How to Install Ubuntu 26.04 LTS – Complete Beginner's Guide

Hello, and welcome back to LearnLinuxTV. In today's video, we're going to see the entire installation process for Ubuntu 26. 04, which was recently released. And it's a fantastic release featuring Linux kernel 7 and GNOME 50. It's definitely something that you should check out, but how exactly do you go about installing it? Well, in this video, I'm going to show you exactly how to install it. In particular, what we're going to do is set up Ubuntu as the only operating system on our computer, so this is going to be a full installation. And that means anything that you might have saved on your computer will be wiped out as part of the process. And I know it goes without saying, but I do need to recommend that you back up everything on your computer before we get started. Also, we're going to need a flash drive for this process, so be sure to have one on hand, and that also will be erased as part of this process. We'll be converting it into Ubuntu installation media during the first section of this video. Anyway, if you're ready to go, then I'm ready to go. So, let's see the process of installing Ubuntu 26. 04 right now. —

— So, let's get started. And the first thing we're going to do is set up installation media for Ubuntu 26. 04. In my case, I'm going to be showing the process from within Windows because that's what a lot of you guys are going to be coming from. Anyway, the first thing we'll do in this section is open up a web browser. And once we've done that, we'll go to ubuntu. com. And that'll take us to the main website for Ubuntu. And this is where we can actually download Ubuntu 26. 04. And to do that, we could click the download button right here. Just keep in mind that the website might change at some point in the future, but basically, all you're looking for is the download option. It should be pretty straightforward. So, we'll click on this. And what we're going to do is download Ubuntu 26. 04. And here we have two download options. We have a version for Intel or AMD hardware, as well as ARM hardware. Most of you are going to want this option right here for the Intel or AMD version. So, what we'll do is click on the download button. And now, as you can see, Ubuntu 26. 04 is downloading. So, I'll give it a moment to finish, and then I'll be right back. And now, the download is complete. And what that gives us is an ISO file. So, if I open up the file explorer, and then I go to my downloads folder, and here we have the ISO file that we've downloaded.

But now that we've downloaded the ISO image for Ubuntu, how do we actually go about using it? Well, the ISO file is not usable by itself. What we'll need to do is convert it into installation media. We'll use a flash drive for this, and we need to dedicate a flash drive for this project because the process that I'm about to show you is going to wipe out your flash drive. Basically, we'll be converting a flash drive into an Ubuntu installer. And there's a few different tools you could use to accomplish this, but the one that I recommend is going to be USB Imager. You can download it from the URL that you see on the screen, and I'll also have the URL down in the description below. And it's a small download. All we have to do is click on the download button, which we see right here. So, I'll click on the download button for Windows. And what that's going to do is download a zip file. All I have to do is extract it, and I can do that by right-clicking on the file, and I'll click extract all. I'll click extract. And here we have USB Imager. We go into this directory, you'll see that USB Imager is right here, so I'll double-click on it. I'll say yes. Now, to be fair, it's not the prettiest application that you'll ever run, but it is effective. The first thing we're going to do is click the dots right here to select our Ubuntu installation image. And I have it right here in my downloads directory, so we'll open the ISO file. And now that I chose the ISO file, the next thing I'll do is choose the flash drive that I want to use for this process. Now, keep in mind, this will erase everything that's on your flash drive. The process will be converting your flash drive into a dedicated Ubuntu installer, so keep that in mind. And if you're ready to continue, all you have to do is click write. Anyway, I'll give the process a few minutes to finish, and then I'll be right back. And now, as you can see, the process is complete. We now have Ubuntu installation media ready for use. All you have to do at this point is reboot your computer and access your boot menu. To do that, all you have to do is press a special key as soon as your computer starts up, and the exact key that you'll press depends on who made your computer. To make the process easier, what I'll do right now is overlay a table on the screen right now that'll show you some common boot keys for different manufacturers. So, just consult that table, and that'll help you understand which key you'll need to press as your computer starts to access your boot menu. And once you do that, all you have to do is select your flash drive, and the Ubuntu installer should start up.

