Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Networking with Linux

Day 4

I have done a little experimenting with Linux in the past, but I haven't used it regularly. For a long time I had students install Windows 98 on the older computers in order to get experience with installing and operating system and setting up a network. The advantage is I do have licenses for it, and even some original installation disks, and it doesn't require activation, but it is getting rather old. 

I downloaded the iso files for Edubuntu and burned an installation DVD. I installed it on a Thinkpad T23 (so old it was manufactured by IBM - in Mexico), and the installation went without a hitch. By contrast, I recently installed Windows XP on another laptop. The installation disk was the original version of XP home edition, so it took hours to download all the updates. I couldn't even run Windows Update until I had downloaded and installed Service Pack 2 manually. (Service Pack 3 can't be installed unless Service Pack 2 is installed first.) Of course, you would encounter problems in installing an older distribution of Linux, as well.


Fortunately, although the computers I plan to install it on are seven or eight years old, they do have DVD drives. For older computers, it is possible to install Ubuntu from a CD, as the image is 693MB. The software applications can then be installed separately. While it is convenient to install everything. That is actually a more common way to proceed for most people, so perhaps that is the way to go. I will write more after I have tried installing from a CD.

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