Ubuntu Tutorials

UPDATED: added Kubuntu, Xubuntu and Ubuntu Studio links!!

Well its official.  Ubuntu 8.10 “Intrepid Ibex” has been officially released.  Everyone get your torrents ready and seed! seed! seed!

In an attempt to try and relieve some of the load I’ve made the .torrents, .jigdo, metalink and MD5SUM files available on my server.  If you’re unable to access the main site(s) you can find the torrents for your preferred flavor below:

Ubuntu
Kubuntu
Xubuntu
Ubuntu Studio
Mythbuntu

The upgrade series of posts that published over the last week have been updated to represent a final release (vs a devel-release), and should all work properly.  If you have any problems with upgrading try using the ubuntu tutorials forums and we’ll see if we can help you out.

Enjoy!

I have been continuing work on the integrated forum and based on your feedback I think I have resolved a number of the initial issues.  First of all, OpenID seems to be working now.  There have been numerous updates to the WP plugin I use and it appears the latest finally solves the issue.  Also, registration should be fixed now as well.  My apologies to anyone that has had troubles with the forum thusfar.

I am still working on the rendering in browsers other than Firefox.  I’d appreciate any help from you php/html gurus out there.

Now that those initial problems seem to be sorted out I invite you to dive in and start discussing.

With only four days to go before Ubuntu 8.10 is released we should start preparing.  Those of us that know we are going to be upgrading, or would like to seed torrents, should do what we can ahead of time to help conserve bandwidth.  Here are some things you can do to be prepared come release day:

1. Use jigdo to download your image(s) now, and simply do an incremental download on release day.
2. Make sure your internal mirrors are up-to-date.
3. Use apt-cacher if you’ll be using network-upgrade to update multiple machines.
4. Volunteer your internal mirror to your local release party.
5. Use a local or regional mirror and take the load off the main sites.

I spent some time yesterday evening working on better integrating the forum into the current site.  I’m initially happy with the results (Ubuntu Tutorials Forum).  I appreciate the feedback so far and hope you’ll start taking advantage of the large community we have at this site.

With the forum better integrated now you should be able to use any existing site registration or even openID.

I got an email this morning from a thankful reader who had taken the time to generate a true FF/IE7 search plugin for Ubuntu Tutorials.  After chatting about it a bit we took it one step further and added code to automagically add the search plugin to the browser of those that are interested.

If you would like to add Ubuntu Tutorials to your quick-search menu simply visit the site and then click your quick-search dropdown.  You shoud be prompted with a new menu item allowing you to add “Ubuntu Tutorials Search” to your search menu.  Once you’ve done that you can immediately start directly searching this site for all your tutorial needs.

I’ve been sitting on an idea for a while now and I finally had some time to implement it.  After going through the piles of comments that have been left on this blog I thought I would implement an ubuntu tutorials community forum around the site and its tutorials.  I’ve noticed that many of the comments threads have evolved to something very similar to a community forum, so I thought I’d help facilitate that.

The forum is still very young and its still very much a work in progress so it will rely on you to get going.  I still very much believe in the “release early, release often” model so, even though it isn’t finished, please dive in.

I will be attempting to migrate some of the major posts and discussion topics into the forum so that there is a bit more of a starting point.  I welcome any other suggestions.  You can leave them here.

Continuing the series on upgrading Ubuntu to 8.10 “Intrepid” today I’ll outline using a downloaded CD for the upgrade.  If you already have the CD downloaded there is no need to use one of the previous methods and use your bandwidth.  You already have the packages available on the CD, and you can use that as a source.

What you’ll need to do is insert your 8.10 “Intrepid” CD into the machine to be upgraded.  You should recieve a graphical notification that a new version is available and the upgrade process should begin.

If for whatever reason this process does not start automagically you can manually begin the process with the following:

gksu "sh /cdrom/cdromupgrade"

If you are a Kubuntu user you can begin the process with this command:

kdesu "sh /cdrom/cdromupgrade"

Good luck.

Continuing my series on how to upgrade to Ubuntu 8.10 “Intrepid” I now bring you steps on how to upgrade your Ubuntu Server installation.  Again, these steps are nearly as simple as a desktop upgrade.  The Ubuntu development team has done a really great job of making upgrading simple and painless.

First of all you’ll need to install the upgrade management utility:

sudo aptitude install update-manager-core

Once that is installed (it may already be there, YMMV), start the upgrade manager:

sudo do-release-upgrade

Simply follow the on-screen instructions at this point.  Note: The upgrade manager will alert you that upgrading via remote ssh connection is not suggested, however I have done it multiple times without issue.  Again, your milage may vary.

Enjoy

My last post outlined how to upgrade your Ubuntu desktop from 8.04 LTS to 8.10.  This post addresses those fans of the bling that is KDE.

To upgrade your Kubuntu 8.04 system to 8.10 follow these few steps:

Use the shortcut key “Alt+F2″.  Within the resulting dialog box enter:

kdesu "adept_manager"

You should then see a prompt for “Version Upgrade”.  Select this and follow the prompts.

Both Kubuntu and Ubuntu desktops should be pretty seamless to upgrade using these steps.

Upgrading from Ubuntu 8.04 to Ubuntu 8.10 desktop can be very simple, and can be managed by the integrated update-manager tool.  Here I’ll outline a method for upgrading in just a few easy steps.  Before you dive into the upgrade there are a few things to verify:

1. Be sure that you’ve applied all available updates to your current system.
2. You should also read the Ubuntu 8.10 “Intrepid” release notes, to be aware of any known issues and workarounds.

After you’ve completed the two preparation steps you’re ready to move on to the upgrade.  One thing to keep in mind at this point is that this will use the network to complete the upgrade.  If you’re doing this on release day it may be slow due to the heavy load on the servers.  You may try alternate mirror locations for improved speeds.

To begin the upgrade use the key combination “ALT-F2″ within your Gnome Desktop to launch the run-dialog.  Within that entry dialog enter:

update-manager

Click the “Check” button.  If there are any remaining updates to Ubuntu 8.04 you’ll be prompted to install those.  Once all updates are applied you will see a new dialog notifying you that a new release is available.  Click “Upgrade” to begin the upgrade process.

Simply follow the prompts and you’re done.  This process will download the updates needed, notify you of what will be installed, upgraded or removed and allow you to cancel or continue when you’re ready.  Enjoy!