Chapter 6. Using the Ubuntu Installer In summary: selecting a network mirror is generally a good idea, except if you do not have a good Internet connection. If the current version of a package is available from CD/DVD, the installer will always use that. The amount of data that will be downloaded if you do select a mirror thus depends on Note that the last point means that, even if you choose not to use a network mirror, some packages may still be downloaded from the Internet if there is a security or stable-updates update available for them and those services have been configured. If you have selected to use a network mirror during the installation (optional for CD/DVD installs, required for netboot images), you will be presented with a list of geographically nearby (and therefore hopefully fast) network mirrors, based upon your country selection earlier in the installation process. Choosing the offered default is usually fine. A mirror can also be specified by hand by choosing “enter information manually” . You can then specify a mirror host name and an optional port number. During the installation process, you may be given the opportunity to select additional software to install. Rather than picking individual software packages from the 58805 available packages, this stage of the installation process focuses on selecting and installing predefined collections of software to quickly set up your computer to perform various tasks. So, you have the ability to choose tasks first, and then add on more individual packages later. These tasks loosely represent a number of different jobs or things you want to do with your computer, such as “Desktop environment”, “Mail server”, “Web server”, or “Print server”$^{9}$. Section D.2 lists the space requirements for the available tasks. Some tasks may be pre-selected based on the characteristics of the computer you are installing. If you disagree with these selections you can deselect them. You can even opt to install no tasks at all at this point. Tip: In the standard user interface of the installer, you can use the space bar to toggle selection of a task. 9. You should know that to present this list, the installer is merely invoking the tasksel program. It can be run at any time after installation to install more packages (or remove them), or you can use more fine-grained tools like aptitude , apt-get or apt . If you are looking for a specific single package, after installation is complete, simply run apt install package , where package is the name of the package you are looking for. 64 6.3.5.2. Selecting and Installing Software 6.3.5.1.3. Choosing a network mirror 1. the tasks you select in the next step of the installation, 2. which packages are needed for those tasks, 3. which of those packages are present on the CDs or DVDs you have scanned, and 4. whether any updated versions of packages included on the CDs or DVDs are available from a mirror (either a regular package mirror, or a mirror for security or stable-updates).