If you are installing Linux, make sure you have a hard-wired network connection March 26, 2006
Posted by samdenby in Linux, Preparation.add a comment
After creating a full backup of my system, I was ready to install Linux. Intially I was going to use the Fedora distribution, because I happen to have a copy of the Red Hat Linux Bible, but after browsing for a while I decided to use Ubuntu instead. Two reasons: it's a smaller distribution (may have all I need for a PHP / MySQL platform), and there seems to be wide community support.
I had no trouble following the instructions to create an ISO CDROM, and then booting the system to install it on my freed-up second hard disk drive. But the installation process asks which network adapter it should use to communicate with the internet. At this point I realised that my wireless adapter was not going to work until I installed driver software, and I was not going to install driver software until I had an internet connection. Catch 22.
I decided to continue with a standalone Ubuntu installation to learn how it went. No great difficulty, and it set up a dual-boot system so that I can run Windows or Linux on the same PC. Tomorrow I shall have to move the PC next to my ADSL modem/router, so that I can use a hard-wired network connection. I shall probably re-install Ubuntu to let it do as much as possible automatically over the network, and then I shall have to find out how to get my Belkin Wireless PCI card working.
