Install Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS to the USB flash disk:
(SanDisk Ultra Luxe USB3.2Gen1 32GB, Model: SDCZ74-032G-G46)

• Under Windows, just right-click on the .iso file and choose
  
  
  Caution: Do NOT just drag the .iso file into the icon of CD/DVD drive. Otherwise your are burning a disc containing the .iso file instead of making a bootable disc in the format of ISO 9660.
  
  
• Under Linux GUI, you can use burning tools such as Brasero.
  
• Under Linux shell, you can use command line utility such as wodim:
  • To find out the device name of your CD/DVD drive, type widom --devices
    You will see something like:
    

           
        wodim: Overview of accessible drives (1 found) :
        -------------------------------------------------------------------------
         0  dev='/dev/sr1' rwrw-- : 'TSSTcorp' 'CDDVDW SH-S223F'
        -------------------------------------------------------------------------
           

    The device name is then /dev/sr1.
    To check the spec of the CD/DVD drive:
    wodim -prcap dev=/dev/sr1
    
  • To burn the disc, use either of the following commands:
    wodim -v dev=/dev/sr1 speed=10 -eject /temp/file.iso   
    or
    growisofs -dvd-compat -Z /dev/sr1=/temp/file.iso
    
    
• Restart your computer. In the BIOS menu, choose Boot from CD/DVD or something similar. Enter the installation menu of Linux and pay attention to the instructions before you start. Otherwise you will destroy the operating system or the boot record on the harddisk.
  
  Detailed installation procedure using the DVD drive follows,
  
  Using Intel NUC7i3 as an example: after power-on, press F10 to enter the (BIOS) menu for boot device selection .
  Choose the USB: DVD device to boot (in this example, USB : MATSUSHITADVD-RAM). Exact name of the device will vary.
  
  
  

  ---

  1. The GUI will bring you to the Casper interface for installation after boot.
     Choose either English or Chinese interface, then click Install Ubuntu.
     If you choose Chinese interface, refer to the link which used 16.04 as an example. It should be similar to 20.04.3 .
     If you choose English interface, read the following section.
     
     

     ---

  2. Config boot devices in Intel NUC7i3 BIOS/Firmware: press F2 to enter BIOS setup, F10 to list menu for boot devices
     ↓ After power-on, quickly press F2 to enter BIOS config,
     
     
     ↓ In BI-304, the default boot device in Intel NUC7i3 is the PNY CS1031 256GB SSD with Windows 7 installed using legacy Master Boot Record (MBR) partition.
     ↓ The booting strategy Legacy refers to the novel UEFI firmware with Compatibility Support Module (CSM) enabled.
     
     
     ↓ Disable the Legacy mode to enable pure-UEFI booting strategy by un-checking the box.
     Press F10 to save and exit BIOS. The system will reboot.
     
     
     ↓ Once the screen goes blank, quickly press F10 to list boot-able devices. Choose UEFI:LAN:PXE IP4 to boot the system from Ukko via network using IPv4.
     
     This will bring the system into the boot menu loaded by Preboot eXecution Environment (PXE).
     
     ↓ Choose Casper Live over Focal (20.04.3) and press Enter to load the Casper Live from network.
     
     
     ↓ The Casper Live environment looks like this. We will use the Install Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS icon to start the installer later.
     
     
     
  3. ↓ Click on the nine-white-dots to show the Application Center. Open Terminal and type sudo su - to switch to root without password under the shell prompt.
     
     
     
     ↓ Type df | grep sd to check if your USB flash drive is automatically mounted during boot process. If yes, type umount /dev/sda? to unmount its partitions. In the following figure it was /dev/sda1 to be unmounted.
     
     
     Type gdisk -l /dev/nvme0n1 and you will see the SSD with Windows 7 installed. Do NOT change the configuration of this SSD!
     On the other hand, if you type gdisk -l /dev/sda , you will see the USB flash drive with the model number and its current partition. Since this one is brand new, it should only contain one partition /dev/sda1 with FAT32 or NTFS.
     ↓ Click on the Install Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS icon to start the installer.
     