And here we are. I just booted from my freshly created Ubuntu installation media, and I'm ready to go. And the first screen you should see as soon as you start your installation media will be this one right here. The first screen will have you choose your language. In my case, it's defaulted to US English, which is correct for me. All you have to do is find your language, and once you found it, just click on it, and then click next. And on the next screen, we could choose accessibility options. And if any of these features are helpful for you in particular, you can select them accordingly. And it's really cool that Ubuntu makes these options available for the people that need it. I think that's really nice. Anyway, what I'll do is click next to go on to the next screen. And the next thing we'll do is choose our keyboard layout. Now, this screen might seem a bit redundant. After all, we've already selected our primary language at the beginning of the process. But the selection right here in particular pertains to your keyboard layout. In my case, it defaulted to English, and that's true. That's the type of keyboard that I have. But if you prefer to use a different keyboard layout, you can choose it right here on the screen. I'm going to leave mine on the selection right here for English US. In addition, what you can do right here is click into this box and start typing to test your keyboard layout. This box doesn't actually do anything functionally, but it does give you an opportunity to test your keyboard. Anyway, once you've chosen your keyboard layout, you can click next. On this screen right here, we're going to choose our preferred internet connection. My computer is connected via a wired connection, so that's why we see wired as the default choice here. But on your end, if you have a Wi-Fi network, for example, you could choose the Wi-Fi option if that pertains to your use case. I'll leave that up to you, but I'm going to leave mine on the wired connection. If you do want to switch it to Wi-Fi, all you have to do is select this option right here, and then you choose your preferred wireless network. Once you do that, you'll be asked for the password for the network, and you'll be good to go. But on my end, I'm going to leave it on the wired connection since that's faster anyway. And with that done, we'll click next. And then on the next screen, we have an option to install Ubuntu or to try it out first. Now, this second option right here is recommended for most people. It's a good idea to test out Ubuntu on your hardware before you actually replace your current operating system. After all, it would be awkward to replace your current operating system with Ubuntu just to find out that it doesn't work. And if you choose this option right here, what will happen is the installer will close, and then you'll be presented with the actual Ubuntu desktop. And live mode is fully functional. For example, I can open up a web browser, and I can test out my internet connection just to make sure that works. I can also attach a printer, scanner, external display, or any particular hardware that I happen to have, and make sure all of that works before I commit to installing it. But on my end, everything looks like it's good to go. I've already tested my hardware before I hit the record button anyway, so I already knew that everything works just fine. But again, it's a great idea to test compatibility before you commit to an actual installation. Once you're finished testing, what you can do is relaunch the installer by clicking on this icon right here. And that brings us back to the installer. And what I'll do is quickly go through the screens that we've already seen to get us back to where we left off. And continuing, we have several options here. In this case, we're going to choose the interactive installation, but I do want to let you know that it is possible to automate your Ubuntu installation. If you have an auto-install file, for example, you could click this option right here, and that'll allow you to use that auto-install file to set up Ubuntu automatically. That's beyond the scope of this particular video, but it is something that you can do if it interests you. What I'm going to do is choose the interactive installation option, and then I'll click next. And on this screen right here, we could choose between a default selection of software or the extended selection. And for most people, I recommend the second option. And what that's going to do is give you access to additional software out of the box. Now, you can always install any application that's offered through this selection manually after installation if you want to. And some people like the default selection because it doesn't come with as many applications. I'll leave it up to you, but if you're just starting out, I do recommend the extended selection because again, that gives you access to more software. So, that's what I'm going to choose, and then I'll click next. And continuing here, we have an option for installing recommended proprietary software. Now, the thing is proprietary software is not as good as open source software because, well, the source code isn't available. And as a result of that, the Ubuntu development team isn't able to fix bugs as easily with proprietary software. But the reality is that people do often need proprietary software because some things just aren't offered in an open source variant. So, for most of you, I recommend checking both of these boxes. It's not going to result in that much extra hard drive space being used. But for most people, I recommend that you choose both of the selections right here just to make sure that you have everything that you might need. If you know for sure that you don't need proprietary software, you can leave these unchecked. But again, for most of you, I do recommend checking these

