Removing Fedora

I'm removing Fedora from the family desktop in favor of Ubuntu:

1. First, read the uninstall instructions from Fedora.
2. That explains that the Windows recovery disk is needed. Find that.
3. You may also need the admin password. Find that if needed. 
4. In order to avoid getting half way through and ending up with an unbootable system, insert the disk and restart the computer. At the first screen press Enter. Then press F12 to select the option to boot from the CD/DVD. If it boots from the recovery disk and everything looks good, restart the machine back to Windows.
5. Follow the Fedora uninstall instructions to start diskmgmt.msc.
6. In the Disk Management GUI, two partitions have a blank field for the File System. One is nameless with 500 MB and another is named E: with 23.11 GB.
7. Follow the instructions to delete these two partitions.
8. Use the instructions to start diskpart.
9. I followed the instructions to extend the volume for C: but got the error message:

   DiskPart failed to extend the volume.
   Please make sure the volume is valid for extending.

10. Come back to this later since it isn't absolutely required. It just wastes space.
11. Restart the machine and hit Enter at the first screen. Then press F12 to boot from an alternate device. Select the CD/DVD drive and boot to the setup utility. 
12. It's a complete mystery to me how fixmbr was completed, but after booting from the disk and looking for the right options as described, the machine successfully booted to Windows XP.
13. After booting to XP and checking that I could successfully reboot to XP without any problems, I went back into diskmgmt.msc.
14. At first I tried creating a partition from the 500 MB unallocated space and then extending that into the 23 GB space. Same error as above.
15. Then I figured out that the 23 GB region was already allocated as a partition. I deleted that partition so it became unallocated, and automatically merged with the prior 500 MB region.
16. I selected that region and created a single new E: volume using the menus in Disk Management.

Install and Set Up Ubuntu

Then install Ubuntu via Windows through the wubi download. The installer automatically located the E: volume, so I installed it there.

Then I just needed to configure the network printer.

1. Open System Settings
2. Click on Printers
3. Using all of the defaults from the menus didn't work.
4. Change the device URI to http://192.168.1.130
5. For Make and Model, click Change
6. Select Brother (forward)
7. Select Brother HL-2170W Foomatic (forward)
8. Apply the settings and print a test page.

To make Ubuntu the default OS at boot time, see these instructions.

In order to set the hostname, start a terminal and do 'sudo vi /etc/hostname'.In there, change the host name to new name. The do 'sudo vi /etc/hosts' and change the 127.0.1.1 name to the same thing.

Grub and Wubi for Ubuntu

In order to configure Grub for Ubuntu, refer this documentation.

All I want to do is set Ubuntu as the default operating system when I start the machine. This is controlled by Wubi and it managed through Windows. See this Ubuntu forum entry for the answer.

More Fedora Set-up

Now, back to that ToDo list:

1. How to put the system in standby mode
   

   Click your name in the Top Bar and select Suspend. The machine comes back up by just hitting the Enter key.

2. Find and install Adobe Flash plug-in
   

   Follow the instructions (more or less) in here http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Flash

3. Find PDF plug-in
   

   Not needed. Use Document Viewer, which is included by default.

4. ITunes

   Todo

5. Find VNC Server/Viewer download

   The vino VNC server/viewer is already installed. Todo.

6. Find Lexmark printer driver download
   

   Start here: http://www.linuxfoundation.org/collaborate/workgroups/openprinting http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Printing/ConfigurationTool

7. Download OpenOffice
   

   Use LibreOffice instead.
   From here, I downloaded LibO_3.4.4_Linux_x86-64_install-rpm_en-US.tar.gz
   Then follow the install instructions in the README file.
   A JVM is apparently also needed.

8. Tunneling software

   Todo

9. Customize GRUB

   Fron a terminal:
   > su -
   > cd /boot/grub
   > cp grub.conf grub.conf.backup
   > gvim grub.conf
   Use '#' to comment out unwanted menu entries
   Change the timeout value to 30
   Change the title from 'Other' to 'Windows XP'
   Swap the order of the menu entries so that Windows is first
   Save and exit
   Log out
   Reboot and test

10. Download Perl
    

    Not needed. Included by default.

