newbie question. . .

Forum: Other Help Topics
Topic: newbie question. . .
started by: cphp

Posted by cphp on Mar. 29 2005,01:42

Actually, 2 newbie questions.

1.) The page mentions a "live" cd. Is that any different from a regular CD-ROM? and if so, how do I "boot" from a cd. . .just insert the CD and start the computer? Or do I put the CD in after starting Windows XP? And. . .how would I switch between Windows and DSL -- any way without re-booting?

2.) How do I run it from inside Windows?

I couldn't find pages that address these problems for people who know nothing about it like me

Either direct me to such a page, or help out please :P

The reason I chose DSL is because I want to try Linux but I don't have space to run a dual-boot Windows XP and Mandrake or something, plus I don't want to install it to my HD, so the CD sounds great, just confused about the live business ;);)

Posted by mikshaw on Mar. 29 2005,02:20

1) "liveCD" means the system runs straight off the CD, into ram. A regular cdrom is typically a software program which is first installed to harddrive and then run. The disk itself is no different though....it's just burned in a way that makes it bootable.

2) You can't run DSL in a standard XP system...you need to add software to windows which will allow you to do this. Check out the "DSL embedded" forum for more help on this. Keep in mind that since you are running one operating system on top of another (particularly XP), you'll hear a loud sucking sound as your RAM disappears.

If you don't have the disk space, i recommend you first try it as a liveCD. Just put the disk in the drive and reboot. You'll need to make sure the bios is setup to boot from cd before harddrive.

Posted by cphp on Mar. 29 2005,02:45

Thanks....I finally found the documentation so I feel badly about having posted, since most of my questions are answered there. . .but. . .

How do I make sure my BIOS is set to boot the CD before startup? And then to get to Windows I just re-boot without the cd, right?

Also. . .to run it with Qemu do I download the ISO and then how do I open it with Qemu. . .so totally confused. . .

Posted by mikshaw on Mar. 29 2005,03:32

First I'd just put the CD in and reboot, and see if it detects it as bootable. If so, it may boot automatically or ask you to press a key to boot to cdrom.

A good number of machines will tell you, as you begin to boot up, what you need to do to get into bios. Generally it is a message which says something like "Press <KEY> for setup". Otherwise you may need to consult the documentation for your specific motherboard.
Once in bios you'll need to find the setting for "boot sequence". Again, where this is located depends entirely on your bios.

if you're running a live CD all you need to do is reboot (remove the CD when asked), and you'll boot back into windows.

I don't know diddly about embedded DSL....i don't have windows =o)

Posted by cphp on Mar. 29 2005,12:58

Well, I downloaded DSL v1.0RC1 and I wrote it to a bootable CD. . .I'll play around and see what I can do to get it working

Posted by cphp on Mar. 29 2005,13:22

I tried again, here's what I did:

Quote

1.) turned off computer
2.) Started it up
3.) Went to Setup
4.) Went to boot sequence -- looked like this:
1.) IDE CD-ROM Device (enabled)
2.) Diskette Drive (enabled)
3.) Hard-Disk Drive C:
5.) Exit boot sequence
6.) Exit setup
7.) Try again

Here's what I got:

Quote

Cannot Load DOS! Any key to retry

What is wrong?? please. . . . help. . . .*despair* lol Anyway, it would be nice if anyone knows what's wrong

Posted by cphp on Mar. 29 2005,14:25

I'm typing this from DSL embedded, but I still don't know how to boot, and DSL-embedded is so SLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWW.

Can I boot from DSL embedded? I mean make a CD of the files on the DSL-embedded and boot from there? Or if you know what I did wrong from above. . .please help

Posted by mikshaw on Mar. 29 2005,15:14

the boot sequence is correct.
I don't know what "cannot load dos" means. If you reboot with the CD in the drive it should automatically begin to boot DSL, without any DOS or Windows necessary. How did you burn the ISO?

Posted by cphp on Mar. 29 2005,15:21

I opened up CDBurner XP Pro, I selected teh ISO, I clicked Burn and selected Bootable (and the n the option for Windows XP/NT because that's what I have). I selected 16x for my speed, and started it going.

Do I reboot (i.e., click re-start) or do I shut offand turn on? or does it matter?

Posted by mikshaw on Mar. 29 2005,15:47

So....you created a bootable CD containing the ISO file? If so, you just made yourself a backup of the ISO file.

The ISO is a CD image which needs to be burned AS an image, rather than being burned onto a disk as data. You don't typically need to be concerned about making it bootable because i think that information is already in the ISO file.
I don't know anything about the software you used, but the "pro" part makes me think that it should handle cd images. Is there something in the menu similar to "Burn CD image"?

