How to try Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS before installing

The latest version of Ubuntu as of now is 18.10, which is the first release after the LTS (long term support) version which has the company's support up until April 2021, and this version is the next release from the six month cycle.

Both versions have their good and bad since one is leaning towards stability and solidity (LTS), whereas the other leans towards being more cutting-edge and using latest features from the open-source community.

First step is to download Ubuntu from their official site,


Choices are either to press Download and will start automatically, or else, my preference is to download via torrent as this is rather a quicker method.

As a pre-requisite you will need a pen drive with at least 2GB of disk space and a software to create a live USB, such as Unetbootn .

Make sure to backup your data from the pen drive and following that, to format it to use it as an installation disk, you can do this by going on My Computer, finding the drive from the list, right click and choose Format, a window will pop-up and settings should be similar to the example below. Click start and wait for format to be completed.

 




















After this, once downloads are completed, it is very easy to use unetbootn as you just need to double click on the downloaded programme;



Select the second option 'Diskimage' and with the button labeled as '...' choose the downloaded .iso image.



Click OK and setup will begin.



Now you must configure your PC to boot from the USB drive from the BIOS at power-on, be cautious of the following instructions as not to fiddle around as this can result in the PC not working correctly.

Under normal circumstances, to enter BIOS configuration, turn on PC with pen drive already inserted, and press either F2, F10 or Delete button from keyboard, you will be directed to a screen like the example below.



Navigate to the Boot section and make sure that USB is set as the primary boot device. Then head to Exit and save changes selection.




Upon reboot, PC will pickup the bootable linux pendrive and the menu above will appear, select the first option indicating "Try Ubuntu without installing".



Wait while it loads....

 

Finally desktop will load and you will be able to make use of Ubuntu without making any permanent changes to your PC.

All-in-all, getting started with Ubuntu and Linux is really very simple, and you only need a little bit of time and patience to get used to it, it is a great alternative as an Operating System and with time you might begin to know how extremely useful it can be for your daily life in this day and age, for both simple and advanced users...