11. Install git

    Similar to installing 'vim' (see below).
    Click check boxes for 'git-[version]...' and 'gitk-[version]...'

New items not on the previous ToDo list:

1. Install Java

   In Add/Remove Software
   In textbox, type 'java'
   Click 'find'
   Click checkbox for 'Java'
   Click 'Apply' button (downloads for a while)
   Additional confirmation required
   Click 'Continue' button
   Enter root password
   Click 'Authenticate' button (install proceeds)
   Pop-up for IcedTea Web Control Panel (click 'Close')

2. Install vim

   In Add/Remove Software
   In textbox, type 'vim'
   Click 'find'
   Click checkbox for 'vim-X11-...'
   Click 'Apply' button (downloads for a while)
   Additional confirmation required
   Click 'Continue' button
   Enter root password
   Click 'Authenticate' button (install proceeds)
   At pop-up, click 'Close'
   In a terminal:
   > su -c 'vi /etc/bashrc'
   add 'alias vim=/usr/bin/gvim'

3. Install graphviz

   Use Add/Remove Software, searching for 'graphviz'
   Select packages for development, PDF, HTML, demo graphs, Java, Perl, Python, PHP and Ruby

4. Install emacs

   Use Add/Remove Software, searching for 'emacs'
   Select 'GNU emacs text editor'

5. Find ATK utilities: pipescript, ox, mrhex, ez

   Todo
   

6. Install Python

   Included by default.

7. Install gcc

   Use Add/Remove Software, searching for 'gcc'
   Select 'Various compilers', 'C++ support' and 'Java support'

Installing Fedora (GNOME desktop version)

Previous experiments with Fedora are located here.

In an ongoing effort to create a Linux set-up usable by the whole family, I'm reinstalling Fedora 15 with GNOME over my previous install with the LXDE desktop.

So I begin:

1. From Windows, insert previously created Live CD for Fedora 15 with GNOME into the DVD drive.
2. Reboot
3. When the first screen appears, hit Escape button to interrupt the normal boot process.
4. Use F12 to choose a temporary start-up device
5. Select the CD/DVD drive, hit Enter
6. After a bit, a Live user session starts.
7. Double-click the 'Install to hard drive' icon.
8. Select 'U.S. English' and click Next.
9. Select 'Basic Storage Devices' and click Next.
10. Enter name of the computer and click Next.
11. Select the time zone and click Next.
12. Enter the root password twice and click Next.
13. Record the root password somewhere safe in case it's forgotten.
14. Select 'Replace Existing Linux System(s)' and click Next.
15. Receive the final 'Write changes to disk' message. There is no turning back after this point. Click Next.

The installation process starts copying files into the system and updates the screen with progress messages. Eventually you get to a 'Congratulations' message. Click Close.

From the Live session:

1. Select 'User -> Log out'
2. From icon at upper right, select Restart.

Eventually I reached the Welcome screen.

1. Click Forward.
2. Click Forward.
3. Enter user name and password and click Forward.
4. Check the time and date and click Forward.
5. Select 'Do not send profile' and click Forward. I've already sent the profile for this machine.
6. Log in with the new user id and password.
7. Click 'Activities'.
8. Click 'Applications'.
9. Click 'Software Updates'.
10. The 'Software Updates' window opens up. (402 updates available.)
11. Click 'Install Updates' button.
12. At this point I got a 'Transaction Error' message. The details indicated that one of the items required a more recent version of Fedora 15. Find that item in the list and unclick the checkbox.
13. Click 'Install Updates' button.
    
14. On the 'Additional Confirmation Required' panel, there are messages that other items need to be installed and removed. Click 'Continue'.
15. The download and install takes a long time. Eventually a message is displayed 'A restart is needed. click 'Restart computer'.

During the restart, just let the first screen go by. At the GRUB screen I noticed that two versions of Fedora are listed, followed by item 'Other' (Windows) in the 3rd position. I let the first version of Fedora listed automatically boot, which failed to make progress. After a good wait (no activity on the hard drive for 5+ minutes) I powered down.

