Linux Installation                

Operating System Installation                

The purpose of this assignment is to teach you how to perform a basic operating system installation. The task is to install the Xubuntu distribution of Linux, using the systems in the COMSC 315 lab. Why Xubuntu? Because it’s different from the Fedora systems that you’ve been using all along here at CSU.                 

Labeled DVD installation discs are provided in the lab. Do not remove disks from the lab—you can download Xubuntu for free yourself.                 

Follow the Configuration information regarding usernames, networking infomation, etc. Otherwise, use default or automatic configurations when asked by the installation process. (If you have more confidence in what you are doing, feel free to experiment with configuration, as long as you produce a working system.)                 

Part 1 — Documentation                

Create a plain text document with your notes on the installation process. You will need this, later, to re-install the OS when something goes wrong. Don’t save it on this computer—save it on your CS account on another CS Department computer.                 

Include the choices that you made during installation, problems that you have during the lab, as well as the solutions you find to your problems, along with your results. A lab usually involves completing a set of tasks or experiments or a procedure with several steps. These experiments or tasks may not always proceed correctly. Writing down what goes wrong and what goes right is part of the learning process.                 

Part 2 — Installation                

1. Sit down at the machine belonging to your group. There may already be a Linux system on this computer from a previous lab. Too bad for it! We will mercilessly overwrite it.
2. If the system is running, shutdown the system using shutdown -h 0 as super user (root).
3. Turn the system off.
4. Turn it on.
5. Open the optical drive, put in your DVD, close the drive.
6. It should boot from the DVD. If not, convince the BIOS to do so.
7. You should select the English language.
8. Install third-party software, when asked.
9. Choose to purge all previous partitions to assure that your machine is a clean slate. If you were doing a real installation, you would backup any important files existing on your machine before you installed Linux.
10. Allocate the following primary partitions:
    • an 80GB FAT32 partition, mounted as /Windows, for a later lab. ☺
      • Actually, NTFS would be better, if you can.
      • I don’t care if you interpret 80G as 80×10⁶ or 80×2³⁰
    • an 8GB swap partition
    • other partitions (home directories, temporary space) if you wish.
    • the rest as an Ext4 partition, mounted as /
11. Select Denver or another city in the Mountain time zone on the world map in order to set the time on the machine.
12. English keyboard
13. Supply a username and password for the ct320 account, as specified in Lab Configuration?.
14. Allow the installation to continue.
15. After rebooting …
16. Login using the username you just created.
17. Configure networking:
    • Click on the spinning network icon in the upper-right
    • Edit Connections
    • Wired connection 1
    • IPV4 Settings
    • Configure the IP address, DNS server, and search domains according to Lab Configuration?.
18. If the network icon is still spinning, click on it, and select “Wired connection 1”. It should calm down.
19. Make sure that the Linux system seems to work as expected. If you find problems, enter them in your log.
20. What is the default browser in your installation? Does it work? If not, why not?
21. Logout and try to login again, this time as root. Did anyone set the password for root? If not, do so.
22. When you are done testing that your Linux installation works, reboot down the machine by using the reboot command. Turning systems off without using a reboot/shutdown/halt command can leave the machine in a bad state.

Part 3 — Update                

Your software came from a DVD, and is therefore out of date. There could be security problems with the software on the DVD that have since been fixed! Get the latest software via the network:                 

    sudo apt-get update
    sudo apt-get upgrade

Using the man command, understand what you just did. What’s the difference between update and upgrade?                 

Part 4 — Additional downloads                

In a terminal window, install the following software packages, using sudo apt-get install packagename:                 

• cifs-utils
• iotop
• nmap
• perl-doc
• sshfs
• ubuntu-restricted-extras
• unetbootin
• vim-gtk

Can you do it with a single command?                 

Remove these packages, using sudo apt-get purge packagename:                 

• "^blue"
• whoopsie

Part 5 — Demonstration                

Demonstrate to the TA that your system works. You might want to try these before summoning the TA:                 

• df -h
• ssh your-username@acushla.cs.colostate.edu id
• Open a browser to http://zoomquilt.org/
• gvim /etc/resolv.conf

Part 5 — Halt                

Turn off your system using the halt command.