Posted on May 20th, 2008 by Douglass Clem

Linux Installation Guide: So easy, even your grandmother could do it!

Category: Technology, Tags: ,

I have been running Linux exclusively on my computers since Ubuntu 6.04 was released. For nearly as long I’ve been helping non-geek friends install it on their systems as well. Three years ago this often included kernel compilations, unrecognized hardware, and a lengthly, error prone installation proccess for installing multimedia codecs. Though installing Linux is still not perfect, it is very close, as you soon shall see.

I’ve written this guide with non-geeks in mind. A year ago I always did installations for my friends. With recent advancements in Ubuntu Linux, this is no longer necessary. This guide assumes you are currently running Windows, and want to have both Windows and Linux on the same machine. Simply view the following screen shot gallery in order, following the instructions as you go. Do that, and a few mouse clicks and about an hour later you’ll be the proud owner of a computer running Linux!

Picture Guide

To download the multimedia codecs installer I mentioned in the guide, right click this link and click “Save Link As,” and make sure to save it to the desktop. If anyone is worried about copyright stuff, lets just say its licensed under the GPL.

Minor Caveat

I did run into one tiny issue while going through this installation proccess. First time around, I got an error saying that the installer being used was meant for an amd64 processor, but I was running 32 bit. The workaround for this is very easy. In Windows click start/run and type in “cmd”. When the black window pops up, type “cd Desktop”. Next, type “Wubi-8.04.exe –32bit” and press enter. Problem solved.

Its likely you won’t see this problem, but if you do, it is very easily fixed.

So, that wasen’t very difficult, now was it? If you have any questions, or sugjestions on how I could improve this guide, please post them in the comment section.

5 Responses to “Linux Installation Guide: So easy, even your grandmother could do it!”

Linux Installation Guide: So easy, even your grandmother could do it! on May 20th, 2008 11:18 am:

[...] shuttercraft wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptI’ve written this guide with non-geeks in mind. A year ago I always did installations for my friends. With recent advancements in Ubuntu Linux, this is no longer necessary. This guide assumes you are currently running Windows, … [...]

jg on May 20th, 2008 11:43 pm:

Please rename your article to “Ubuntu installation Guide”. Ubuntu is _not_ Linux. Your article is clearly all about Ubuntu installation.

BCK on May 21st, 2008 8:40 am:

I agree with jg, ubuntu installation guide would have been a better choice

gj on May 21st, 2008 12:17 pm:

@jg: this is nonsense, i’d call it a geeky arrogant attitude against newcomers to linux.

Ubuntu is a kind of linux. what you might mean is that linux is not a kind of ubuntu. this last, case, however, is meaningless for those who never used any linux distro. for them, any distro is a linux, and you should let them find out the different linux by themselves, with time. did you always know the difference between iowa and kentucky, or someone told you once you were in school and interested in american states? as an analogy, is it wrong to label americans those people from iowa and kentucky, when your interlocutor cannot tell iowa from kentucky?

Douglass Clem on May 21st, 2008 12:33 pm:

Though I respect jg’s and BCK’s right to use whatever names they want, I disagree with their underlying premise. If I were to write a “Linux” installation guide, what would it look like? Would it be a guide for installing Fedora, Slackware or Mandriva? No, because all of these are distributions of Linux, just like Ubuntu is. If I were to write a guide by this title that fit this extremely restrictive perspective of what is Linux, then I would write on how to download a source tarball and compile it. This guide is for non-geeks, so teaching them how to compile their kernel wouldn’t be very effective.

I’m amazed at the amount of brand recognition “Linux” has, in spite of all the people online being so up tight about names. When I install Ubuntu on a computer, I’m installing Linux, because that is the kernel that it uses. The same would be true if the distro were Fedora or any other distro.

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