Comment by ProllyInfamous | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ProllyInfamous | Hacker News Reader

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The most-difficult part of installing any Linux distro is getting the motivation to create the boot media. Luckily for Ubuntu (I'm running v26) you can use an old HD or USB and then [your flavor of LLM] to then walk you through the steps on how to make the media bootable (at least: that's what I did). I am a bluecollar electrician (yes, it took me a few tries; yes, I accidentally fucked up my first few OS's doing stupid not-recommended shit).

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Highly recommend Ubuntu; I've dabbled in the past, but the fact that AMD and nVIDIA drivers are pre-installed, in a user-friendly GUI installer... is what has helped me make Linux my main desktop (over the past half-year). Bought a Microcenter prebuilt and never even booten Win11 (straight to Ubuntu installer).

Over the past three decades, I have really tried to like several Linux'es, but have always reverted to (e.g:) Win7 or MacOS. Being able to run local LLM-models is what led me to Ubuntu (RX580->VEGA64->5070Ti)... it's been a journey =P

Sidenote: "AMD Drivers", in the sense of "something you have to download and install manually", are not a thing any more, fortunately. It's just nvidia now.

In Debian, even nvidia drivers are part of the OS repositories, albeit in the non-free category which is not enabled by default. I would be surprised if Ubuntu did not have them too.

Agree with this. As much as Ubuntu is derided for several reasons, it just works. I tinkered with different distros for years, and while it was super fun, I wasn't very productive. Ubuntu and Fedora are the only distros where stuff just worked for me.

I've been using Ubuntu since around the time you needed an invite to create a Gmail account. Back then it was a breath of fresh air, because the install was batteries-included and Canonical's help forums were genuinely useful.

Ubuntu is bloated now but still just about OK despite:

* Snooping on users. * Forcing people to install Snaps. * Relentlessly promoting systemd, which turned out to be a giant mistake. * Pointless fiddling about with the desktop in every release. * Canonical having a universe-class egomaniac for a CEO, even by South African tech-billionaire standards.

But if Ubuntu has been treading water for 25 years, that represents an improvement over the titanic disaster that is Windows 11, and the walled-garden den of developer hostility that is Apple.

Bootable media isn't that difficult. You need the right tool. Not sure what's current on Windows; I used Etchdroid recently. And you need a spare USB drive. That's the most annoying part. And you need to download the OS. And then you use the tool to put the OS on the drive.

I find that Rufus (https://rufus.ie/en/) is excellent for writing USB disks. I believe it's Windows/DOS only, but even as a Linux user for several decades, I boot into Windows just to run it if I need to burn an installer.

On Linux if you're comfortable with the command line use "sudo dd"

I've tried that previously (or sudo dcfldd to give better feedback), but it doesn't always seem to work for ISOs. Ironically, I've had issues writing Linux ISOs onto a USB stick under Linux, so nowadays I just use Rufus which has never failed me.

I've installed a few SBCs and they don't tend to have an issue booting, so I do use dd/dcfldd for those. I wonder if it's because they use SD cards that they don't have an issue.

What if they had usb drives with Linux installers in blister packs at electronics stores?

I would have paid $19.99USD for this. For serious.

Seems like an obvious fundraising avenue (for Ubuntu Foundation).

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