Then when I powered up again I selected the second version of Fedora listed. Please note that it took a long time for this (good) version of Fedora to boot up. However, hard drive activity did indicate that progress was being made. Be patient at this point of the install.Eventually I got back to the sign on screen and was able to sign on. The updates were successfully loaded.

Some good Fedora resources:

• http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FAQ
• http://www.fedorafaq.org/
• http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=fedora
• http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Flash for Adobe Flash player
• http://www.gnome.org/ for GNOME
  

Test Driving Ubuntu Linux - Part 3

Continued from Test Driving Ubuntu Linux - Part 2.

Back to laptop #1
Still unable to get the external monitor to be recognized by the system. There appears to be a variety of open questions on this topic.

Update 02/04/2012: A possible solution to the external monitor problem has been posted on the Ubuntu Forums.

Attempted to use the instructions from Part 2 to download Adobe Flash. I first tried the 'sudo apt-get' command, which did not work. The Install button did work and I could watch YouTube after that point. However, no Pandora.

Searched around for this page: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats, which has a 'click here' link to open 'Ubuntu Software Center' for 'Ubuntu restricted extras'. It's worth a try. After the install, I can still watch YouTube videos. Also, now Pandora does not complain about not having Adobe Flash and lets me sign in. However it does not play any music. More to research here.

Test Driving Ubuntu Linux - Part 2

Continued from Test Driving Ubuntu Linux.

After signing on you get a clean environment with several applications in the 'Launcher' on the left side, and set of system utilities in the upper right corner. Now the customization process begins.

1. In the upper right, find the Network pull-down. The wireless network is listed, so I just click on it to connect.
2. In the Launcher, Firefox is included as one of the icons. Start Firefox and restore the previously saved bookmarks. NOTE: The user interface is much like the Apple/Mac/OS X interface. That is, the frame for Firefox itself is very clean and does not contain any top bar menu. In order to find the top menu (including 'bookmarks') you need to click on the Firefox frame, then move the mouse pointer to the top bar of the entire screen. Then you'll see the menu items for Firefox. Select 'Bookmarks -> Show All Bookmarks'. Then click on that 'Library' window, go back to the top of the screen and select 'Import and Backup -> Restore -> Choose File'. Then you can find you bookmarks file on the flash drive.
3. Next, try out a few of the restored bookmarks. All of the usual news sites look good.

Software Updates

1. Use the top right System button, and select 'Software up to date'.
2. The 'Update Manager' window says that 302 updates are available. Click 'Install Updates'.
3. An 'Authenticate' window pops up. Enter password and click 'Authenticate'.
4. An error message pops up. 'Requires installation of untrusted packages'. Click 'Close'.
5. Searched Ubuntu Answers for the error. From a terminal do:
   > sudo apt-get update
   > sudo apt-get upgrade
   See UPDATE below
6. The Terminal is found by clicking on the 'Dash Home' button in the launcher and typing 'terminal' in the search box.
7. Click on the 'terminal' icon to start a terminal window.
   
8. Type the above commands in the terminal window and enter your password when prompted.
9. It takes quite a while to run.
10. After rebooting, opened up the 'Update Manager' again. Now there are only 2 items remaining in the list. Apparently these are the ones causing problems. Just click 'Close'.
11. UPDATE: Using 'sudo apt-get ...' will work around the problem, but will not fix it for next time. Instead, use the instructions here to find and use the "Select Best Server" button. Then retry updating software through the Update Manager.
    

Installing Adobe Flash

1. Start Firefox
2. Go to YouTube to view a video. This resulted in an error message that the Adobe Flash Player is needed.
3. Open 'Ubuntu Software Center' from Launcher.
4. Search for 'Flash'.
5. Click on 'Adobe Flash plugin'.
6. Click 'Install'.
7. Enter password and click 'Authenticate'.
8. This results in a error message: 'Failed to download package files'.
9. The 'Ubuntu Software Center' has a link named Developer Web Site. Click on that.
10. At the bottom of that web-page is the following information. To install, open up the Terminal and type:
    > sudo apt-get install flashplugin-nonfree
11. The Terminal is found by clicking on the 'Dash Home' button in the launcher and typing 'terminal' in the search box.
12. Click on the 'terminal' icon to start a terminal window.
    
