Linux Community Magazine

How to Obtain An Usable Copy of Linux

There are many distributions of the GNU/Linux operating system. Many of those distributions are available online at their perspective distributor's site or mirror sites. This article will show how to obtain a distribution copy of Linux and make that copy usable.

In order to perform this task the following items are needed:

1) Available hrad disk space; 2) 1 CD or DVD; 3) An optical drive that burns DVDs and CDs; a burning utility such as Nero Burning ROM or Roxio.

Steps for obtaining an usable copy of Linux:

1. Select the best fitting Linux distribution for the needs of the system. There are many different distributions of GNU/Linux. The variety represents the different groups that are being targeted. For instance, some distributions simply general purpose desktops while others may be specifically geared toward the scientific community or multimedia. Research the different distributions and select the one that best fits the needs at hand.

2. After selecting the distribution to be installed:

a) go to the distributor's website;

b) navigate to the download page;

c) select the correct version for the system that it will be installed on (32/64-bit)

d) download the image file onto the hard disk. Remember the location the file was downloaded.

3. Most Linux distributions are saved into image files. The most common is an iso file. The image file must be burned to disk CD/DVD in order to be useful. DO NOT use Windows simple burning utility to do this. Windows burning utility will simply copy the image file to the CD/DVD in the same state that it is when it was downloaded. The burning utilties like Nero Burning ROM and Roxio have a special utility that will burn the image to CD/DVD as it was intended. So run your disk burning program and follow the instructions for burning an image to disk.

The end result you will have a bootable CD/DVD that can be used to install Linux on the target computer. Note that many distributions are also Live distributions, which means that you can run the Linux operating system straight from the CD/DVD without having to install it on the hard disk. This feature allows a testing of Linux before actually installing it.