Install Ubuntu

See here for some other good installation guides: APC's Linux/Vista/XP dual-booting guide and Psychocats' installation guide.

1. Download the Ubuntu installation CD/DVD image, and then burn the image to CD/DVD.
2. If you have multiple monitors, disconnect all but the main one.
3. Boot off the CD/DVD. This usually involves simply rebooting the computer with the CD/DVD in the appropriate drive. For some computers you may need to hit F12 (or F2, or DEL, or something like that) at the appropriate time during boot and select from a menu to boot off the CD.
4. Choose the "Start Ubuntu in safe graphics mode" option.
5. After the computer boots into the Live CD version of Ubuntu, double-click the Install icon on the Desktop.
6. At this point, your screen resolution might be too low to be able see or click the "Forward" button at the bottom of the Install window. If this is the case, you can fix the problem as follows:
   1. Close the over-sized Install window.
   2. Open a terminal by clicking on the Applications menu and then on the Accessories submenu and then on the Terminal menu item.
   3. In the terminal, type:

      sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg
      

      and then press ENTER on your keyboard.
   4. You will be presented with a series of questions. Choose the default answers to all questions, except for the following:
      1. Choose "Medium" for the method for selecting monitor characteristics.
      2. Choose "1028x768 @ 60Hz" for the monitor's best video mode.
   5. After you answer all the questions and are back in the regular terminal, restart the Gnome Desktop Manager by pressing CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE on your keyboard.
   6. Wait for a few seconds without pressing any keys until Ubuntu automatically logs back in and you can see the desktop again.
   7. You should now have a better resolution.
   8. Double-click the Install icon on the Desktop and you should be able to see the full install window.
7. Select your language, location and time-zone, and keyboard layout.
8. When you reach the "Prepare disk space" section, choose to "Manually edit partition table". Note that you can decide to keep any existing Windows partition(s) (in which case Ubuntu will install itself with dual boot options). However, if the Windows partitions take up the whole hard drive, then you must first shrink these partition(s) in order to free up space for your Ubuntu partitions. I recommend setting up three new partitions (in addition to the shrunk Windows partition) for Ubuntu as follows:

   Purpose	Size	Filesystem
   swap space	1-2GB	linux-swap
   root directory (/)	6-10GB	ReiserFS (or ext3)
   home directory (/home)	remaining free space	ReiserFS (or ext3)

   The /home directory will hold your documents, music, pictures, etc., so you should plan to invest adequate space for that. Putting /home on a separate partition allows you to upgrade/reinstall the OS without touching your documents.
9. Migrate Documents and Settings if applicable and/or desired.
10. Select your user name, password and computer name.
11. Review your choices, and then click "Install".
12. Browse the web or read a magazine while Ubuntu installs.
13. Eventually, you will be informed that the installation is complete, at which point click the "Restart now" button.
14. Just before Ubuntu finishes restarting, you will be prompted to remove the install CD/DVD. Make sure to do so in order to avoid booting back into the install CD.
15. If Ubuntu detected Windows on another partition, it will present you with dual boot options using GRUB. The top option is Ubuntu. Choose it, or else just let the timer count down to zero.
16. After the computer boots into the newly installed Ubuntu, log in using the user name and password that you selected earlier during installation.
17. Congratulations! You are now running Ubuntu! :)