     
     ↓ Choose English and click Continue.
     
     
     ↓ For Keyboard Layout, choose English(US) for both columns and click Continue. This selects the layout, not the language!
     
     
     ↓ For Wireless, choose I don't want to connect to a Wi-Fi network and click Continue, since wired Ethernet is used in BI-304.
     
     
     ↓ For Updates and other software, choose Normal installation and click Continue.
     
     
     ↓ In the Installation type menu, choose Something else and click Continue.
     
     
     
  4. The next step is to re-partition the USB flash drive. Pay attention to this section very carefully!
     In our case, the target device to install Linux is /dev/sda. Again, do NOT change the configuration of the SSD /dev/nvme0n1 !
     
     
     
     
  5. Remove all the partitions that already exist in the USB flash drive /dev/sda .
     ↓ You can type gdisk -l /dev/sda under shell prompt to check its current partition contents.
     
     
     ↓ In our case, first choose /dev/sda1, then click the minus sign –. This will remove the partition of sda1
     
     
     ↓ You will see that /dev/sda1 disappeared and instead, a free space is obtained.
     
     
     
  6. If there are more partitions /dev/sda[1-9] under /dev/sda, delete them one by one in reverse order by repeating the previous step until no partition under /dev/sda is left.
     After you delete all of the existing partitions under /dev/sda, total free space of /dev/sda is about 30765MB in size.
     ↓ Create a new partition /dev/sda1 by clicking the free space, then the plus sign +;
     
     
     Appoint the size of /dev/sda1 as 2048 MB, set its partition type to Primary, Location as Beginning of the space, Use as (filesystem type) FAT32, and assign its Mount point as /windows. This partition can be accessed under Windows or MacOS, but DO NOT try to check this filesystem under Windows; otherwise the whole Linux system in this USB flash will be destroyed !
     ↓ Click OK.
     
     
     ↓ Create the second partition /dev/sda2 by clicking the free space below sda1, then the plus sign +. Just ignore the free space of 1MB above sda1 because it has a reserved function.
     
     
     Appoint the size of /dev/sda2 as 1 MB only. Set its partition type to Primary, Location as Beginning of the space,
     Use as (filesystem type) Reserved BIOS boot area, also known as biosgrub; later this partition will be installed with the file core.img by the grub-instll program.
     ↓ Click OK.
     
     
     ↓ Create the third partition /dev/sda3 by clicking the free space below sda2, then the plus sign +.
     
     Appoint the size of /dev/sda3 as 512 MB. Set its partition type to Primary, Location as Beginning of the space,
     Use as (filesystem type) EFI System Partition, also known as ESP; later this partition will be mounted as /boot/efi for pure-UEFI booting strategy.
     ↓ Click OK.
     
     
     ↓ Create the fourth partition /dev/sda4 by clicking the free space below sda3, then the plus sign +.
     
     Appoint the size of /dev/sda4 as the default size detected by the installer, in the following example, 28205 MB, which is about 27GB to install the Ubuntu 20.04.3 Linux system.
     Set its partition type to Primary, Location as Beginning of the space,
     Use as (filesystem type) Ext4 journaling filesystem, and assign its Mount point as /
     ↓ Click OK.
     
     
     ↓ The final free space of 1MB below sda4 is not usable. Just ignore it.
     
     
     
  7. Now you have finished new partition planning for /dev/sda.
     Before you proceed installation, make sure AGAIN that the boot loader is to be installed to /dev/sda USB SanDisk 3.2Gen1 (30.8GB)!!!
     ↓ It has to be /dev/sda , NOT /dev/sda1 NOR /dev/sda2 ...etc !!!
     
     
     ↓ Click Install Now.
     
     
     
  8. A confirmation is required before writing changes to disk. Prior to this action, the modifications to the partitions are only done in the memory, and you can undo the change by clicking the Revert.
     ↓ Once you click Continue, all the changes to partitions will be written to the disk and undo actions will no longer be possible.
     
     
     
  9. Select your time zone. If you choose English installation without network access, the defult time zone will be the New York time.
     ↓ Change it to Taiwan or Taipei by either clicking on the world map, or just type Taiwan in the blank box.
     