Posted by cphp on Mar. 29 2005,16:05

huh. . . . .let me see about that. It is actually the program recommended by the documentation so I assume it works :P I'll look into that

Posted by cphp on Mar. 29 2005,16:26

OK, so I created an ISO image (or I think I did. . .) and when I re-booted it opened up this Calmera CD thingy, kept talking about various CD drive settings and stuff and never got to the linux

:(:(:(

Don't know what's wrong. . .it started up the CD drive but then didn't do anything

Posted by mikshaw on Mar. 29 2005,16:40

I don't know what's wrong either.

Calmera...do you mean "Caldera DR-DOS" or something similar?
That would be something other than DSL. Do you have a floppy disk in? Like partition magic for example?
The first thing you should see is a DSL splash screen, followed by DSL welcome message, so if it's booting DSL there should be no mistaking what's happening.
Apparently it is booting something other than the CD.

Posted by cbagger01 on Mar. 29 2005,17:54

DR-DOS is commonly included when some cd burner programs have the "bootable" checkbox marked.

Follow these instructionss EXACTLY:

< http://members.home.nl/lsnoek/iso.htm#CdBurner%20XP%20Pro >

Posted by cphp on Mar. 29 2005,23:48

are ISO images usually smaller than the ISO file??

Posted by cphp on Mar. 30 2005,00:02

So, what I did was this, and when I start up it just starts up windows

Quote

1.) Open up CDBurner XP Pro
2.) Insert CD-ROM
3.) Select dsl-1.0RC1.iso
4.) Create new image (entitled "New_Image.iso")
5.) Select "non-booteable" on the image
6.) Click Burn (to burn the New_Image file) and select non-booteable on the burn options
7.) When burn is done, shut down computer and start up with CD inserted
8.) Computer starts up in windows :angry:

What's wrong?

Posted by cphp on Mar. 30 2005,00:03

So, what I did was this, and when I start up it just starts up windows

Quote

What's wrong?

Posted by mikshaw on Mar. 30 2005,01:32

What you wrote is not the same as what was found at that link. It sounds like you were creating a non-bootable ISO image. You already have the image, so there's no need to create one. All you need to do is burn it.....*as an image*, not as part of a data structure.

EDIT: it seems the directions for cdburn pro is a copy of burnatonce.

In any case, all you should need to do is burn it as an image...don't start a data session or you'll get nothing but a CD with an ISO on it.

Posted by cphp on Mar. 30 2005,01:49

I'm confused. . .ok. . .so

Do I just burn what I downloaded off the web? That exact file? And how do I not "start a data session". I just got this program for creating a boot disk for DSL, so I'm not too familiar with it. So. . .just to make sure. . .how do I burn it as an image, not a data structure? Because, as you said, those instructions are just a copy. . .

Posted by Waterns on Mar. 30 2005,02:03

Dude, like download Nero or Blindwrite and then burn using the button that says "Disc image or saved project". You are currently burning the ISO as a file to the CD where as you should be burning the ISO to the CD which ends up being extracted by Nero or blindwrite. So like you end up with a CD with many files.

Posted by mikshaw on Mar. 30 2005,02:07

ok...let me see if i can explain this better....

There are multiple ways a CD can be burned, and each has its own purpose.

The standard way to burn a data disk is to add you files to a directory structure within the CD and burn it.

This method will fail in making a bootable CD from an ISO. The ISO is an image of an entire disk, including a boot sector if needed. Your burning software has to convert this image into a CD, not burn the ISO file itself onto the disk. Burning the ISO in the same way as you'd burn a data cd will result in a CD which contains just an ISO file on it...basically just a backup of the ISO....fairly useless. This is why there is a whole separate method to burn these images. Generally the software would have a unique menu item for burning images....something like "burn disk image". In this case you should be able to browse for the image file and burn. If you see the ISO file appear in a window in which you can add other files, it's probably not going to work. I don't know if i can explain this any better without getting more redundant.

There's a chance that your software just won't burn ISOs. In this case there are other tools available, such as
< http://dpaehl.dd6338.kasserver.com/cdr/isoburn.php >

Posted by cphp on Mar. 30 2005,02:08

yeah. . .ok. . .here goes

w00t! I figured it out, and booted my computer into DSL

:) The desktop (icons, background, etc.) didn't show up

and I didn't have my dsl internet connection (not to be confused with the os). But I'll try and figure out what's wrong with that.

Thanks to everyone for helping me out. . .totally my fault -- I had no idea what I was doing. But thanks for helping anyway

Looking forward to being able to connect to the web through linux :P

On the internet. .. I'm connected through a wireless Linksys bridge to a network -- is there a problem with that? The embedded DSL connected immediately but using the boot cd it didn't.