Why does Google want me to find a domain name for my already existing blog? Anyways, so obviously this post isn't my RPG characters that wasn't something I kept up with anyways. No surprise to anyone who knows me.
I just switched my laptop to Xubuntu 14.10 and thought I may help anyone who should find this blog by accident chronicling my journey. I am not an IT professional I am a security officer with a High School diploma so if I can do this so can you. If you ask a question I will try to answer it but be prepared for I don't know.
First up would be why I finally switched. I got fed up with the weekly "You computer is old buy a new one" messages from Java and other supposedly free software. I have a T61 Thinkpad from 2007 yes it is not cutting edge but it runs everything fine. Java and other web technologies have stopped supporting XP which I can't blame them for as Microsoft doesn't support it either. However I am swimming in left over computers that still operate they just can't run the new OS's because they don't write for old tech. Also fine after all Microsoft only makes money on OS sales from new computers. So if I am ok with this why not buy a new computer? I damn well don't need one and Canonical has made it so I don't have to. Actually crap loads of people and Canonical because most of this stuff is made by volunteers. So screw it I will just go to Linux.
Why Xubuntu? I have been fooling around with the various Linux distro's for a couple of years and Ubuntu makes installing Linux easy and has tons of software available. Ubuntu also has the Unity shell I won't go into that to much and advise against looking up stuff about it on the web as it is quite heated. Xubuntu uses XFCE as its shell (the thing you see on your screen) which pretty much works they way XP did. Key point I don't want to have to learn how to use a computer again and with Xubuntu I don't have to. I am running the 64 bit version if you know what that means skip ahead some the next couple of sentences aren't for you. That means gibberish, mumble, cacaphony and white noise. I looked up an old review of my laptop found out the CPU, looked up the CPU and found out under architecture I had a 64 bit machine. I intend on forgetting this useless piece of knowledge as quickly as possible you only need it to know which version to install. I used the minimal cd ISO file. Stay with me that seems to mean nothing and for most people it doesn't beyond telling you what to download. If you go off to Xubuntu.org you need to pick your installer and their are a ton of them. If you are moving from windows you want either the I386 or the AMD64. If you don't have a 64 bit CPU you want the I386 otherwise you want the AMD64. You then need to burn the ISO file to a CD try double clicking the file and hopefully windows opens up a program that gives the option to do this. If not, well crap to many software choices for me to guide you go to sourceforge (google it) and get an open source program that will.
Installing Xubuntu is pretty easy actually. I use the minimal installer because I can never seem to get my computer to boot from a DVD which could be its age I don't know. However as long as you can connect to the internet during the install it makes no huge difference. The regular installer is prettier and a little easier but as soon as it is done you are going to need to update the system. The minimal installer pulls almost everything from the web during the install so when your done you have the latest version. You need to know your wireless password and decide if you are going to keep a portion of the hard drive for windows XP. I advise against keeping XP as you will just keep using it instead of Xubuntu making this a wasted effort. Also you need to copy everything you want to keep from you hard drive even if you decide to keep an XP partion. I have resized a different computer this way and it seems to work but I wouldn't count on it.
Pop your newly burnt CD offering in the drive reboot and off you go. It asks some standard stuff most of which you can just take the default on. Even the minimal installer will probably be able to connect you to the web it had the driver for my laptop on it. You also need to know what kind of blah blah gibberish thing you have fortunately the 2 options have the abbreviations you can find for your network WEP and WPA/WPA2 if you don't know pick one and if after you enter the password your connection fails back up and pick the other one, worked for me. Then you need a user name and password just like using a Windows computer at work. Make sure your password is something you remember as you do use it more than in windows. Then you get your first scary screen when it asks how you want to install itself with dire warnings of dog and cat cohabitation levels of chaos. Eh pick the guide option and accept what it suggests then okay writing the changes to disk. Heads up this defaults to not doing what you are asking unlike every other screen so tab to yes. Kind of late to mention it but no mouse in minimal install. It will chug along for a bit then ask you what you want to install besides the minimal kernel and this is where you can actually pick which distro you will be using as pretty much it is a list of the various frontends for linux. I like XFCE, LXDE is also windows like, go with XFCE or I will be of less use to you. It chugs away for a while longer tells you to take the CD out before you reboot (don't do it yet) hit enter and does a couple other things and restarts your computer now hit the eject button.
Hopefully you quickly get asked your password get logged in and really really fast you are good to go. If not you probably are kind of screwed comment on this and I will do my best to help. You should have a couple (3 icons) on the desktop and a menu bar on the top of the screen. I will put my choices for customization's in the next post. The little picture of the mouse face in the upper left is Xubuntu's start button.
