All the cool kids these days are running Ubuntu. I’ve avoided it for a while since it’s Debian based and I was a Gentoo ricer (Jackass is hardcore). Well, since I’ve gotten my Macs the Gentoo systems have rotted and I decided to install nUbuntu on my laptop.

nUbuntu is a live security CD and features one of my favorite things: Fluxbox. I’ve avoided Ubuntu because it featured Gnome. Learning Linux on a Playstation 2 taught me something very important: keep it fat free. That means no heavy desktop enviroment. Everything on a Linux system can be changed with a text editor so a lightweight windowing system is all you need. A bloated desktop enviroment just leads to mediocrity in its individual tools. It’s the individual programs that really shine on Linux anyway. Like mplayer, a media player that you can throw anything at and it will play.

Here’s how to do hard drive install after booting the nUbuntu CD:

Bring up the network interface.
$sudo dhclient
Start X Windows.
$startx
Update packages.
$sudo apt-get update
Install Ubiquity.
$sudo apt-get install ubiquity
Run Ubiquity.
$sudo ubiquity
Reboot.
Change permissions so X will start
$sudo chmod 1777 /tmp
Install sweet graphical file manager
$sudo apt-get install rox-filer

The install went fine except my internal ethernet seems to be toast. A condition I began to suspect when Gentoo was still on the system.