Gaming I wanna install Ubuntu on my laptop...

[silverbullet1080]

So essentially I want to replace Windows on my laptop with Ubuntu (and I don't want to have both). How would I go about removing Windows and being able to install Ubuntu afterwards?

 

[GutsMan.EXE]

I'm assuming you've already burnt ubuntu onto a cd or something. Format hdd and run installation cd, Done.

 

[Advi]

1. Backup everything you want (music, pictures, movies) to an external hard drive, flash drive, whatever.
2. Download the Ubuntu installation disc. (Or whatever distro you want, I would recommend Linux Mint if you're coming straight out of Windows)
3. Either burn the ISO to a disc or use UNetbootin to create a Live USB drive. I recommend the second one.
4. Boot from the CD/USB and then proceed to install Linux, choosing to wipe and use the ENTIRE drive

done

 

[silverbullet1080]

Excellent, thanks you two

EDIT- What's the difference between Linux Mint and Ubuntu? I looked at wikipedia and I don't see any real differences beyond the UI.

 

[Sir-Fritz]

Their different distros, amongst a hundred other ones.

 

[silverbullet1080]

Their different distros, amongst a hundred other ones.

Well, of course

I meant in terms of features.

EDIT- With Linux, can I use my laptop as a hotspot like I did when I had Windows 7 on it?

 

[Exaltys]

What do you want to do with Linux?

 

[FAST6191]

I am not sure what the standard method for people is these days but you might have to repartition the drive to allow for a swap space (virtual memory aka page file in windows world) and some people like to stick their home directory on a different partition as well (helps when fiddling around with distributions- same idea as sticking My Documents on a different partition). You will probably be given options like this when you install though so do not sweat it too much.

Linux Mint vs Ubuntu
Mint comes from Ubuntu but differs in UI as you say but more importantly in philosophy behind software (although there is a "lawyer safe" version as it were) and what they include- mint makes it incredibly easy to add all the niceties like flash, DVD decoding and beyond (not that it is difficult in others but what would take a search can be done just by looking sort of thing).
I do really like mint but much like most ubuntu respins it is ever so slightly bloated when compared to some of the other big distributions or distant ancestor in debian, still good though and will probably beat windows up to and maybe including a properly cut back version of XP.

 

[smellyunicorn]

The Only problem you'll run into is finding drivers.
Good luck

 

[DespizingU]

Mint might also be a little bit lighter/faster than Ubuntu. Mint's other variations(Mint LXDE, Mint XFCE, Mint Fluxbox) are all definitely lighter/faster than Ubuntu.

Personally, I recently switched to Lubuntu(use the LXDE desktop instead of Gnome, and comes with minimal apps installed, and all of these apps are incredibly light). And the distro is blazing fast. I have a seven year old computer with only 512MB of RAM(which I'll probably upgrade to a GB soon), and because of how bloated Ubuntu is, my computer would sometimes slow down to almost a crawl. I used Ubuntu for over three years. And everytime I installed it the distro would be really quick. But within a couple months time, everything slowed down. The distro just comes with too many apps installed, and most of those apps are heavy in the memory footprint department.

So depending on your computer specs(which to me, I wouldn't care if I had 8GB of RAM and the fastest processor, I would still stick with Lubuntu) you might want to look at lighter/faster distros. Besides Lubuntu or Mint XFCE/Fluxbox(I found both to be faster than Mints LXDE, which I'm an LXDE fan, I just don't know why it's slow on Mint), you might want to try out Crunchbang or Peppermint. All of these you can throw on a LiveCD and check them out before installing them. Arch Linux is supposed to be really light and fast too. But I haven't tried it out yet. Also, Arch isn't an Ubuntu derivative.

But as far as Ubuntu derivatives go, Lubuntu is definitely the lightest. And with release 10.10, there's going to be a minimal install, so it's going to be even lighter!