The Ubuntry / El Ubuntento

Get your own Ubuntu 8.04

Hi visitor. I think it is time to get our own Ubuntu 8.04, the latest version. First let me explain you why the name of the versions of Ubuntu. It's easy: 8 stands for 2008, the year when the version has been launched; 04 stands for the month, April. There are two new versions of Ubuntu every year, every six months: one in April and the other in October. So the next version will be 8.10 and the next one 9.04, etc.

Getting Ubuntu is free and you don't have to pay anything for the Operative System. There are two different options: download it from the internet or order it by mail:
a) to download it just click here, select a location from where you want to download it (sometimes the closest to your place is not the fastest) and then start downloading it. It will take a while as it is a large file. Once you have it you have tu burn it on a cd but pay attention on this: it must be an iso cd, not just burn it as if it was a data cd. I'm sure your burner will give you options to burn an iso cd, check it.
b) if you want to order one by mail then click here. It will take few weeks and I think you'll have to pay for the postage and packing of the cd or dvd but remember: the software is free. If you ordered a blank cd you'd have to pay the same.

Once you got your cd with Ubuntu you can try the new OS in your computer without installing it. Insert the cd and restart the system. It will restart from the cd and you'll be able to see your desktop and system as if you had installed Ubuntu but you have not, it is just an image. What it is called a cd-live I think. I'm not very sure but I understood that every changes you do in your hard drive from the cd-live are not actually happening. I didn't try though :o|

If you like what you see, I think you can install it in your computer clicking on an icon on the desktop (it was like that in the previous version, the one I installed in my laptop some months ago so I guess it will be the same in this version). Before installing make sure you don't have anything in your hard disk you want to keep! Well, just follow the instructions to install Ubuntu. It's extremely easy.

You may want to keep have a partition or two for other OS's. What I have in my laptop is two partitions with two OS's and then a big one to store data and use it from either Windows or Ubuntu. In that case, what I did was to reinstall Windows (you need the cd of that system, of course) and make a partition just for it, a small one. Again, it is very easy following the instructions. Don't let those blue screens scare you. Then, I installed Ubuntu and when I was doing it, the system asks whether you want to install it in the rest of the available space or create a new partition. I created a new small one, as big as the other for Windows, and left the rest of the space as storage.

We'll see what we do once the OS is in our hard drives!

Posted at 10:45AM Jul 20, 2008 by Rafael Martinez-Jausoro in General  |  Comments[5]