13. Type the above command in the terminal window and enter your password when prompted.
    
14. Success. Guy on a Buffalo
15. Likewise, Pandora is good.

Keeping Apps in the Launcher

The terminal is a good thing to have handy in the Launcher. Keep it in the Launcher by right-clicking on the terminal icon and selecting 'Keep in launcher'. This works for any running application.

Test Driving Ubuntu Linux

For my next experiment with Linux, I decided to try out Ubuntu.

Laptop #1
I noticed that Ubuntu has an option to run alongside Windows. You can download the installer through the Windows Installer page, which worked fine in my newer laptop PC. Basically, you install Linux onto your machine like you would any other Windows application. When you power up the machine you get an opportunity to choose which operating system to run. I just did a quick run-through with this version. The one thing I did notice is that the external monitor for my laptop was not recognized, and I could not use it. Apparently this is a problem with some new Intel/NVIDIA set-up.

Laptop #2
Next, I downloaded the 64-bit version of Ubuntu 11.10 from the Ubuntu download page. The 32-bit version is the "recommended" version, but reading in the Questions for Ubuntu page, I found out that the 32-bit version is only recommended because it will work on either 32 or 64-bit processors. If you know you have a 64-bit processor, go ahead and download the 64-bit version.

The download went fine and the instructions for creating a CD worked fine for creating a DVD (instead of a CD). The download page also has some nice "Show me how" buttons which are useful for a first-timer.

Using the DVD, I booted up this version on another laptop. In order to boot from the DVD drive, you need to watch the first screen and use whatever key is needed to interrupt the normal boot process (the Esc on this laptop). Then, you need to find the key for boot source options, or something like that (F8 on this laptop). Then select the CD/DVD drive and hit Enter.

Here is a quick summary of the installation steps, starting from Windows7:

1. Save Firefox bookmarks to a flash drive.
2. Insert Ubuntu DVD into DVD drive.
3. The drive will autoplay. Select 'run wubi.exe' (the Windows installer).
4. Click 'yes' on User Account Control.
5. Select 'Install inside Windows'.
6. Enter a new user name and password.
7. Click 'Install'.
   
8. It takes about 3 minutes to copy the files over from the DVD to the internal hard drive. When it is finished, the DVD drive will open. Remove the disk and close the DVD drive.
9. The set-up wizard shows a 'Reboot now' option. Select that and click 'Finish'.
10. After the system reboots, you get to another install screen. About another 10 minutes is needed to copy files and configure the system.
11. When the installation is complete, you see the Windows Boot Manager screen. This is the screen where you can select to boot either Windows or Ubuntu (use the arrow keys, and Enter).
12. Selecting Ubuntu, you finally get to the sign on screen. Enter your user name and password to sign on.
    

Overall, the installation process was quick and easy. To remove Ubuntu from your system, just do the following:

1. Boot back to Windows.
2. Open 'Computer'.
   
3. Select 'Uninstall of change an program'.
4. Find 'Ubuntu' in the list of programs and click it.
5. Click 'Uninstall/Change'.
6. Click 'Yes' on User Account Control.
7. On the 'Are you sure you want to uninstall?' screen, click 'Uninstall'.

Continued at Test Driving Ubuntu Linux - Part 2.

Installing Linux, Part 4

I've let my experiment with Fedora Linux stagnate for a while. So I'm going to catch up with the latest version (16) first.

The last time I installed Fedora 15 x86_64 with the LXDE spin. And since the passwords have been lost, I'm going to install from scratch. Also, since I have a large enough USB flash drive this time, I'm planning to use that instead of a CD for the Live Image. This means that I'll first need to download the Live USB Creator.

