Hardy Heron - my odd first experiences

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Saturday, 26 April 2008 11:02

Opinion and Analysis

A Linux Ubuntu 8.04 virgin no longer, I popped my own cherry last night, installing Hardy Heron for the first time, with some odd installation experiences I can only hope aren’t the ‘norm’. So, what happened?

So, Hardy Heron, Ubuntu 8.04, the final release version. You’re finally on my computer. It’s been a long wait – I never did bother with your predecessors Eft, Gibbon and the rest.

After downloading the approx 700mb ISO file, and also downloading Wubi (even though I know it was in the 700mb ISO), I proceeded to run the Wubi file I’d downloaded earlier.

Up on screen appeared the Wubi installer. I chose to create an 8GB file on my C: drive, typed in my password and pressed “install”.

Wubi then went straight to the ISO that was in the same download folder, and proceeded to install.

It did some MD5 checking, but after a few minutes, Wubi had informed me that the installation process was complete. Would I like to reboot now, or later? I had a few open windows to close, so I chose ‘restart later’.

I then closed the open windows and saved some files, but once that was all done, I restarted my computer, and was presented with a dual boot scenario managed by the Vista boot manager.

Now, somewhere along the line, I’d gotten the idea that you could, using Wubi, run Ubutnu from *within* Windows Vista, like a virtual session, so I selected ‘Vista’ from the boot manager. I’d never used Wubi before so I didn’t know that you couldn’t use Wubi for this purpose.

Once Vista had reloaded, I looked around for a magical Wubi button or Ubuntu button or start menu entry to give it a whirl, only to discover there was nothing, and that I’d been mistaken about Wubi’s purpose.

Of course, I do realise that if I use virtualisation software, whether VMWare or Virtual PC 2007 or something else, I can run Hardy Heron this way. But seeing as I’d simply installed it, and realised my error, I rebooted my computer once more.

This time, of course, I chose ‘Ubuntu’ from the Vista boot manager.

Up came some text about a PCI: Bios Bug #81 [49435000], which quickly disappeared, to be replaced by the Ubuntu boot screen. This stayed on screen for a few seconds, after which I was thrown into the command line interface environment of BusyBox 1.1.3.

Ugh. Wow, what an introduction! I told my Editor, who smiled, and said "Wow, I feel like there's something I finally know more about than you!". He also said "Welcome to Linux".

I told him "Not for long, Sensei. I'll have Ubuntu figured out soon enough!". But the stark reality was that I was in a black and white command line interface, far from the delicious comforts of a graphical user interface.

So, What happened next? Please read onto page 2.