No matter how simple you can make it, installaing a new OS will always be a daunting task for most computer users, especially on a machine they depend on every day. Even an experienced user can mess up and knock out a partition by accident.

Assuming that not everyone has that geeky neighbor who goes door to door installing Linux on people’s computers, there has to be a better way.

Why the Live CD is not a better way

The Live CD is an incredible innovation. In addition to being invaluble to fixing problems, it lets a new user see what they are jumping into before they take the plunge. It doesn’t, however, offer the user any opportunity to test it in a more real-world situation. Because a Live CD can’t save anything back to the disc, it’s really not useful for anything more than half of an hour of playing around.

No, not the Live USB either

Well, then, how about a Live USB memory stick? After all, it’s just a Live CD with a USB plug and the ability to save files, right? Yes, but, despite the price of USB memory sticks, most people don’t have spare ones laying around that are large enough to fit an entire OS plus files. Additionally, not all motherboards support booting from USB devices (although this issue is rapidly disappearing).

VirtualBox

For a long time, virtual machines really didn’t work very well, either, due to their poor graphics support. Now, though, since VirtualBox 3.0 supports at least simple 3D graphics, David Siegel (creator of GNOME Do) is proposing the creation of a single installer that sets up a customized version of VirtualBox with an Ubuntu image loaded up. This allows the user to save changes, doesn’t require any special hardware, and is a very familiar process for almost all computer users.

Wubi

Finally, we have Wubi, which allows you to do a pseudo-install. It looks just like a dual-boot setup, but it’s really simple to set up (just like installing a program) and writes all changes to the existing Windows partition.

Putting it together

Separately, these are all good ways of trying Ubuntu out, but together as a process they are an absolutely killer feature. Eventually, I hope that a new Ubuntu user will be able to install Ubuntu as a virtual machine, then upgrade that to a Wubi install, and finally to a real install, all without having to copy their files over once.

It’s less important exactly what methods of trying Ubuntu exist than how seamless the process of testing it out and then installing it can be made. Imagine a slider. You start at the “total beginner” end and slowly progress to the “I’m ready” end. As you get closer to the “I’m ready” end, your install of Ubuntu would be progressively more permenent. When you got all the way to the end, you would have a real instal of Ubuntu.

Related posts:

1. Using Wine + Wubi For A Smooth Transition Yesterday, I discussed the possibility of Wine’s inclusion in Ubuntu....
2. Why Give Away A CD When You Could Give A Flash Drive? Live CDs of various Linux distributions are frequently given away...
3. 7 Days of M1530 – Advanced User's Guide to a New Ubuntu Computer After doing a guide for a beginner setting up a...
4. The (Nearly) Perfect Installer for Ubuntu I can’t say Ubuntu’s installer is bad compared to other...
5. A Simple Feature of Ubuntu 8.04 That Could Be So Important Imagine trying to expose a large number of people (people...