We enter into the heart of driving, seeing how to install download the official ISO image of Ubuntu Server and how to install it to have one of the best solutions in server environments currently available.
From the page of the Ubuntu site, you can choose which version to download: in our case we will use Ubuntu Server 9.10, the latest version at the time of writing the guide. Menu, select a mirror from which to download the ISO image (choose one) and, by clicking on Alternative download options, choose whether to download a version of Ubuntu Server is optimized for the architecture of your server: 32 or 64 bits. Once this choice, we are ready to begin the download with the button.
After downloading, you can verify that the download does not possess defects through a control with MD5SUM, which provides a detailed guide on the official wiki of Ubuntu. So let’s burn the ISO image to a CD or DVD, and we start the machine by selecting it as a boot device.
The first screen you will have before it will be very familiar to anyone who has installed at least once any version of Ubuntu. After selecting the language, you can choose from several options: to proceed with the installation, select Install Ubuntu Server, and wait until the next screen.
Figure 1: The initial screen to install Ubuntu Server
Now begin a series of dialog boxes that allow you to configure many of the details of the operating system we’re going to install: you start with the selection of system language and keyboard layout, after which it will detect the
hardware configuration of the machine, a selection will be packages from the installation CD, will start the automatic network configuration, and will continue to set the system operator chooses the host name, the name that will have the machine in the network.
Later, you launched the tool for managing partitions: you can choose to use the automatic partitioning, which will use the entire disk for the installation, or manually manage the disk and choose the size to be dedicated to each partition. If the machine will be installed only Ubuntu Server, we recommend choosing the option Guided – use entire disk without setting the LVM ( logical volume manager ), which will only be used to select the disc. In any case, when you are finished partitioning, you will see a summary window, which will check all the settings for the disk: if everything is configured the best, we choose to write changes to disk moving with the arrow keys on Yes and press Enter.
Figure 2: Confirmation of the disk partitioning
The write operation on the hard drive will take a few minutes, and once completed will start installing the base system. When will install all the major components will be asked to choose a name for your username and password, with the ability to encrypt your home directory. It will then configure the apt-get and automatic updates.
Following will be offered a range of applications to install, typical of server environments: those selected will be installed automatically, even if we will see later in the guide how to manually install many of the proposed instruments, so you can leave all fields blank. The only aspects of that list will not be processed are Samba, and Tomcat Virtual Machine, so if you need these components can be useful to select the automatic installation.
After selecting which components to install will start the installation of other software needed for operation of the operating system, including those selected by us just before. At the end of this operation will be carried out before the packages used for installation, will automatically configure some system parameters, and you will see a new window that will confirm the end of the installation of Ubuntu Server. We choose to continue, and we await the restart. Once the operating system, we are ready to use Ubuntu Server to create our own server.
