In Part 1, we figured out how to get the Ubuntu CD and in Part 2, we got our system running with the Ubuntu Live CD. Now is the time that we have all been waiting for…we are going to start the installation to your hard drive!
Danger Ubuntu User! Danger!
Before you double click that Install icon, read this carefully! I am not responsible if you lose your data! You have been warned! By following the process listed below, you will be completely wiping your partition! This means all of the data on the partition will be gone forever! Do not do this if you want the data on your hard drive! Whew! Now that that is over, let’s continue with installing Ubuntu!
The Six Step Install
To start, double click on the Install icon. (I probably didn’t need to tell you that but you would be amazed as to some of the people out there!) This will begin the installation process. 
The first screen that you will be presented with is the welcome screen that prompts you for a language. I usually suggest that you install the language that you are the most familiar with but if you have a particular thing for Esperanto, then I say go for it! Click on the Forward button to continue.
The next piece of information that you need to provide is your location. This is so that the proer time and time zone can be set. Don’t worry if you live in a smaller center and can’t find your city/town/hamlet/house on the map. Simply select the city closest to you in the same time zone. Click on the Forward button to continue.
On the next screen, select your keyboard layout. This is fairly straight forward. If you are in the US, select American English and this should get you started. I would recommend testing your keyboard in the typing test box so that you can be sure you the keyboard layout that you have chosen is working properly.
Screen four presents us with a number of pieces of information that you need to enter. This is going to be the most difficult screen because you need to come up with a password and you need to remember it! If you forget this password, you will not be able to log on to the computer and you will have to reinstall Ubuntu. The questions are fairly straight forward to answer. The name you use to log in can be anything you want such as your first name or a nickname but remember that the user name needs to be in all lower case. Your password needs to be something difficult to guess but simple to remember. A good example of such a password would be the first letter of each word in a common phrase (e.g. If the common phrase was “Mary had a little lamb whose fleece was white as snow”, your password would be “mhallwfwwas”. Try guessing that!). Remember to enter the password twice so that you don’t accidentally type it wrong and do not hit the ENTER key after you have typed it the first time because this will cause an error. The computer name can be pretty much anything. Unless you have a network at home and want to be able to access the computer from other systems, you will probably never need to know the compute name again. Once you have finished entering all of the requested information, click on the Forward button to continue.
Once you do click on the Forward button, the disk partitioner will start. Simply wait until it has finished looking at your hard disk. 
Once it is done you will be provided with two or more options (depending on how many hard drives you have on your computer. Since this is probably the first time that you are installing Ubuntu, I highly suggest selecting the first option. Manually editing the the partition table is usually best left to the pros. When you are certain that you want to delete everything on the hard drive, click on (say it with me) the Forward button to continue.
The computer will calculate the partition settings. Please wait until this screen closes itself. 
The final screen presents you with a summary of the options you have chosen. Confirm that this is correct or go back using the Back button to correct the any mistakes you may have made (not that you would make any maistakes mistakes). Once everything is correct click on the Install button to get things started!
Note: I just want to mention one last time that after you click the Install button, everything on your partition will be destroyed and there is no going back.
Now, this might be a good time to have a cup of coffee, go make supper, or write the next great American screenplay because, depending on the speed of your computer, this may take a while (but it will be worth it). 
Once the excruciating wait is over, you will see a window prompt asking you if you would like to reboot or continue to use the live CD. Since there is absolutely no reason to continue using the live CD, click on the Restart now button. Make sure that you take the Ubunti CD out of the drive before completing the reboot. Otherwise, you will simply be starting up the live CD session again.
Congratulations! You have just finished installing the base installation of the Ubuntu desktop. You can now log into your Ubuntu system and begin your linux adventures! Might I suggest the first thing you may want to do is update your software?
I hope that you have found this series to be both helpful and informative. If so, please consider supporting DCoT. I need your help to continue providing you with quality articles such as this.
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October 9th, 2006 at 12:56 pm
A quick shout out to Quixote for “proof reading” my article and the link back to my blog.
Also, thanks for the kind words.
Tim
February 26th, 2007 at 5:33 pm
thank you guys soo much you helped me a bunch
January 21st, 2009 at 2:19 pm
This is all fine and dandy if you don’t get “missing operating system” upon rebooting after the installation.