Once the Live USB Creator is downloaded and installed, I selected Fedora 16 x86_64 Desktop and clicked Create Live USB. It took about an hour to download the image and create the Live USB.

On the machine where I'm installing Linux, I did the following:

1. Back up data to an external hard drive
2. Shut down the system
3. Remove the external hard drive
4. Insert the USB flash drive
5. Press the power button
6. Hit Enter as soon as the first screen appears
7. Hit F12 to choose a temporary startup device
8. Use the arrow keys to select USB flash drive
9. Hit enter

Fedora 16 automatically booted from there. Lots of applications and utilities are provided. In order to power off the machine, first you need to Log Out as the Live System User (use the pull-down in the upper right corner). Then once you are logged out, use the Power icon in the upper right corner and select Power Off.

The Live System User menu also has a Suspend option, which apparently puts the system on standby.

Change of Plan

Rather than install the Fedora 16 with Gnome from the USB flash drive, I decided to reinstall Fedora 15 LXDE from me installation CD. So I boot from the CD/DVD drive.

Then I just follow the instructions from Installing Linux, Part 2. This time I'm more careful about saving the root password. Everything went the same until step 9, where I was notified:

The partitioning options you have selected will now be written to disk. Any data on deleted of reformatted partitions will be lost.

I select "Write Changes to Disk" and the install begins. Everything appeared to go fine. The next step is to log out and then reboot.

After rebooting, I redo the steps outlined in Installing Linux, Part 3. Once I log back in, I'm able to start a terminal. I can also start Firefox, which needs to be downloaded and installed.

Now, back to that ToDo list:

1. How to put the system in standby mode. (Click Logout, then select Suspend. The machine comes back up by just hitting the Enter key.)
2. Find and install Adobe Flash plug-in
3. Find PDF plug-in
4. ITunes?
5. Find VNC Server/Viewer download
6. Find Lexmark printer driver download
7. Download OpenOffice
8. Tunneling software?
9. Customize GRUB
10. Download Perl
11. Download git

Installing Linux, Part 3

Continued from Installing Linux, Part 2.

After rebooting, you get a welcome screen indicating that you have a few more steps to do to complete the installation. Click Forward.

At this point you create your own user id and password. I clicked the checkbox to add my user id to the Administrator group.

At the next screen, confirm that the system has the correct date and time set. And finally, I elected to send my machine profile back to the Linux folks. This helps them identify the types of machines and internal devices using their downloads. Click Finish. The install is complete and you can login.

First Login

After logging in with my new user id, I was able to use Firefox to access the internet. I was not able to view YouTube videos, I need a Flash plug-in for that. We'll leave that for later.

I looked around to see what files were available. The Windows C: drive shows up as /WINDOWSXP, which is nice. My external hard drive also shows up.

Rebooting the System

Now it's time to reboot back to Windows. Click Logout -> Reboot.

Everything seemed to shut down fine and then restart as usual. At the first 'To interrupt normal startup, press Enter' screen, I press Enter. After that, I see the usual screen to select the load source. Hmm. I select the hard drive and hit Enter. The machine then goes to a blank screen with at blinking cursor in the upper left hand corner. This looks bad. After waiting a while, I figure that it must be hung and power off with the power button.

So then I power back up. This time I don't do anything to interrupt the reboot, just to see what happens. It boots up Linux just fine, which is a relief. At least that much works. I'll have to figure this out later.

Rebooting to Windows

In the meantime, I've received inquiries from the family:

• Dad, what's wrong with the computer? (Ans: Wrong? Nothing is wrong with it. It's functioning perfectly normally.)
• Dad, why can't I watch YouTube any more? (Ans: I'm working on that. There's another computer upstairs. How about you use that one?)
  
• Dad, what happened to Windows? (Ans: I believe it's still in there somewhere. I just have to figure out how to get to it.)
• Dad, when is the computer going to be working again? (Ans: It's working now. All you have to do is log in with the userid/password that I've provided for you. See? Right there.)

You get the idea.

