Preface: This is for the text version of the Ubuntu Server operating System. In this how-to guide I will cover how to download and create both a DVD and a bootable USB stick for installation. I will be installing and showing screen shots of the install on a Virtual Machine(VM). The steps remain the same no matter where you choose to install Ubuntu however so don’t fret over that. We don’t recommend installing this on your main computer and we recommend installing on a spare computer that you have laying around. This guide assumes you are running Windows 7 or later. We do not recommend installing this on your main computer at home.
Step 1: We will need to go and download a copy of Ubuntu 18.04 from the internets. It is a free download from http://releases.ubuntu.com/18.04/. This download will usually be placed in the c:/users/
You will need to select the Server install image to follow the instructions in this guide. I will also include Screen shots of the installation at the end of the guide.
Step 2: Creating either a DVD or a bootable USB to install Ubuntu off of It won’t need to be more then a 2GB flash drive as the ubuntu install ISO is not that large. You can choose either one to create the install media.
Once you have the ISO downloaded the next step is to find a DVD to burn the ISO image to. Start by putting a blank DVD into your DVD-R/RW drive. Go find the ISO you just downloaded and right click the ISO image. Once the right-click menu appears select burn disc image and follow the prompts by clicking next until finished. It will burn the image to the DVD for you and you are ready to install on your spare computer.
If you don’t have a DVD burner or don’t have a DVD reader in the computer, you are installing ubuntu on there is a solution for getting the ISO and making a bootable USB drive. There are many options out there, but we recommend using Rufus. You can find and download Rufus here https://rufus.ie/
Once you have Rufus downloaded it shouldn’t take much time as it’s only about a 1 MB download. You will want to load Rufus up and select your device first, this will be your USB drive you want to make bootable. Then you will want to make sure under the Boot Selection option you select the Select button on the right-hand side of the window. It will bring up a window that should default to the downloads folder or wherever your downloads go. Select the ubuntu 18.04 ISO image here. Once all that is done select Start and it will make your USB drive bootable so you can boot it on your machine.
Step 3: Now that you have the DVD or your USB stick ready to go. We are going to walk you through the installation of Ubuntu 18.04. Here we assume that there is network connectivity to the machine, but this can be set up later though we will walk you through how to setup networking during the install of Ubuntu 18.04
First thing you would need to do is check to make sure that the computer is set to boot from either DVD or USB in the BIOS setting prior to booting from hard disk. Every computer is different, and some computers may already have the options set up for you IE boot order is set to USB and DVD before booting from hard disk. Once you have verified that the boot order is correct. You are now ready to start the installation of ubuntu 18.04 LTS
Next up will be the actual installation of Ubuntu 18.04. the first thing it will ask you will be to select the language you would like to use during the install and post installation. By default English is selected here but you can choose other languages if you so choose. Next up will be selecting the keyboard layout again it defaults to English but feel free to select any other languages if you so choose.
On the next screen you will see 3 options with the first being to install ubuntu 18.04 just select continue to keep going through the installation. On the next screen it will prompt you to select a network card. On this screen you will be able to either assign your server a Static IP address or let it have a dynamic IP address assigned by the router at your house. We recommend having a static IP on a server. So to change it from a dynamic to a static go up to select the network card. On the subnet mask you will want to put your routers IP address but replace the .1 on the end with a .0 and then use the /24 to indicate the subnet. On the IP address you will want to assign your server an IP address. The default gateway will be your routers address usually 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.0.1. The name Servers address will be 192.168.1.1 usually indicating that you don’t have your own DNS servers hosted at home. Search Domains can be ignored as you probably don’t have any domains to search at your house. Now click on Save and then click on done to finish setting up your ubuntu servers IP address.
The next Screen will be for a proxy server which you most likely don’t have so just click on Done here. The Ubuntu mirror address you can just leave the way it is as this is how you will update and upgrade ubuntu 18.04. Now we get to the good stuff which is getting the hard drive set up. For this we recommend using the first option which is the default option of using the entire disk. From here just follow the defaults. Once you hit done with the Hard drive set up it will prompt and warn you about loss of Data but since we are doing this on an older machine Select continue.
The next screen will allow you to enter your information and a log in for the ubuntu machine. The next page will allow to add roles to the ubuntu server if you so choose. But since we are creating just a brand new installation of ubuntu 18.04 just select done. And that is it you are now finished installing ubuntu 18.04 on your computer. You will be prompted to reboot once the installation finishes.
