Preparing Drive
In order to install Linux, you need to prepare some room on your hard drive. The installer will run you through this process as long as there is free space on your drive. Most of us start out with computers that have only one hard drive and Windows is installed on the entire drive. We do not recommend that new Linux users remove Windows from their computer. Probably the best idea is to buy a second hard drive to use only for Linux. You might want to get one of those removable drive drawers (mobile rack) to put in your computer that allows you to pull one drive out and just slide another one in place. I find them a little noisy, but they work nicely.
Otherwise you can do what I did when I first installed Linux - resize your current Windows partition. See Resizing Tools for more on this.
During the installation of Linux you will be given a chance to make partitions from the free space on your drive. The installer will invoke a partitioning tool such as fdisk. Before you pop in that installation CD, you need to plan how you want to partition. You may use only 2 partitions - / and swap or you may use more. /boot and /home are very good ones to add to the list. Perfect Partitioning is a discussion on how many partitions you should use. Dee-Ann LeBlanc's Linux Partitions: A Primer gives a good discussion of this as well especially in Setting Up Your Partitions
Warning: Please be sure to look at tutorials/during/Lose Windows Boot especially if you have a large hard drive and want to create a dual boot with Windows. There is a potential of losing the ability to boot Windows after installing under certain conditions. This is preventable and it is also fixable.
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Welcome to LinuxBasics.org - The online community that helps people to get Linux installed and running.
During this tour, we will guide you through our website, which has many facets which wait to be explored
The biggest project we are running is our Linux course, based on the LBook.
The book is stored in wiki-format, which enables us to update and correct it as we go.
Discussion for the course is on our Forum
Our Forum is used for discussion of Linux and for questions and answers.
Search the mailing-list that was used prior to the Forum.
The questions and answers from the list are stored in the list's archives in order to help others with the same problems.
Every weekend, we meet to chat in IRC. These meetings are NOT mandatory, but are a nice chance to get to know each other better.
IRC is also a great tool to solve many problems, since it is very quick and easy to ask for more details if you need them.
The tutorials are one of the oldest sections on the LBo-website.
Here you find explanations on how to do specific tasks in Linux. Many of the tutorials were created after a certain problem
has been discussed (and usually solved :) on the mailing-list.
The tutorials are categorized in
In the links section, you find outbound links to other valuable resources.
One of our later additions to the site. We maintain a mirror of the Linux Documentation Project. This is our contribution to the "home of the HOWTOs"
Another later addition is the LBlog which focuses on how to do stuff on the Linux Desktop. It begins with the basics on installing Ubuntu.
Using the integrated site-search, you can search the tutorials, the LBook and all other wiki-pages
Simply type the search term into the box in the upper-right corner of our webpages
As a community, we depend on your feedback and collaboration. So, if you have something to share with others, please contact us. If you have a suggestion for a topic you would like to see covered here, please add it on the Wishlist.
There are many ways to contribute: You can answer questions on the Forum, you can write a complete tutorial or just a step-by-step documentation on how you completed a specific task using linux. Ask questions if the information on this site is not clear, tell us if we got something wrong, spell-check our writings, whatever.
We are looking forward to meeting you at LinuxBasics.org
Anita, Jisao, Sam and Stefan