Anyway, in the Fedora Installation Guide there is a section on GRUB, the GRand Unified Bootloader. Here is the relevant information (click to enlarge):


The gist of it is that you want to get to the GRUB boot menu. In order to do that, you need to do nothing during the 'To interrupt normal startup, press Enter' screen. After that you get the initial Fedora screen. At that screen, you've got three seconds to hit the Shift Key. If you do that in time, you get the GRUB boot menu, which allows to you select the operating system to load. My list currently says:

• Fedora
• Other

If I select Other, Windows boots up as expected and everyone is happy.

Reading elsewhere, it sounds like GRUB has a configuration file which allows you to change Other to something meaningful, like Windows XP. You can also set the wait time to something longer than three seconds.

ToDos

Meanwhile, I've collected a list of things that I need to figure out:

• How to boot to Windows
• How to put the system in standby mode.
• Find Adobe Flash plug-in
• Find PDF plug-in
• ITunes?
• Find VNC Server/Viewer download
• Find Lexmark printer driver download
• Download OpenOffice
• Tunneling software?
• Customize GRUB
• Download Perl
• Download git
  

Just on the basis of the Flash, PDF and printer drivers alone, I have a strong (and vexing) suspicion that Microsoft does not have to worry about being pushed out of the home user market. But maybe it's easier than I think it is.

Installing Linux, Part 2

Continued from Installing Linux.

Start the Install

1. Boot the Live CD.
2. After the machine comes up, click the Install to Hard Drive icon. This is where the real fun starts.
3. Select keyboard from list: Selected U.S. English and click Next.
4. Types of storage devices: Selected Basic and click Next. The installer then examines the storage devices.
   
5. Name the computer: Set it to alpha and click Next.
6. Select the nearest city in your time zone: Selected Chicago and click Next.
7. Pick root password: Set it to ******** and click Next.
8. Which type of install: Used default of Replace existing Linux system(s) and click Next.
9. Select storage devices:
   

• Data storage: WD external drive
• Boot loader: ATA internal drive

At this point I got an error. The installation program complained that it could not find enough space for automatic partitioning. The problem was that I need to manually repartition the hard drive in order to make room for Linux. Basically, Windows has the whole drive allocated as one big partition. Click OK.

Note: I also later noticed that the installation guide recommends unplugging USB drives during the install. I had left the WD external drive plugged in, but everything still worked out OK.

At this point I did a lot of reading in the installation guide. There is a lot of detailed information in there about repartitioning your hard drive. There is also a recommended layout. Given the size of my system, I settle on roughly the following:

• boot partition: 250 MB
• '/' root partition: 5 GB
• swap partition: 2 GB
• /home partition: 10 GB

Repartitioning the Hard Drive

1. (resuming at) Which type of install: At this point I was unsure about whether to select Shrink current system or Create custom layout. I decided on Create custom layout, which worked.
2. Please select a drive: Selected the internal drive sda1 with the ntfs file system. Click Edit.
3. Resize from 139163 MB to 115000 MB, which should leave about 20000 MB of free space for Windows to operate. Click OK.
4. This will also free up about 24000 MB for Linux to use. Only about 10000 MB is needed for a full install of Linux, so I'll have about 14000 MB for data. Click Free.
5. All of the following partitions are created on the sda drive.
   
6. Click Create to create a partition.
   
7. Select Standard partition. Click Create.
8. Enter /boot, 250 MB, ext4. Click OK,
9. Click Free.
10. Click Create to create a partition.
    
11. Select Standard partition. Click Create.
12. Enter '/' for root, 5000 MB, ext4. Click OK,
13. Click Free.
14. Click Create to create a partition.
    
15. Select Standard partition. Click Create.
16. Enter 2000 MB, swap. Click OK,
17. Click Free.
18. Click Create to create a partition.
    
19. Select Standard partition. Click Create.
20. Enter '/home', fill to maximum allowable, ext4. Click OK,
21. Click Free.