     
     ↑ Click Continue after you choose the correct local time zone.
     
     
     
  10. ↓ Under shell prompt, type gdisk -l /dev/sda to check the new partitions the installer just created.
      
      
      ↓ The command output of df -h lists the new partitions mounted under /target to be installed with Linux.
      
      
      Use blkid /dev/sda? to get the UUIDs of those new partitions, and check /target/etc/fstab for the filesystem table (fstab) of the Linux system
      to be installed by cat /target/etc/fstab
      ↓ Compare entries colored differently below, and the UUIDs must match each other. The actual UUIDs of your installation will NOT be identical to those in the example figure.
      
      
      ↓ If the UUIDs do not match each other, you will have to fix them by hand otherwise your Linux system might have problems to boot correctly!
      
      
      
  11. Create a default account in this Linux system. The login account name is in the field of Pick a username. This maps to the $USER, $USERNAME and $LOGNAME variables after you login the new system under bash.
      In the following example, the real username is john, and the hostname will be twix. It is suggested that you use the same username style as that at Ukko, in the format of u1234567 or u123456789 for the convenience of ssh and sftp in class.
      ↓ The field of Your Name is for the finger command output; in this example, John Doe.
      
      
      
  12. The installation will start after you click Continue. The following figures show the screen during installation.
      ↓ This will take a while depending on your target device, and if you want to monitor the detail, click on the small black triangle ▶ next to the Almost finished copying files....
      
      
      
      ↑ The installation to the USB flash drive requires 20-30 minutes.
      
      After installation is completed, you can choose to Continue Testing.
      ↓ Or click Restart Now to reboot the system.
      
      ↓ If you do installation from DVD drive, a warning of ejecting disc will be prompted.
      
      
      PS. If you got stuck in the shutdown process, press Ctrl-C to force reboot.
      Note that Ubuntu 20.04.[12] installer using NFS-iso trick has a bug that will leave the PC with endless waiting time to reboot system after installation. Wait for 3 mintues and press reset bottom to reboot. (Only applies to the installation. You need to shutdown the Linux properly after this reset.)
      
      
  ↓ After the installation is finished and during the blank screen of reset, quickly hit F10 repeatedly. In the boot device list, choose ubuntu. Boot from it brings you into Linux Desktop GUI.
  
  
  
  ↑ Choose your user and type your password to login.
  
  ↓ If your account is not shown, click Not listed? to choose from the list.
  
  
  

Install MBR boot record for legacy BIOS boot strategy after installation

• The first time of your login will give you some hints about privacy setting.
  ↓ Skip the Clound accounts at the current stage.
  
  
  ↓ Skip Livepatch at the current stage.
  
  
  ↓ You can choose to opt-out the feedback function by selecting don't send system info to Canonical.
  
  
  ↓ Grey-out location feedback.
  
  
  ↓ Click Done.
  
  
  <Super> refers to the window key on your keyboard.
  
  
• Starting from 20.04, the hot-key to activate Application Center of Ubuntu is moved to the lower-left corner of your desktop by default.
  ↓ Click on the icon of the nine-white-dots to show the pre-installed applications. Launch terminal to get the shell prompt.
  
  
  
  The function of search can help to locate applications and is similar to that under Windows.
  ↓ Type the keyword of the filename you want to search, for example, terminal or gnome-terminal.
  
  
  ↓ If the Software Updater pops out, click Remind Me Later or just close its window.
  
  
  Under shell prompt, switch to root first by sudo su - and enter your password again. We need to do some setup for this new system.
  
  1. Turn off auto-update and switch to manual mode.
     sudo apt install vim
sudo vi /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/20auto-upgrades
     ↓ Change every field with "1" into "0". Save the file then exit.
     
     Although software update is important, the unattended (automatic) kernel update in Ubuntu frequently made the system with specific confirgurations (for example, NVidia CUDA, hardware RAID card, software-RAID on root filesystem, and several library dependencies... etc.) malfunction during boot process after update. Switch to manual mode for software update is strongly recommended especially for servers.
     