boxes. Anyway, I'll click next. We'll get back to the video in just a moment, but real quick, I have a question for you. Have you ever had a Linux system start behaving in a way that makes absolutely no sense? The logs look fine, services are running, and yet something is still broken? Well, that kind of situation is exactly why I put together a short ebook on Linux troubleshooting. Inside it, I walk through some practical troubleshooting strategies, useful command line tools, and some creative workarounds that can help you diagnose strange problems much faster. I also included some Linux life hacks that can save you some time when things inevitably break. Because, well, let's face it, eventually they will. So, if you'd like to level up your system administration game and become the person who actually figures out what's wrong instead of just guessing, then you can check out the ebook using the URL that's being shown on the screen right now and is also linked in the description down below. So, check out my new ebook and level up your troubleshooting skills. And I really appreciate your support of Learn Linux TV. Thank you so much. And with all that said, let's get back to the video.

And on the next screen, we have an option to do a manual installation or to erase the disk and install Ubuntu. Now, keep in mind, if you do install Ubuntu, you are wiping out everything on your hard drive. That means all of your files, saved games, or anything else that you might have saved on your hard drive will be completely wiped out. So, if you go any further, I'm going to assume that you're okay with that. In this video, we are performing a full installation, so we're going to choose this box right here. But again, just make sure that you have everything backed up before you do so. And continuing, it's going to give us an option to choose the hard drive that we want to install Ubuntu onto. This particular computer only has one hard drive, so there's only going to be one option right here. But if your computer has more than one hard drive, you'll see a selection here where you can choose between them. I'm going to leave mine on the default selection right here, especially considering it's the only choice anyway. But if you do have more than one hard drive, you'll want to make sure that you're choosing the right one. Anyway, what I'll do is click next. And here we have an option to encrypt our installation. In most cases, this is probably a good idea. It's not going to impact performance all that much. In fact, you probably won't notice the difference at all. But what this gives you is encryption at rest. So, for example, if someone steals your computer, which would be unfortunate, they wouldn't be able to access your files. Even if the person was to try and use live media to access your files without your encryption passphrase, well, they won't be able to. This is definitely recommended, but if you know for sure that you're not going to be saving anything on your computer that matters, then you could choose to not encrypt it, but I do recommend that most of you choose to encrypt your drive. So, what I'll do is choose encrypt with a passphrase. And you can also choose the hardware backed encryption as well, which is only going to be enabled if you actually have hardware that supports that. But to keep things simple, I'm going to choose this option right here. And if you choose to encrypt your drive, it's going to ask you for your passphrase. Just make sure that you don't forget your passphrase because if you do, then you will not be able to access your computer. There's no way to recover it. Just keep that in mind. Anyway, what I'll do right here is choose my passphrase. And I've done that, so I'll click next. And on this screen, what we're going to do is create our user account for the computer. This is going to be the first user on the system, and we can always set up additional users later, but we're going to need at least one. So, what we'll do is create a user account for ourselves, and if we need to add more user accounts later, we can always do that. So, what I'll do is fill in the information. And what I'll do is simplify the name of the machine right here. This is going to be the name of the machine as it'll be shown on the network if you share files. I'll simplify the username as well. And then I'll type in my password. I'll confirm it. And that should be all there is to it. Now, if you want to automatically log in your computer, you can unselect this option right here where it requires a password. Now, I don't really recommend that you do that because it makes it, you know, way too easy to access your computer, especially by people that shouldn't be accessing your computer. But if you're setting up a kiosk, for example, and it's going to be publicly used in a internet cafe or something like that, then maybe you don't want a login screen to appear. Now, for most of you, I do recommend that you keep this checked to force a password being required as you log in. But again, if you don't have any use for that, you can unselect this to enable automatic login. Now, another option that you'll have right here is the ability to integrate with Active Directory, which is great for enterprise users. It's beyond the scope of this video, but it's worth knowing that you can implement Active Directory authentication if you need it. Anyway, I'll click next. And on the next screen, we're going to choose our location. Now, you don't have to be exact or anything like that, but what you want to do is get this red marker as close to your geographic area as you can. Primarily, the reason you're doing this is to set your location and time zone. So again, you don't have to be exact. If you're in the right time zone, then it's good enough. And in my case, I am in the Eastern time zone, so this is correct for me. But just go ahead and click on the map as close to your area as you can, and then click next. And on this screen right here, it's going to summarize all of the options that we've chosen so far. So, basically, just review the information right here and ensure that you've made the correct selections, and once you're sure, you can click install. Just keep in mind that as soon as you do click the installation button, it's going to wipe out your computer and start installing Ubuntu. There's not going to be a confirmation screen, it's just going to start installing. But once you are ready, just click the install button, and the process will finalize. I'll just give it a few minutes to finish, and then I'll be right back. And it looks like the process is complete. Everything is set up, so all I have to do is reboot my computer, and I can begin using Ubuntu 26. 04. So, what I'll do is click restart now.