In the summary screen, I ended up with the following:

• Hard drives
• sda
• -- sda1 115000 MB ntfs
• -- sda3 250 MB /boot ext4
• -- sda4 23913 MB extended
• -- -- sda5 5000 MB / ext4
• -- -- sda6 2000 MB swap
• -- -- sda7 16910 MB /home ext4
• -- sda2 13463 MB vfat
• sdb
• -- sdb1 953867 MB vfat
• -- free 2 MB

Once you accept that partitioning scheme, you get a huge warning message. The installation program hasn't actually made any changes to the system up until now. This is the point of no return. If you have misgivings, you can back out without making any changes to the system. If you proceed and have made a mistake, or the install fails to complete, you could end up with an unusable system. In that case you might need to reformat drives and reinstall, losing all of your data. Make sure you have a good back-ups first. Since I have good back-ups and feel lucky, I proceed with the repartitioning.

Repartitioning takes a while and you cannot do anything to help it along. So I take a break and check back later.

Install Boot Loader

Next comes installation of the boot loader. I accepted the defaults, which installs the boot loader on /dev/sda. The O/S list in the boot loader is:

• Other /dev/sda1
• Fedora /dev/sda5

Click Next. The you get a message indicating that it is copying the image to the hard drive. Finally, you get an Installation complete message. Click Close. The click Logout -> Reboot.

Continued at Installing Linux, Part 3.

Installing Linux

Although I've been using various flavors of Unix for over 25 years, I'm a novice when it comes to system administration. I'm also a Linux novice. However, I'd like to try out Linux on one of my home machines. I'm hoping it will provide a reasonably easy and inexpensive way to break away from Microsoft and its inexhaustible supply or virus, malware and spyware problems. I'm also hoping to use Perl scripts to manage a lot of routine tasks that I find difficult in Windows.

Starting from the beginning, this is everything I needed to do to acquire and install Linux for my Windows XP PC.

Obtain Live CD

1. I went to wikipedia and browsed the Comparison of Linux Distributions page to investigate the various distributions that are available.
2. Also valuable is the List of Linux Distributions page, which has a graphic describing the lineage of the various distributions. The graphic indicates that the majority of distributions originate from Debian, Slackware/SUSE or Red Hat.
   
3. I eventually settled on Fedora because it is based on Red Hat, is described as a general purpose distribution, has Live CD support, graphical installation procedures, support for several processor architectures, and it has a cool web site.
4. I went to the Fedora web site, then to the downloads page and downloaded the ISO-format image of Fedora 14 for 32 bit Intel PCs.
5. I went to my C:\temp folder and tried to burn a CD from the ISO file, but Right-click -> Send to -> CD Drive just creates a corrupted CD.
6. I looked around on some Microsoft forums and learned that Windows does not have the capability of creating ISO image CDs. You need to load a CD burning application.
7. I went to Kim Komando's web site and searched for software to burn an ISO CD.
   
8. Kim recommended CDBurnerXP, which is cost free and hopefully virus/malware free.
9. Installing CDBurnerXP, I accepted the license agreement, chose to not install the extra languages, and declined the extra Registry software.
10. After that CDBurnerXP started up and I blocked the outgoing internet traffic it generated.
11. Then I put a new CD in the CD drive, used CDBurnerXP to burn and verify the ISO file, and 10 minutes later I had my new Live CD.

Boot the Live CD

1. I put the Live CD into the CD drive of my guinea pig computer and restarted it.
   
2. It restarted with Windows XP. Try again.
3. This time when it said To interrupt normal startup, press Enter, I pressed Enter.
4. On the next screen, I selected Load from CD/DVD.
5. A few minutes later, I had a running Linux system with a cool picture of a bullet hole through the monitor.
6. From there I was able to run Mozilla, start a console window, view the hard drives, including Windows files, and run basic linux commands. It is apparently running the GNOME desktop environment.
   
7. When finished, I restarted the system and booted Windows XP.

Fedora 15

I set this project aside for a week and in the meantime Fedora released a new version 15. At first I was inclined to go ahead and install the previous version 14, but then I noticed that all of my machines had processors which are compatible with the 64-bit version. So I decided to download the 64-bit Fedora 15 with the KDE desktop.