     
  2. Install MBR boot record for legacy BIOS booting strategy.
     Type apt install binutils . This will install the strings tool.
     Then type df -h to make sure all of the partitions under /dev/sda are mounted corretly.
     ↓ Type grub-install --target=i386-pc --recheck /dev/sda . You should see the output message of installation finished without error reported.
     
     
     ↓ Type dd if=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1 2>/dev/null | strings
     If eight lines appear as shown in the figure below, the legacy boot code for MBR (boot.img) is installed successfully. This USB flash drive will be able to boot for platforms using legacy BIOS or UEFI+CSM from now on.
     
     
     
  3. Turning off swap space (virtual memory) is suggested if you install the Linux system in the USB flash:
     vi /etc/fstab
     Comment the line starting with /swapfile by adding a hashtag # in the beginning of that line. Then save and run:
     swapoff /swapfile
rm /swapfile
     After reboot the swapfile will not be generated and used anymore. However if you install the Linux system in a hard disk, you can leave the swap space there to improve the performance of the system.
     To check if there is any active swap space being used at the current stage, type:
     cat /proc/swaps
     If no device is shown below the line of,
     

     Filename                                Type            Size    Used    Priority

     there is no swap space used right now.
     
     ↓ Type update-initramfs -u to update the inital ramdisk for booting.
     Note that every time you change /etc/fstab, you should run update-initramfs -u followed by update-grub to make it effective for the next boot.
     
     
     
  4. Adjust the GRUB menu for boot:
     Edit /etc/default/grub and change three lines as below:
     GRUB_TIMEOUT_STYLE=menu
GRUB_TIMEOUT=10
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=" splash"
     ↓ Save and exit then type update-grub
     
     
     
     Before reboot, confirm that currently the system is boot in UEFI mode using the command ls -al /sys/firmware
     ↓ If a directory named efi exists, the system was boot in UEFI mode.
     
     
     Now reboot the system to test if the changes to GRUB menu is effective. You should be able to see the GRUB menu after you hit F10 and choose ubuntu from the boot device list.
     ↓ A countdown of 10 seconds will appear at the bottom line.
     
     
     

  Test the legacy BIOS boot strategy

• During system reset, hit F2 to enter the BIOS setup.
  ↓ Re-enable the Legacy Boot under the Legacy tab of the Boot Order. Press F10 to save and exit. This enables the CSM function under UEFI.
  
  
  Repeatedly hit F10 during system reset. The boot device list becomes the figure below.
  ↓ Choose the second entry USB:USB:PART 0:Boot Drive to boot Ubuntu in legacy BIOS mode.
  
  ↑ The first entry ubuntu will boot from the USB flash drive in UEFI mode;
  ↑ The thrid entry LAN:IBA CL Slot....will boot the system by wired Ethernet in legacy BIOS mode.
  ↑ The last entry PNY CS1031 256GB SSD:PART 0:Boot Drive will boot the system into Windows 7 installed in the SSD /dev/nvme0n1 in legacy BIOS mode.
  
  ↓ The GRUB menu under legacy BIOS boot mode looks like: (in high-resolution)
  
  
  ↓ Just let it boot with *Ubuntu by default. Press Enter will boot directly without waiting for 10 seconds.
  
  
  After GUI login, lauch the Terminal and type ls -al /sys/firmware under shell prompt.
  ↓ You will NOT find the directory named efi so curretly, this machine is confirmed to boot in legacy BIOS mode with CSM.
  
  
  From the procedure above, we have confirmed that this USB flash drive can boot in both UEFI and legacy BIOS modes.
  If your own laptop/desktop PC supports modern UEFI boot, always boot to Linux in UEFI mode; you will also need to disable the secure boot function in the UEFI setting.
  Use legacy boot only if your PC is an older model that lacks of UEFI firmware.
  
  Now you can reboot the system into UEFI mode and proceed the following post-installation steps.
  Leave the NUC's UEFI setting with Legacy mode enabled so that the Windows 7 installed in the SSD is also boot-able under CSM support.
  

