Installing Linux

[a-4-year-old]

summary last paragraph

Ok, so I figure I am going to start at the beginning of my little adventure with a bit of background.

My buddy had a 7 year old laptop, 600MHZ intel celeron, 64 mb of ram and integrated graphics, if my memory is correct it has 4 mb of ram for itself it has no battery and no driver cds. Since he is computer-retarded, like "Is ram better then pci" kind of computer retarded, the kind that just refuses to do the learning involved in using a computer.

So anyway, he decides that since he can't use it, and to repay me for the multiple times I saved his trainwreck dell from viruses and his own stupidity, he let me have the laptop, he offered it to me. I thought about putting linux on it from the start, I even told him if i got it running particularly well he could have it back.

Everyone here knows I am a huge fan of XP, it is extremely flexible and compatible, however, this laptop does not have XP, it has windows ME. Millennium Edition makes children cry. Obviously I have no choice but to put linux on this, I have only a few requirements:

It has to fit the requirements of the computer
It has to be easy to install (Easy for someone who has installed XP multiple times and is familiar with this kind of thing)
Is at least remotely similar to using XP

My obvious choice is xubuntu, its almost exactly what I need/want.

Heres what I have done so far:
Waited 10 hours for a crawling slow download of the alternate CD (for installing on a PC with less then 128mb) Which had its rate between 10-30kbps (angerstroke)
Waited about a half an hour for the live CD to download (I plan on not using crappy windows with all kinds of filters at school) which downloaded at 300-500 kbps (reasonable)

I have both burned, I have tested the liveCD on my main desktop and I love what I see even running off the CD, I definitely want to replace ME on that laptop. I haven't tested the alternate CD but I am sure it works, either way that isn't the problem I am having.

Now I know the procedure here,
check bios to make sure you can boot from CD done
Now all you have to do is boot from the CD right? Nope.

This old toshiba (did I mention that?) has it set so that you press "C" to boot from CD and F2 for setup, when I have the CD in and I press "C" at the correct time, It says something like "forced boot from CD..." then windows ME loads. Obviously it failed to load from CD.

I am thinking I overlooked something in bios, the way it is set up is that it has the list/order of the boot drives:
+ Floppy
CD ROM
+ HDD

the ones with the plus have an expand and it shows the name of the harddrive or the floppy, but there is no drop down expander plus sign for the CD ROM. How do I remedy this, and if I can't fix that then could someone explain the ubuntu Wiki on how to do floppy, because I read that a few times and I don't get it and if at all possible I don't want to waste the few floppies I have.

I have a crappy laptop with an old version of windows, I want to put linux on it, specifically xubuntu, the computer doesn't seem to detect either the boot cd or its own ability to boot from a cd, how do i fix or circumvent this problem?

[Chakra]

Crazy idea, but why not Windows 3.11 with DOS? ...make a brilliant old-school gaming PC. You can write both to floppies too.

Otherwise, await crazy linux fans to respond with their infinite well of techy-help.

[Yes]

Make sure that the CD-ROM drive is plugged(the cable and power) in correctly from the inside, also try setting CD-ROM drive to be first.

Date Posted: September 17, 2007, 08:03:36 pmAlso are you sure you want to install Xbuntu with 64mb of ram.

Minimum system requirements

To run the Desktop CD (LiveCD + Install CD), you need 128 MB RAM to run or 192 MB RAM to install. The Alternate Install CD only required you to have 64 MB RAM.

To install Xubuntu, you need 1.5 GB of free space on your hard disk.

Once installed, Xubuntu can run with 64 MB RAM, but it is strongly recommended to use at least 128 MB RAM.

[FliesLikeABrick]

The problem is in your bios configuration.  It depends on a lot how to configure it, but you need to enable the cd drive for booting.  You have to make sure it comes before HDD in the list as well.

If you can't get that working, you can always get a smartbootdisk thing from http://linux.simple.be/tools/sbm, put that on a floppy, then after you boot the floppy you can boot from the CD drive.

[a-4-year-old]

Chakra' my main reason for ditching windows is because microsoft ditched support on windows ME.

Yes, I definitely want to run xubuntu, it isn't a whole lot worse then the minimum of ME (32mb) and the CD drive works for anything/everything other then booting, so I know it isn't the drive.

Flab, I agree, it is clearly BIOS, but the bios sucks so bad that I can't make it so that I can boot from cd, so I will just try that floppy suggestion.

[Clawbug]

Ain't xubuntu a bit too memory-hungy for such a computer? I would recommend you Puppylinux instead of Xubuntu.

Can you boot from the CD with other computers?

[SadistAtHeart]

Either that or Damn Small Linux

[mar77a]

Heh, Amblin reccomended me Hiren's boot CD. I've been using it for a while now, for testing mostly, and it has a small version of Win98 which you can run from the CD and loads entirely on the RAM.

[a-4-year-old]

update:

I can boot from the floppy but only the hard drive is detected by the boot manager, it says no CD and usb doesn't even show up as an option.

mar77a, I can't boot it from CD so that doesn't really help, but I'll remember that if I ever put linux on a "real" computer.

Puppy and DSL both look like dogshit, that being said, ME also looks like dog shit, so taking away precious seconds of boot-time is fine if I get to look at and use non-dogshit.

The laptop has internet access if there is a way to remotely do this.

[jrgp]

Puppy and DSL both look like dog****, that being said, ME also looks like dog ****, so taking away precious seconds of boot-time is fine if I get to look at and use non-dog****.

The only reason those two linux distros have minimal visuals is so they can run fast enough to be usable on hardware that is, in fact, worth dog****.

Does the bios see the cdrom drive? Is it disabled in the bios? Can you disconnect the cdrom drive from the laptop? If you can, you can check for any obstructions between the drive and the laptop's motherboard.

[bja888]

update:

I can boot from the floppy but only the hard drive is detected by the boot manager, it says no CD and usb doesn't even show up as an option.

Let me save you the trouble.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-source-2.6.20/+bug/94119

I had the same problem installing on my shitty work computer. Dapper works though.

[a-4-year-old]

as I download the 4th iso in the last week, I have to wonder; What is with the Codenamed alliteration of an adjective and an animal?

And even with dapper it fails.

I am completely out of plan Bs so this laptop is staying on windows ME, I can't afford to waste any more time waiting for fruitless results.

At any rate I might install a linux partition on my desktop, depending on how simple it could possibly be.

As a side note, the wiki was the least helpful thing  I have ever had to turn to for any kind of tech support. and the site was also kind of odd to navigate. The download page is what I had the biggest gripe about. It seemed backwards to me. what would have seemed logical would be to select your country, then select what architecture you use, then the live cd vs the alternate, then the list of mirrors, not that xubuntu has any official mirrors.