A Small, Short-Term Commitment

This is Part 4 of a ten-part review of Ubuntu Linux.  The series is designed to give you a rough idea what it's like to try Linux.  It's not a how-to, and it's not a blow-by-blow recount of my experience.  For your convenience, links for each part of this series are located at the end of the article.

As I said in my last post, I'm kind of slow to commit. But Linux Live convinced me that it was worthwhile to delve deeper into Ubuntu. Still not ready to commit to a hard drive installation, however, I figured that I'd compromise and install Linux onto a second USB drive. The fact that I could install and run Linux off of a USB drive (not to mention a CD in the case of Linux Live), by the way, should give you an indication of how lightweight Linux is, especially when compared to Windows 7, which requires a minimum of 16 Gig of drive space. My full install of Ubuntu 11.10, on the other hand, required about 5 Gig.

Before continuing, I need to back up a bit to clarify/reiterate a couple of things. As I said in my last post, I initially downloaded Linux to a USB drive, which I'll call USB1 from now on. When I downloaded Linux to USB1, I configured it so that it was bootable. (I hope you'll forgive me, but I don't remember the specifics of how I did this. I do, however, remember that it was relatively straight-forward.) When I booted to USB1, I had the option of booting to Linux Live, directly from that USB stick, or installing Linux from USB1 to a different device. I ran Linux Live for a while from USB1, and then decided to install Linux onto a second USB device, which I'll call USB2. This allowed me to test a fully functional version of Linux without having to commit to installing the OS to my actual hard drive.

Installing Linux from USB1 to USB2 was another straight-forward task. It asked me a few questions, and I was off and running. The biggest pre-installation factor that you should consider is this... Linux uses a file system that's foreign to Windows. Windows uses NTFS by default. Linux uses EXT3 or EXT4. What this means to you, as someone who may install Linux, is that Windows will not natively read the Linux file format. Linux, however, seems to be a bit smarter in this area, and WILL natively read NTFS. In fact, I believe that Linux will install on an NTFS partition, which would allow Windows to read the contents of the Linux drive. But I wanted to see Linux in its native environment. By the way, I don't know anything about EXT3 or EXT4. I went with EXT4 because I figured that 4 is bigger than 3, so EXT4 must be bigger, better and faster than EXT3. Hey, I'll admit when I'm not scientific in my approach.

But I'm digressing... The real point of today's post is to let you know that installing Linux was just as easy as installing Windows 7. If you're not evaluating Linux because you're afraid that the installation process will be difficult, then let me allay your fears. Linux is easy to install.
 Part I, The Grand Experiment

Part II, So Many Flavors

Part III, I'm Kind of Slow to Commit

Part IV,  ASmall, Short-Term Commitment

Part V, Diving Below the Surface

Part VI, A Different Animal

Part VII, Okay, It's Pretty, but What Can it Do?

Part VIII, Okay, I'm Committed, But It's Not all Puppies and Rainbows

Part IX, Unity

Part X, Parting Words