HELP ME!!
Forum: Other Help Topics
Topic: HELP ME!!
started by: robbied
Posted by robbied on July 30 2005,08:06
PLEASE HELP! i would like to install Linux (DSL) on my comp. i don't know the first thing about it. i have no OS whatsoever (do you need one?). if anyone could give me some instructions, i would much appreciate it. Thank You.
PS:
you can reach me by email at:
robbied12@sbcglobal.net
Posted by mikshaw on July 30 2005,10:50
You must have an OS of some kind to be posting here now. If you are able/allowed to download files to this machine and have a CD burner...1) Download the latest ISO from one of the mirrors listed on the < download page >. It is typically named "current/current.iso".
2) < Burn a CD from the ISO >
3) Make sure your BIOS supports booting from CD. If not, you can download a boot floppy image from the same place as the ISO. Use a program such as rawwrite or winimage to create the floppy if you are in Windows.
4) Put the disk(s) in and reboot the computer. Hopefully you will boot into a live DSL. From this point you can choose other options for installation, but a liveCD is a good starting point.
Posted by robbied on July 30 2005,18:39
OK, Another question:what are the system requirements?
(I have a low-grade, old computer)
Posted by green on July 30 2005,20:01
post your PC's specs and i'm sure some one will tell you if it's okay. I've seen people post that they have run DSL on PC's with less than a 100Mhz processor and 48Mg of ram.
Posted by robbied on July 30 2005,22:24
here are some specs, but i don't know much:1.3 GB HD
32 MB RAM
not entirely sure on the precesser, but it is under 100 Mhz
Posted by cbagger01 on July 30 2005,22:50
This should work fine.Make sure that you create a swap partition or a swap file on your hard drive because 32MB is a smaller amound of RAM so you will need the swap space.
Posted by robbied on July 30 2005,22:58
How do I create a swap file?do i just make a file named swap?
Posted by robbied on July 31 2005,04:01
my computer won't boot from it's cd drive, so i got the boot floppy. after it goes though the loading screen, it comes to:Welcome to DSL
Built using Knoppix Technology.
DSL comes with no warrenty...
Can't find KNOPPIX filesystem, sorry...
How can i fix that?
Posted by cbagger01 on July 31 2005,04:05
You can create a swapfile on an existing MSDOS/Win95/Win98/WinME partition by choosing "Setup DOS swapfile"from the Main Menu.
Right-click anywhere on the desktop and the menu choice is located at:
System -> Setup DOS Swapfile
Posted by robbied on July 31 2005,04:29
i dont have any OS, thats why i've been trying to get Linux working
Posted by cbagger01 on July 31 2005,05:58
OK,It appears that your computer's CD drive was not detected by the boot floppy. This is probably because it is one of those old CDROM drives that has a custom controller that is plugged into a soundcard instead of a newer ATAPI drive that plugs into your motherboard's hard drive controller.
You can fix this by copying the \KNOPPIX\KNOPPIX file over from your CD into your hard drive, for example:
C:\KNOPPIX\KNOPPIX
Then you can boot DSL via the floppy and it will see the file on your hard drive instead of your old CDROM drive.
If you are without any OS at all, you will need to install a small OS from floppies like MSDOS or FReeDOS
Google for FreeDOS and use it to make a DOS partition on your hard drive and then copy the file over to it.
Use the "Install DSL from floppies" approach if you can't get your CDROM drive to work from within FreeDOS or MSDOS
Or you might be able to do this in linux with Tom's root boot disk, aka tomsrtbt linux
Another, far easier way to do things is to remove the hard drive from this computer and install it into a newer PC temporarily. Make sure that you install it as the Primary Master drive.
Then boot from the DSL livecd and install DSL on the hard drive.
Then put the hard drive back into your original computer.
So there are multiple ways of making things happen, but all will require some amount of work.
Posted by robbied on July 31 2005,06:39
thank you. i will try to preform one of these steps, but as you said, it will take some time and effort.
Posted by robbied on July 31 2005,19:53
Thank You guys for your help, I got it working.I have one last question to post:
How do I change the screen resolution to 800x600?