How to install Linux
Completely new to Linux distros? Fear not, as we provide a step-by-step guide to take you from initial download to installing applications
Most Linux distributions are free to download and install. All you need to get started is an ISO and a thumb drive to host the installer. While we prefer to run Linux on a dedicated hard drive or SSD, we’ve yet to come across an installer that won’t offer to repartition an existing internal drive. Do that and you can run Linux alongside an existing Windows installation.
STEP 1 DOWNLOAD BALENAETCHER
BalenaEtcher extracts ISOs onto USB drives and sets them up for booting. All of the distributions on test, unless they had a media creator, were installed in this manner, either from the live OS or a specific installation routine that appears at boot. BalenaEtcher is a free download from etcher.balena.io. When it’s finished downloading, install and launch it.
STEP 2 DOWNLOAD LINUX
Once you’ve decided which version of Linux you want to install, download an ISO of its desktop, workstation or client version. Frequently, each will be available for a variety of processor architectures, so make sure you choose the appropriate distribution for your PC, which will almost certainly be marked as x86_64, x86-64 or AMD64.
STEP 3 SELECT THE DISTRO AND DRIVE
Plug in your USB thumb drive and, once it’s mounted, switch to balenaEtcher. Click “Flash from file” and select the ISO you downloaded in the previous step. Next, click “Select target” and choose your USB thumb drive. Note that it’s possible to select multiple drives simultaneously, so make sure you’ve chosen the right one, then click “Select 1”. Check that the correct ISO and drive are shown on the balenaEtcher home screen, then click Flash. Windows will pop up a User Account Control dialog asking whether you want to authorise it to make changes. Allow this, and the process will begin.
STEP 4 CONFIGURE YOUR BIOS
Extracting the ISO and writing it to your USB flash drive should take less than five minutes. Once the process has completed, eject the drive and plug it in to the machine on which you want to install Linux. Start or reboot it, then press the button that either directs it to start from an external drive or opens the BIOS or UEFI. This is usually shown briefly during the boot process. If it isn’t, common options are F10, F11 or F12. Search online for your specific motherboard or computer manufacturer.
We’ve yet to come across an installer that won’t offer to repartition an existing drive. Do that and you can run Linux alongside Windows
STEP 5 SET YOUR STARTUP DRIVE
When you’ve entered the BIOS or UEFI configurator, navigate through its screens, which vary depending on manufacturer, until you find an option for setting your boot device. Give priority to your USB-mounted flash drive, save any changes you have made, then exit. Your PC will reboot again.
What happens next depends on the build of Linux you’re installing. Some will launch a dedicated installer immediately, but many will initiate a live environment in which you can use most of the operating system’s features directly. This may be overlaid by a dialog offering to install the OS directly, or there may be a shortcut to this on the desktop. In either case, initiate the process.
STEP 6 INSTALL LINUX
The first few screens of the installation process will usually ask you to specify your installation language and keyboard layout. You’ll also be asked to set up your network connection. Although you can often skip the network step, we’d recommend following through as it will allow the installer to check whether it has been updated itself – and to download additional components and options.
One example is third-party codecs, which might not be included in the original bundle because they don’t have an open-source licence. You’ll usually be asked whether you want to download these add-ons. We normally opt to do so but, depending on how you feel about closed- versus open-source code, you’ll need to make your own decision.
STEP 7 PARTITION YOUR DRIVE
You now need to decide whether you want to install Linux alongside an existing operating system, if your machine already has one, or wipe the drive and install it solo. Here, we’re installing Zorin on a virtual machine with an empty drive, but we can still manually choose how we want to partition the drive by clicking “Something else”, then Continue.
If you choose to install two operating systems side by side then, whichever version of Linux you want to set up, make sure you have an up-to-date backup of the original OS from which you can restore should something go wrong when repartitioning the drive.
STEP 8 GO FOR IT
There are plenty of opportunities to back out along the way but, if you’re happy with the decisions you’ve made, the final step is to commit to the process and install Linux on your machine. The length of time this takes can vary significantly, based on the speed of your PC, the speed of your thumb drive, the size and complexity of the distribution you’re installing, and whether it needs to download any additional resources.
When the process has finished, reboot your PC and, unless prompted to do so earlier, remove the USB flash drive immediately after restart so it’s not used as your boot source.
STEP 9 APPLY UPDATES
Like Windows, Linux receives regular patches, and there’s a fair chance that unless the ISO you downloaded was freshly compiled (as would be the case with a rolling system such as openSUSE) there will already be patches or updates available.
Your first job on booting the new operating system, therefore, is to connect to your network and allow it to check for patches. Most will check automatically but, if not, check for a dedicated software installer, such as the App Center or Software utilities (depending on the version) in Ubuntu.
STEP 10 INSTALL APPLICATIONS
Most distributions install a range of default applications, usually covering productivity, browsing and communications. Depending on how you plan to use your computer, these might not cover all bases, so you should browse the integrated app installer for any additional tools you require. Note that the range of applications will vary between distributions depending on which repositories they can access. Check the documentation if you want to add extra repositories, or download applications directly from developer sites if they aren’t included.