Your First Linux Box!
Prerequisites:
- Desktop Computer
- Old Desktop Computer (To-be-Linux-Box)
- Empty USB Drive (Min 8GB)
- Internet Connection
Intro:
If you work in IT, you may have been lucky enough to take home some hardware your company was going to donate, or recycle. Whether its a few small form factor workstations or a giant enterprise grade server, they can be a great tool for learning on your own. A similar situation is what started my homelab. My previous boss was going through his garage, and was getting rid of boxes and boxes of old IT equipment. He asked if I wanted to pick through it all before he donated it. I did exactly that, and came out with a bunch of cool stuff. One of those items was an old Lenovo workstation running Windows 7. As you know, Windows 7 is pretty old. Released in 2009, and support ended in 2020. Not something we want on our network , even if its going to be used for internal use. That leaves us 2 options:
- Purchase a Windows 10/11 License
- Create a Bootable Linux USB
With my workstation being close to a decade old, I would be hesitant to put around $100-$140 into the machine depending on which version of Windows you purchase. Not to mention the sluggishness you would experience on such old hardware. So that leads to what this blog is about, creating your first Linux box.
Choosing your Distribution or ‘Distro’
If you have spent anytime on Reddit or other forums where Linux is discussed, you will know that people really care about the certain distribution they use. They are also very willing to tell you why the ‘Distro’ you chose is nothing short of a terrible choice.
So I will make it very simple for us all. In this tutorial, we will be using…drum roll please… Ubuntu! Some of you may be asking why Ubuntu? To put it simply, its the distro I have the most experience with. If you are completely lost at this point, thinking ‘What the heck is a Distribution and how do I even say Ubuntu?!’ Dont worry. This article from HowToGeek should get you up to speed:
Downloading Ubuntu
Okay, so we know what distribution we are going to use. Now how do we get it? Below I have provided a link to the Ubuntu 22.04.2 LTS download page.
Once you arrive on the page, select the green button that says ‘Download 22.04.2’ once you click the green button the Ubuntu ISO download will begin.
Note: Make sure to save the Ubuntu ISO file somewhere you will remember.
Downloading balenaEtcher
Now that we have the ISO file downloaded on to our desktop, we need software that will load the ISO file from the desktop to the USB in a bootable fashion. The software we will be using in this tutorial is called balenaEtcher. I have provided the link to the balenaEtcher download page below.
Once you arrive on the website you will click the green download button in the center of your screen.
This will bring you to the list of downloads. You will need to know what OS you have, and if its 32 bit or 64 bit. An easy way of checking this on Windows is to type into the Windows search bar ‘System Information’ and press enter. This will open a window with the information you need. Once you have confirmed which OS you have, select the corresponding download link.
Note: Make sure to save the balenaEtchersetup.exe somewhere you will remember.
Creating your bootable USB drive
Second step down, way to go. We aren't done yet though! The next thing we need to do is to change the USB drive from an average storage device to a bootable USB drive. Fancy fancy. We will do this by running the software we just downloaded, balenaEtcher. Locate the balenaEtcherstartup.exe and double click it. This will ask you to accept the terms of service, once you accept the program will begin to install. Once its completed, it should open the program automagically. It should look something like this:
Alright, now that we have balenaEtcher installed and open we need to get our USB drive. Before plugging it into the desktop, look at the drive physically and look for any brand names or model names. Once we have confirmed that the USB has been successfully connected, we will click the blue button that says ‘Flash from file’ on the left side of belanaEtcher. Once we click the blue button, we need to select the Ubuntu ISO from earlier.
Once the Ubuntu ISO has been selected, we now see the blue button in the middle. We will select the blue button that says ‘Select target’. This will open another window, showing you your storage devices. We will choose the USB drive from the list. IMPORTANT: Make sure you select the USB drive, selecting the wrong drive will result in a PERMANENT loss of your data. This is where checking the USB drives Brand/Model comes in handy.
Once you have selected the Ubuntu ISO and your USB drive in balenaEtcher, it should look something like this.
The last step in creating your bootable USB drive is to select the blue ‘Flash!’ button on the right side of belenaEtcher. Once you click the ‘Flash’ button, it will begin the process of creating a bootable Ubuntu USB flash drive. This could take up to an hour.
Once balenaEtcher has completed its process, we need to safely disconnect the USB drive from our desktop. To do this we need to go to the bottom right of the screen, and find and select the ‘^’ symbol. Next right-click the small USB icon, then select eject drive. You can now safely disconnect the drive.
Installing Ubuntu on our (Old) Desktop
Amazing! We have created our bootable USB drive. Almost finished! Next, we need to locate our old desktop and power it down. Once its powered down we will connect the USB drive to the old desktop.
Once the USB drive is successfully connected, we will power on the old desktop. As soon as we see the machine start to power on, we need to continually press the BIOS button. This button differs between manufacturers. Go to keys to try are F2 and F12. You will know when you have made it to the BIOS when your screen looks something like this:
Not all BIOS menus look identical to this, but they will look similar. If you did not enter the BIOS menus on the first try, power down the old desktop and repeat the steps again, possibly trying a different BIOS key.
Next, we want to navigate to the BOOT menu/screen/tab. This will show a list of storage devices currently connected to the old desktop, including our Ubuntu USB. We want to move the Ubuntu USB to the TOP of the list. Once we have confirmed our Ubuntu USB on the TOP of the boot list, we can navigate to the exit button and exit the BIOS.
Once we have exited the BIOS, the old desktop should restart or power down. If it powered down, power it back up again. This time do NOT press any keys on the keyboard as it is booting up.
If everything was done correctly we should see something like this:
We will select ‘Try or Install Ubuntu’ from this list.
After some time, you will finally get your first taste of Ubuntu. It should look something like this:
We will go ahead and select ‘Install Ubuntu’. IMPORTANT: Make sure to choose the hard drive in your old desktop NOT the USB drive. This should start the Ubuntu Installation process. This should be familiar to other first-time-setups you have gone through with other devices. Here you will choose what language and keyboard layout you would like.
Next it will ask you about updates and other applications. I reccomend going with the default selections here if you don't know what to choose.
The next screen asks us what installation type we would like, we want the option to Install Ubuntu 22.04.2.
If you have data on your old desktop hard drive and you want to get rid of everything on that, and then install Ubuntu on the drive, Select the ‘Erase disk and Install Ubuntu’ option.
It will ask you to choose your time zone, then it will ask for user information. Make sure to remember this information, this will be the username and password you use to access the machine from now on.
After you input your user information and click continue, Ubuntu will start the installation process. This may take some time, and will automagically reboot your old desktop. Once the installation process has completed it will leave you at the login screen. Enter the username and password you created earlier.
BOOM!
You are now officially running Ubuntu on your old desktop machine. If this is your first time using Linux, it may take some time to get used to the environment coming from Windows. That’s expected!
To give you a small head start:
- LibreOffice is the Linux equivalent to Microsoft Office. (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Etc.)
- Firefox is your default web browser.
- Files is the Linux equivalent to the Windows File Explorer.
Congratulations! You are now a Linux user. Learning Linux is a fun and rewarding experience. I will be adding to this Linux box in the coming tutorials. Be sure to check back.
