I installed Ubuntu 12.04 a few weeks ago, from a download off of the website. I still have the dvd used. I was talking to my friend today about it and he mentioned something about checking the hash to make sure it was a good copy, as sometimes the file can get corrupted by a third party. My question is, can I check the hash of the dvd or even off of the versio
No, you should not be worried, and yes, it can be checked. Checking a hash is a universal procedure. While not technically correct, a hash is basically a "one-way encryption" that give a short, usually-unique code to check if the file became garbled. If it installed properly, chances are it's a good file. If you still have the ISO file around, checking the hash is quite easy. Copy it to your home folder and call it ubuntu-hashme.iso. Now, open Terminal, and when you get thee user@computer:~$ prompt, run the following:
md5sum ubuntu-hashme.iso
and it will give a string(it could take some time depending on the speed of your computer). It should correspond to the strings on https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuHashes/, depending on what file you downloaded. It's most likely:
d791352694374f1c478779f7f4447a3f ubuntu-12.04-desktop-i386.iso
or
128f0c16f4734c420b0185a492d92e52 ubuntu-12.04-desktop-amd64.iso
but it could be something else on that page.
