Overview
I am installing Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS desktop (as of November 9, 2018) on an old AMD box I had sitting around, the computer has NVidia 1050 I use for TensorFlow Machine Learning.
Download Ubuntu Desktop (amd64)
https://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop
Prepare USB Drive
Note: At first, I tried 32GB drive, but the target computer did not recognize it, then I switched to a smaller USB stick. I used Disk Utility to format it in DOS FAT 32.
$ diskutil list
/dev/disk2 (external, physical): #:
DOS_FAT_32 UBUNTU18_04 7.9 GB disk2s1
Install UNetBooting
https://unetbootin.github.io/Install disk image (ISO) on the USB drive
- Check your USB drive name with "diskutil list" (disk2s1 for me)
- Open "UNetBooting" and select:
- Diskimage (radio button)
- ISO file location
- disk2s1 as the USB Drive
- click OK, it will take a long while
Insert the USB into the target AMD computer
Enter BIOS Setup
Attach a keyboard to your computer.
Start the computer while pressing F10 key to enter BIOS setup. This might be different for your computer model.
In the BIOS you may want to TRY to set up USB (or external mass storage device) as first in the BOOT priority. but my computer did not have that option.
Entering the USB boot with ESC, ESC, ESC
I was able to enter USB boot by starting the computer and pressing ESC key repeatedly.
From here I was shown "UNetBooting" utility and had the option to "Try Ubuntu without installing" which I chose.
Ubuntu Starts
My first impression of Ubuntu 18.04 LTS is that it is much cleaner and modern, it is not Mac OS just yet, but it fills nice.
- I checked the browser and the Internet was on, via Ethernet cable.
- The resolution is very good, 1920x1080
- On the desktop, I had the option to "Install Ubuntu", I followed their easy steps.
- I chose "Erase disk and Install Ubuntu" as I had old windows and Ubuntu 16.04 on it that I did not want to keep. I needed max space for machine learning datasets.
- The installation process was very pleasant and modern.
- Once the installation finished, remove the USB and restart the computer.
Happy Ubuntu computing!