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Topic: Help downloading and installing Damnsmall Linux

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John2005
Unregistered

Posted: June 16 2005,06:02

Hi Everyone,

Thanks for your feedback, I appreciate your help.

I was able to burn the DSL "Current.ISO" image to a CD-RW.

I read the text file and it said you must make sure your BIOS is set up to boot from CD-ROM. Can anyone tell me how to do that ? Also, when I am done using DSL and want to use Windows 98, will I have to change the BIOS back to boot from the hard drive ?

I have never messed with the BIOS before, but I know you can screw things up if you make a mistake, so I am a little worried about making changes to the BIOS.

Will clicking on the "Boot.cat" file start DSl, or do you always have to restart the computer with the CD in the drive ?

I would appreciate any feedback you might have.

Thanks for your help.
John

green

Group: Members
Posts: 453
Joined: Oct. 2004

Posted: June 16 2005,13:55

If the CD is in the CD-ROM when you boot the computer up, does DSL run?
If it goes straight into Windows, then you may need to look at your BIOS settings. To do that depends on your system. For most of my PC's, pressing the F1 key (a couple use F12) while the machine is booting will show you some BIOS settings which you can change. Read the information presented to you. It will tell you how to navigate around in the BIOS using the tab and arrow keys. You need to look for 'boot options' or 'startup sequence' or similar. It should list somewhere the order in which the machine will look for hardware to boot from. It may be showing HDD-0 or HDD-1 as the first boot device, or possibly even FDD-1, the floppy drive. You need to select CD-ROM if it will let you. Once done, save the settings by reading the text at the bottom of the screen. When saved, the machine will reboot. If the CD is in the CD-ROM, it should boot up from it and you'll see the DSL boot screen. Press F2 and/or F3 to view the boot options.

After you are done using your DSL Live CD, you can right click on the desktop, go to 'Power Down' and select 'reboot' or 'Shutdown.' You will NOT need to change your BIOS settings back to non-booting the CD-ROM. If it does not have a CD in it, it'll skip it and move on to the next device.

To start DSL (if trying to run from Live CD) you need to boot the PC with the CD in the CD-ROM. Clicking on things while viewing the CD contents via Windows will not get it going.

Have fun!

john2005

Group: Members
Posts: 5
Joined: June 2005

Posted: June 16 2005,16:08

Hi,

I was able to get DSL up and running ! I want to thank "Ke4nt1" and "Green" for their help. I really appreciate it guys !

I did not need to change my BIOS. Apparently, the bios was already set to boot from the CD drive before the hard drive. I just put the CD in, restarted my computer, and DSL popped up on the screen.

When I wanted to exit and go back to windows, I right clicked on the desktop, and then selected "reboot". The CD popped out, I removed it, then I closed the CD drive door. The cursor was blinking on the screen and I could not read the writing or code next to the cursor because it was too small, so I just pressed enter after waiting awhile, and the system re-booted back to windows.

I just gave the description above in case it can help another DSL newbie who might be reading this thread.

Anyway, DSL is cool ! What a neat concept, being able to run a completely different operating system from a CD.

Even with only 128 MB ram, and a Pentium 2 with 400 MHz processor, DSL seems faster running from CD, than windows does running from my hard drive !

Thanks again guys,
John

kriggo15

Group: Members
Posts: 5
Joined: June 2005

Posted: June 17 2005,15:13

I am having some problems and I figured it would be easier posting tot his forum b/c I am havign the same problem. I am trying to put DSL on a computer that currently is running windows xp and I want to only run DSL on that computer. My system specs are windows xp, 128 mb ram, and pentium 200mhz.

I downloaded all of the stuff from the the site and I burned the current.iso file to a cdr using roxio. I also tried burning dsl-1.2.1 and dsl-1.2.1-syslinux all on different cds. I put them in my computer that I want to put dsl on and when it tried to read from the cd-rom, it said failure.

Apparently, I am doing something wrong. Can someone please help me out? Also, I am new to dsl and linux... if you couldn't tell