If you don't fancy carrying the delicate Ubuntu installation CD around with you, you can copy its contents to a USB key stick and use that to install Ubuntu onto computers (provided those computers can boot from USB, and most modern computers will be able to).
Several of my computers sometimes mysteriously lose minutes when switched off, so that the time they display slowly becomes more and more behind. Luckily I have Ubuntu installed. This can periodically synchronize with the main Ubuntu time server, and thus never let the computers get out of step with the rest of the world.
It's a myth to say that Ubuntu (or any Linux) needs a swap partition. This is certainly the preferred way of working, and is most efficient, but Linux can also use a single swap file located in the root partition, just like Windows or Mac OS X.
Ubuntu includes a software called readahead that, according to the official blurb, "allows the user to specify a set of files to be read into the page cache to accelerate first time loading of programs".
Whenever Ubuntu boots it runs several scripts that start necessary background services. By default these are set to run one-by-one.
If you dual-boot Ubuntu and Windows on your computer the boot menu appears for 10 seconds, during which you can select either Windows or Ubuntu. If you only have Ubuntu installed, a prompt appears for three seconds telling you that you can hit a key to see the boot menu.
If you have a dual-boot system that runs both Windows and Linux on the same machine, you may need to reinstall your GRUB boot loader. This problem occurs if your Windows system completely crashes beyond repair and you have to install a new version of Windows, or you are adding Windows to your machine after having installed Linux.
The command-line version of the Disk Defragmenter allows you to exercise fine-grained control over the defragmentation process and uses the exact same program code as the scheduled version.
When using Windows, you might have come across Device Manager, the handy tool that lists your PC's hardware. Ubuntu offers a similar piece of software, but it isn't installed by default.
Problems might also occur after you install Ubuntu. This section addresses several possible postinstallation problems. This section covers only problems that appear immediately after installation - those that prevent Ubuntu from working correctly immediately after its first boot.
Ethernet is one of the oldest and most established network technologies. When we talk of Ethernet, we refer to wired networks - all the computers on the network are connected by cabling to a central hub or router.