Overview

First Sentences

Given the technology that's already available, we should have cars that drive us around, in absolute safety, while we lounge in the back and sip champagne. All we need is a video camera on the roof, plugged into a PC, right? We have all the necessary hardware, and have had it for years, but don't yet have robot-driven cars because we don't have the software. This book explains how we can build better software and all get our own high-tech chauffeur.

Trying Linux

There are several ways to go about this:

Boot to a Linux "Live CD" which runs Linux off the CD-ROM. However, CD-ROMS are very slow, so it takes a while to boot, etc. but it runs at full speed once programs are loaded. However, booting to a CD-ROM is a hassle, and your changes are not saved, so I only recommend trying it once or twice.
Inside a virtual machine

Install VirtualBox binaries [1]

Download Ubuntu "Alternate" CD ISO file. (It is a text mode installer which is faster and more reliable and more powerful) I386: [2], AMD64: [3]

Create a Virtual Machine inside VirtualBox (1 gig RAM, 10 Gig partition is plenty. Allocating all space up front is faster because if your virtual partition gets fragmented, it will run very slowly.)

Mount the ISO file to the virtual machine

Boot Virtual machine.

Go through setup process

Dual boot

If you have at least 10 gigs free on a hard drive, you can resize your partition, install Ubuntu, and have it setup dual boot. On startup, it asks you if you want to run Windows or Linux.