Post-installation

• If you failed to connect internet using DHCP, type sudo dhclient to obtain the IP address.
  You can also issue the command ping 168.95.1.1 -c 3 to check if Internet connection is available. That host is the DNS server of hinet.
  
  
• Update the software database: sudo apt update
  
  
• Check if your vi | vim is a symbolic link to vim.tiny or vim.basic. We need the real vim for our class.
  whereis vim
locate vim
sudo apt install vim
  ( You should have already done this before you edit /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/20auto-upgrades )
  
  
• Manually upgrade all of the packages to the newest version by sudo apt upgrade
  Note that I only do this kind of all-package upgrade either after initial installation, or when I am going to upgrade the whole system to a newer distributation release, for example, from Ubuntu 20.04 to 22.04.
  Always "upgrade" each package by the command of sudo apt install <pkg-name> , NOT using apt upgrade.
  
  
• Add language locales after installation under English interface:
  sudo vi /etc/locale.gen
  Un-comment the three consecutive lines containing zh_TW BIG5 , zh_TW.EUC-TW EUC-TW and zh_TW.UTF-8 UTF-8, then save and run:
  sudo locale-gen
  
  
• Change the format of time back to English style:
  sudo vi /etc/default/locale
  Change the value of LC_TIME= back to "en_US.UTF-8" or "en_US.utf8".
  
  

Install full Mandarin-Chinese language support and other Input Method

File Manager

Internet Browsers

Several packages you may try for X-windows

Open the command line shell. Find something like terminal, xterm, gnome-terminal, lxterm and uxterm.


• Opensource applications that substitute Microsoft Office are LibreOffice or OpenOffice. One of them should have been pre-installed.
  The equivalent package names are: .

  M$ Office:	Word	Excel	PowerPoint	Equation editor	Access	Publisher
  LibreOffice:	Write	Calc	Impress	Math	Base	Draw

  
  
  If the Linux distribution that you choose does not contain LibreOffice by default, you can also install it by:
  sudo apt install libreoffice
  
  
• Some classic X applications: xclock, xeyes, xmaze, .....etc. Launch them under the shell by commands like:
  xclock &
  Note the ampersand sign & after the command. This submits the command into background. Otherwise your foreground will get stuck until you quit the application.
  

Other applications you will need for your system during this semester

1. Check if /bin/sh is a symbolic link to /bin/bash or /bin/dash. We need the real bash for our class.
   whereis bash
locate bash
sudo apt install bash
   Note that Ubuntu 20.04 installs the sytem with real /bin/bash and symbolically links to /bin/sh ; for Ubuntu 18.04 or earlier, the /bin/sh links to /bin/dash, which is a simplified version of bash. In those earlier distributions, you need to do apt install bash by yourself.
   
   
2. File transfer between platforms: FileZilla
   Install it by sudo apt install filezilla
   
   
3. Screen capture: for Ubuntu 20.04, the PrintScreen, Alt-PrintScreen and Shift-PrintScreen can already offer enough functions for you. The captured image will be saved under your $HOME/Pictures directory.
   
   See also https://help.ubuntu.com/stable/ubuntu-help/screen-shot-record.html for more details.
   
   Another tool for screen capture in Linux is ksnapshot.
   See the homepage of your senior schoolmate 黃浩儒 for his experiences in ksnapshot. You might need to use either one for your presentation or homework.
   
   
4. Again, if you failed to get an IP address using DHCP, type sudo dhclient

Rescue Boot Record of Windows

• Boot with the Windows installation DVD.
• Choose "repair your computer" (修復你的電腦)
  
• Choose "operating system you want to repair" (你想修復的系統)
  
  
• Choose "command prompt" (命令提示字元)
  
  
• Type diskpart,
  then select disk 0,
  then select partiton 1,
  then active, finally exit.
  Replace the disk/partition number with that of your system.
  
  
  
• Type bootrec /fixmbr
  bootrec /rebuildbcd
  bootrec /fixboot
  
  
• Then reboot system.

Some of the progress of next week:

More shell commands: