The aluminum panel has one side of the plate with a raised, curled border around the edges.  This snaps into the back hole of the computer case, the holes correspond to the ports on the edge of the motherboard.

The aluminum panel mounted in the case

You want to orient the motherboard so the ports on the edge of the motherboard will be toward the back of the computer case, but first the panel.  The aluminum panel mounts from the inside of the case.  You’ll find that the raised rounded, curved side of the panel will snap into the hole in the case.  But first orient the panel so the holes are aligned with the motherboard ports, and then snap the panel into the case.  You’ll find the panel snaps in place like a soda paper cup lid.

Next the motherboard slips into the case against the aluminum panel.  The aluminum panel has small strips that are around the holes.  These go around the ports of the motherboard.  Make sure when you slide the motherboard in to the aluminum panel ports that there is no metal strips in the way of using the ports.

Make sure there are no wires between the board and the bottom of the case.  They should be above the motherboard.

If you look closely at the nine holes going through the motherboard, you’ll find they align, or almost align, with the copper stand off posts you put in the case earlier.  In the bag of screws that came with your computer case, there are at least nine or more Phillips screws with flat polished heads.  Get out your trusty Phillips screw driver and fasten the motherboard to the case by screwing nine screws through the nine holes in the motherboard and into the top of the copper stand off posts.  The screws should be tight, but not super tight.

Motherboard in case

Congratulations, your motherboard and case are one.

The memory chips you buy for your system are determined by which motherboard you purchased.  The motherboard is designed to take a specific type of memory, and that is called out in the motherboard specifications.

Most desktop memory is on 240 pin memory boards, and most motherboards either have two or four  240 pin memory slots.  The 240 pin slots are keyed so you can only mount the memory card in one direction.

240 pin memory cards

My recommendation was to maximize your initial memory.  That translates to 4 Gb of memory for a 32 bit system.  That usually comes on two 2 Gb memory cards.  The memory cards are sold together as a pair and are a matched set.   The idea is that memory storage is interleaved between the two cards to improve performance.  It turns out the slots on the motherboard also are matched to take advantage of the matched memory cards.

On those motherboard that have two 240 pin slots, there isn’t a problem as the two cards will plug into the two slcts.  Most motherboards have four 240 pin slots, so you need to be careful about which two slots you use for the two memory cards.  The motherboard user’s guide that comes with the motherboard will tell you how the memory should be installed in the memory slots.   Usually, this is slot one and slot three.  If you don’t find how your slots are set up in the provided user’s guide, there is usually much more extensive documentation on the motherboard manufacturer’s web site.   Once you determine which slots to use, your ready for the install.

Take the memory chip out of the packaging.  It should be enclosed in a static free bag.  Memory chips are very susceptible to static electricity.  Before removing the memory from the bag, ground your self on a metal surface.  Handle the memory cards by the card edges.

Place the memory card in the slot in the right direction and push down evenly to sit the card.  The card should go in fairly easily and latches on the end should pop up to catch the card and show its seated properly.

That’s it.   You now have your memory mounted on your motherboard.