Installation Take Two

Nov 1, 2006, 4:40pm, the computer is rebooting and nothing was installed to the hard drive because it would not reboot without the CD in. When rebooting I noticed that Ubuntu asked me to remove the CD but wouldn't boot from the hard drive but that is understandable considering that the install crashed (well powered off by me).

Alright once again I get the menu and select option one (1) Start or Install Ubuntu. I then get the “sorta like MS Windows” screen and I once again double click on the INSTALL Icon. I get the pop up window one of six asking me to pick a language. ENGLISH, I say and click “next”. Screen two of six wants to know what part of the world I'm in and what is the time and date. I select “New York” and even though the time is wrong, I leave it alone and click the “next” button....

BINGO!!! window three of six wants to know what my keyboard layout is. I pick ENGLISH KEYBOARD and click “next”.

Window four of six wants to know my name, logon name, password, and computer name. I fill them in and click the “next” button.

Window five of six wants me to pick a hard drive and how I want to partition it and where to install Ubuntu. Well I am wiping this whole hard drive and just putting Linux only on it (no duel boot) so my choice is easy ERASE ENTIRE DRIVE. (This screen could be confusing if you are duel booting or need to install Linux to a single partition on a multi-partitioned hard drive) I then clicked “next”

Window six of six says it's READY TO INSTALL and gives me a list of all my choices and wants to make sure they are what I wanted. There are a few things here I don't understand:

1. I got a notice that “GRUB” will be installed on “hd0”.
2. A message that Partation Table Changes IDE Master is “hda”
3. Partition #1 is IDE1 master hda as “ext3”
4. Partition #5 is IDE1 master hda as “swap”

Ok, What is a GRUB, a boot loader? I assume that “hd0” refers to my primary hard drive and I thought “hda” referred to the first partition on that hard drive but then I see partition #5 is also “hda”? I don't understand. What is an “ext3” and how big a partition did it get? What about the “swap”, I assume it's the same as a MS Windows “swap file” but is on it's own partition but how big is it? And if its partition #5 and partition #1 is a “ext3” What are and how big are partition #2, #3, and #4.

Even with these questions, I assumed that Ubuntu knew best and I click “INSTALL” accepting these settings.

At 4:55pm, after clicking the INSTALL on window six of six, I got a progress bar that told me it was doing what I asked it too and told me it was “creating ext3 file system for / in partition #1 of IDE1 master” and then began working my hard drive.

Ubuntu did not ask any more questions, it just moved the progress bar and kept telling me what it was doing and what was being installed. It was kinda like a MS Windows install without as many questions.

At 5:21pm, Ubuntu informed me that it was done with the installation and I could either reboot and start Linux from my hard drive or continue to use the “live CD”. I crossed my fingers and chose the Reboot option. Ubuntu told me to remove my CD from the drive and I did. The screen flashed and my BIOS flash screen appeared. I was booting a Linux box for the first time. The Install process took 26 minutes if you don't could the 4 hour download and the first install crashing :-)

(I reached over to my MS Windows Laptop and patted him and told him that he was a “good boy” and that it would be ok).

Next - First Boot