RedBrick Ubuntu LiveCD

Booting The CD

Put the disk in your computer, and restart.

Hopefully ubuntu will automatically start from the CD. If it doesn't you'll have to choose boot from CD manually. Instructions on how to do this will vary depending on computer manufacturer. On most dell (and many other computers) pressing F12 while the dell logo is displayed during boot up will allow you to select "Boot from CD".

Starting Ubuntu

After a few seconds the language selection screen will appear. Choose a language you can speak. For the purpose of this tutorial we've decided to use english. Press enter to continue here.

Even if you're planning to install Ubuntu, we'd recommend you launch the full desktop and run the installer from there. Ensure "Try Ubuntu without any change to your computer" is selected (it'll be in white text), and press enter to continue.

Because Ubuntu is loading entirely from CD it will take a few minutes to load. This is perfectly normal, and this loading screen will display during this time.

The Ubuntu Desktop

If all has gone well the ubuntu desktop will now be displayed on your screen.

The Help icon will bring you to this website (ubuntu.redbrick.dcu.ie), and the RedBrick icon will open a new connection to redbrick.

The install link will install ubuntu to your hard disk. For more information on this see Installing Ubuntu on your computer. Don't do this unless you've backed up all important files and you're sure you want to continue.

Using Java

Open up a terminal from the applications menu

Gedit is a simple text editor. Running "gedit Test.java" will allow us to use it to write a simple java program.

This is a very simple java program, that prompts the user to enter a number and print it out on the screen. Close gedit once you've written your test program.

Run "javac Test.java" to compile the program, and then "java Test" to run it. Hopefully it should run perfectly.

Saving your program

If you've just ran ubutnu from the live cd, you'll need to save your work somewhere else before you reboot the computer, or your work will be lost.

Open up the "Home Folder" from the places menu.

This is the file manager (called nautlius). Similar to Windows Explorer you can see the files we just created on the right, and a list of other drives and places on the left. If you have a usb hard drive or memory key plugged in it will appear in that menu with the hard drive, cdrom and floppy drive.

Just like in windows you can save the Test.java file to another place by dragging the file across to the floppy or usb drive on the left.

You can also add your redbrick account to the list of places in the file manager. To do this read Adding your RedBrick account to the ubuntu file manager.