I created a new CD using CDBurnerXP and rebooted to try out the KDE desktop. It has a lot of nice features, but I didn't really like the taskbar. It must be configurable, but I found it very difficult to read compared to the defaults on Windows XP.

Next, I downloaded and tried out the 64-bit Fedora 15 with the LXDE desktop. LXDE is very clean, but since I was using a Thinkpad in combination with an external monitor it was initially very confusing. I could tell from the background graphic that I was only seeing the right half of the screen. Eventually I figured out that the other half was visible on my Thinkpad, which I normally don't keep in view. After fiddling around some more, I figured out that right-clicking on the background gives you a configuration menu which allows you to enable more configuration menus. Once I got to the additional configuration menus it didn't take too long to figure out how to disable the Thinkpad monitor. After that, I could see everything on the external monitor. In all, it took about 30 minutes to figure this out. Still, LXDE is my favorite so far. It seems more like a Unix environment than a Windows environment.

So at this point I intend to install the 64-bit, GNOME-based version of Fedora 15 on the family computer. I expect that everyone else will be happy with that. For my own use, I plan to additionally install LXDE. Maybe someone else will try it out too.

Default/GNOME-based Fedora 15

I restarted the Thinkpad with external monitor with the new CD and immediately hit some difficulties. Both the Thinkpad monitor and the external monitor were enabled in 'mirror' mode. I could see the top bar which contains the Activities icon in the Thinkpad monitor, but not the external one. I found the System Settings menu and started tweaking that, turning off the Thinkpad monitor and setting the resolution on the external one. When I applied the settings, the Thinkpad monitor went off, as expected, but the external monitor output was completely scrambled. Reboot to Windows.

Next, I put the CD into the family computer. It booted OK and I could see the top bar OK. At this point you get an almost entirely blank screen. The key to finding anything you actually want to do is the 'Activities' icon in the upper left corner. Click that and you'll get some icons on the left side, including Firefox.

One thing the user immediately notices is that the top bar of every window only has an 'X' button to kill the window. The minimize and maximize operations are buried in the right-click menu. OK, I can adapt to that. The next oddity is that when you minimize the window, it seems to just go poof. The window disappears from view and the icon disappears from the top bar. That's just plain strange. To find it again you need to click Activities, which switches to a view of all of the activites in that workspace, and then you click on the item you want to restore.

Speaking of workspaces, they are buried in the Activities view also, all the way on the right side in a vertical bar. I don't think I like that either. Why bury them? To switch from one to the other you have to click on Activities, then double-click on the window you want. OK, I can adapt to that too, I guess.

Upon further inspection of the Activities view, there is a button labled Applications. Click on that and you'll see everything you'ld normally expect to see as icons on the desktop or in the right-click menu of the background (which, by the way, doesn't exist). At this point, I'm thinking that the GNOME interface is going for a Mac look-and-feel rather than Windows. But everything seems to be available and make sense once you find it. It looks good too, with more of a 'black and white' look rather than the former 'shades of gray'.

Back to minimizing windows. If you minimize some window, it goes poof as previously mentioned. If you click on Activities to see your various Desktops, you can see the un-minimized window in the mini-desktop. If you double-click on the mini-desktop to switch to that desktop, the minimized window is not there (even though it appeared to be there in the miniature representation of the desktop). To rematerialize the window, you need to click Activities again and then click on the picture of the minimized window. Humpf.

On the other hand, I'm writing these blog entries from this environment, so obviously it is working well enough.

It's time to reboot back to Windows and I don't see anything that says shutdown or restart or anything like that. I decided sign out to see if that would help, and eventually I got to a sign on screen which also had a restart icon. I used that to restart and just pushed the button on the CD drive when it starting rebooting Linux again. The machine booted to Windows OK.

In all I'm underwhelmed by this version of GNOME. Everything seemed hard to find. I did notice that it is version 3.0.1, so this is a major version change compared to the one I looked at in Fedora 14.

Installing LXDE

So the new plan is to install the 64-bit, LXDE, Fedora 15 on the family computer and see how that works out for everyone.

Continued at Installing Linux, Part 2.