And here we go. What I see right here is a login screen, so all I have to do is click on my username. I'll type in my super secret password. And press enter. The first time that we log in to our brand new installation, we'll see this welcome screen right here. So, what I'll do is click next. And there's a few different options that we'll choose as part of this menu right here, and the first of those is location services. And this is going to be disabled by default in Ubuntu. But if you do need location services, you could toggle this setting right here to enable that. I'll leave that up to you. But anyway, what I'll do is click next. And then on the next screen, we have an option to help improve Ubuntu. We could choose to share information about our computer with the Ubuntu development team, which helps them out. Again, that's completely up to you. It might be a good idea to do this anyway because we downloaded Ubuntu for free, so it's a good idea to help out if we can. So, just choose accordingly, and then click next. And then on this screen, we can choose between the light or dark themes. As you can see, the dark theme is quite a bit different. We can also choose the accent color as well to further personalize our installation. For example, I could choose green or any of the other colors here. But I'm just going to leave it on the default selections. And when you've chosen your options here, you can click next. And that's about it. This screen right here is just letting you know that you could use the Ubuntu App Center to install applications, and that's something you could definitely consider checking out. But our installation is finished, so I'll click finish. And here we have a freshly installed

Ubuntu desktop. But before you actually start using it, I recommend that you install any updates that might be available. And you can do that by clicking this icon right here to open the App Center. And then what we'll do is click manage. And in my case, we can see that there's some updates available. There's only three available, but it's a good idea to stay up to date. So, what I'll do is click the update all button right here. I'll type in my password. And press enter. And that's basically all there is to it. At this point, any updates that might be available will be installed. So, I'll just give this a moment to finish. now, I'm up to date. In my case, I didn't need to reboot my computer because none of the updates that were made available require a reboot. But it is very common Since Ubuntu 26. 04 just came out, there was only those three updates that you just saw. But later on, the distribution will receive updates that will require a reboot of your computer, so just keep that in mind. But in my case, I'm up to date and ready to go. And there's our video. In this video, we set up Ubuntu 26. 04 on our computer and I hope it helped you out. If it did, then be sure to click that like button to let YouTube know. Also, my full review of Ubuntu 26. 04 is coming very soon to this channel, so be sure to subscribe to Learn Linux TV if you haven't already done so to be the first to see that video as soon as it's released. Anyway, with all of that said, thank you so much for checking out this video and I'll see you in the next one. —