The Perfect Desktop - Ubuntu Studio 7.04

Version 1.0
Author: Falko Timme <ft [at] falkotimme [dot] com>
Last edited 05/14/2007

Ubuntu Studio is a special Linux distribution tailored to the needs of audio, video, and graphic enthusiasts or professionals. Because Ubuntu Studio is based on Ubuntu, you are not limited to this area, but can install any application that is available for Ubuntu, thus turning Ubuntu Studio in a normal desktop for everyday use. This tutorial shows how you can turn Ubuntu Studio 7.04 into a full-fledged replacement for a Windows desktop. The advantages are clear: you get a secure system without DRM restrictions that works even on old hardware, and the best thing is: all software comes free of charge.

I want to say first that this is not the only way of setting up such a system. There are many ways of achieving this goal but this is the way I take. I do not issue any guarantee that this will work for you!

1 Preliminary Note

To fully replace a Windows desktop, I want the Ubuntu Studio 7.04 desktop to have the following software installed (besides the audio/video/graphic creating/editing software that comes with Ubuntu Studio anyway, as shown on http://www.howtoforge.com/ubuntustudio_7.04):

Graphics:

• The GIMP - free software replacement for Adobe Photoshop
• F-Spot - full-featured personal photo management application for the GNOME desktop
• Google Picasa - application for organizing and editing digital photos

Internet:

• Firefox
• Opera
• Flash Player 9
• gFTP - multithreaded FTP client
• Thunderbird - email and news client
• Evolution - combines e-mail, calendar, address book, and task list management functions
• aMule - P2P file sharing application
• Bittorrent client
• Azureus - Java Bittorrent client
• Gaim - multi-platform instant messaging client
• Skype
• Google Earth
• Xchat IRC - IRC client

Office:

• OpenOffice Writer - replacement for Microsoft Word
• OpenOffice Calc - replacement for Microsoft Excel
• Adobe Reader
• GnuCash - double-entry book-keeping personal finance system, similar to Quicken
• Scribus - open source desktop publishing (DTP) application

Sound & Video:

• Amarok - audio player
• Audacity - free, open source, cross platform digital audio editor
• Banshee - audio player, can encode/decode various formats and synchronize music with Apple iPods
• MPlayer - media player (video/audio), supports WMA
• Rhythmbox Music Player - audio player, similar to Apple's iTunes, with support for iPods
• gtkPod - software similar to Apple's iTunes, supports iPod, iPod nano, iPod shuffle, iPod photo, and iPod mini
• XMMS - audio player similar to Winamp
• dvd::rip - full featured DVD copy program
• Kino - free digital video editor
• Sound Juicer CD Extractor - CD ripping tool, supports various audio codecs
• VLC Media Player - media player (video/audio)
• Real Player
• Totem - media player (video/audio)
• Xine - media player, supports various formats; can play DVDs
• GnomeBaker - CD/DVD burning program
• K3B - CD/DVD burning program
• Multimedia-Codecs

Programming:

• Nvu - WYSIWYG HTML editor, similar to Macromedia Dreamweaver, but not as feature-rich (yet)
• Bluefish - text editor, suitable for many programming and markup languages
• Quanta Plus - web development environment, including a WYSIWYG editor

Other:

• VMware Server - lets you run your old Windows desktop as a virtual machine under your Linux desktop, so you don't have to entirely abandon Windows
• TrueType fonts
• Java
• Read/Write support for NTFS partitions

Ubuntu Studio automatically installs the GNOME desktop.

Lots of our desired applications are available in the Ubuntu/Ubuntu Studio repositories, and some of these applications have been contributed by the Ubuntu community. The rest (except for Nvu) can be obtained by using Automatix.

I will use the username falko in this tutorial. Please replace it with your own username.

2 Installing The Base System

The installation of the base system is easy as 1-2-3 because the Ubuntu Studio installer doesn't offer a lot of options to choose from, so you cannot go wrong.

Download the Ubuntu Studio 7.04 DVD from http://www.ubuntustudio.org, burn it onto a DVD, and boot your computer from it. At the boot prompt, select Install Ubuntu Studio:

The installation starts, and first you have to choose your language:

Then select your location:

Let the installer detect your keyboard layout; you'll have to press some keys to make the installer detect the right layout:

The installer checks the installation CD, your hardware, and configures the network with DHCP if there is a DHCP server in the network:

You can accept the default hostname:

Now you have to partition your hard disk. For simplicity's sake I will create one big partition (with the mount point /) and a little swap partition so I select Guided - use entire disk (of course, the partitioning is totally up to you - if you like, you can create more than just one big partition, and you can also use LVM):

Select the disk that you want to partition:

Select Yes when you're asked Write changes to disks?:

Afterwards, your new partitions are created and formatted:

Configure your system's clock:

Create a normal user account for yourself or the person that will use the Ubuntu Studio desktop:

Now the base system is being installed:

Next, the package manager apt gets configured automatically:

The software installation starts:

On the Software selection screen, you can choose which package groups you'd like to install. In this tutorial, I want to install all package groups (Audio, Graphics, Plugins, Video):

Afterwards, the software installation continues:

Next you have to select the desktop resolutions you'd like to use (normally the resolutions that are supported by your graphic card are already selected, so you can simply hit Continue):

The GRUB boot loader gets installed:

The installation is now finished. Remove the installation DVD from the DVD drive and hit Continue to reboot the system:

After the reboot your new Ubuntu Studio system starts:

Log in to the desktop with the username and password you provided during the installation:

This is how your new desktop looks: