Chapter 1. Welcome to Ubuntu 2. Backup your system, perform any necessary planning and hardware configuration prior to in- stalling Ubuntu, in Chapter 3. If you are preparing a multi-boot system, you may need to create partitionable space on your hard disk for Ubuntu to use. 3. In Chapter 4, you will obtain the necessary installation files for your method of installation. 4. Chapter 5 describes booting into the installation system. This chapter also discusses troubleshoot- ing procedures in case you have problems with this step. 5. Perform the actual installation according to Chapter 6. This involves choosing your language, configuring peripheral driver modules, configuring your network connection, so that remaining installation files can be obtained directly from an Ubuntu server (if you are not installing from a CD), partitioning your hard drives and installation of a base system, then selection and installation of tasks. (Some background about setting up the partitions for your Ubuntu system is explained in Appendix C.) 6. Boot into your newly installed base system, from Chapter 7. Once you’ve got your system installed, you can read Chapter 8. That chapter explains where to look to find more information about Unix and Ubuntu, and how to replace your kernel. Finally, information about this document and how to contribute to it may be found in Appendix E. Any help, suggestions, and especially, patches, are greatly appreciated. Working versions of this doc- ument can be found at http://d-i.alioth.debian.org/manual/. There you will find a list of all the different architectures and languages for which this document is available. Source is also available publicly; look in Appendix E for more information concerning how to contribute. We welcome suggestions, comments, patches, and bug reports (use the package installation-guide for bugs, but check first to see if the problem is already reported). We’re sure that you’ve read some of the licenses that come with most commercial software — they usually say that you can only use one copy of the software on a single computer. This system’s license isn’t like that at all. We encourage you to put a copy of Ubuntu on every computer in your school or place of business. Lend your installation media to your friends and help them install it on their computers! You can even make thousands of copies and sell them — albeit with a few restrictions. Your freedom to install and use the system comes directly from Ubuntu being based on free software . Calling software free doesn’t mean that the software isn’t copyrighted, and it doesn’t mean that CDs/DVDs containing that software must be distributed at no charge. Free software, in part, means that the licenses of individual programs do not require you to pay for the privilege of distributing or using those programs. Free software also means that not only may anyone extend, adapt, and modify the software, but that they may distribute the results of their work as well. Note: The Ubuntu project, as a pragmatic concession to its users, does make some packages available that do not meet our criteria for being free. These packages are not part of the official distribution, however, and are only available from the multiverse area of Ubuntu mirrors; see the Ubuntu web site (http://www.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/components) for more information about the layout and contents of the archives. 6 1.8. About Copyrights and Software Licenses 1.7. Your Documentation Help is Welcome