Ubuntu Linux

[Kevin_329]

Can anyone help me with installing ubuntu on an old box from Compaq? AMD Athlon 1200+, 128MB PC133 RAM, 20GB HDD. I've made a bootable disc with Nero. I got the file from http://www.ubuntulinux.org/. The file is called "ubuntu-5.10-install-i386". It seems to be in iso format. I put the cd in the computer and it boots to a black screen with white text. The screen asks me for A:/...

[Dexter Filmore · Accepted solution]

It sounds like you didn't burn the image properly. Here are some instructions on how to burn the iso image.

http://www.linuxiso.org/viewdoc.php/howtoburn.html

[Kevin_329]

I dont have any files called LinuxISO, Linux.ISO, or any thing like that. I have a few .cfg, .bin, .rle, .cat, etc. There is one called boot.cat.

[Dexter Filmore]

The file you would have downloaded would be ubuntu-5.10-install-i386.iso. This is the file that the instructions are referring to when they say "linuxiso" image or file (linuxiso is not the actual filename). I've successfully created the installation CD using these instructions in the past (not ubuntu, another distribution), so it should work. If you are still having trouble, let us know the steps you took to create the CD (as well as the CD burning software used) and we'll let you know if you are doing it correctly.

[Kevin_329]

That is what i did. I took the whole file and asked Nero to burn it to a bootable disc. Since you've done this before, what is it sposed to look like when you've put in the cd an booted off it. GUI?

[Dexter Filmore]

The image I downloaded was a knoppix live CD which boots and runs directly from CD. I got an initialisation screen (dos like screen) which then went straight to the GUI. Is it possible your boot order is not set properly? It could be bypassing the CD and looking to boot from something else e.g. hard disk.

[Kevin_329]

The boot order is set to CD first. I attempted to instasll windows from a bad CD a while ago. Cracked. When you try to boot with no CD it will say "NTRDL is Missing, Press ALT+CTRL+DEL".

[Dexter Filmore]

Has the drive worked since the mishap with the windows CD? Try using a different bootable CD - this way we can eliminate a faulty drive as the problem. Also you can try putting the ubuntu cd in a different machine (if available) to see if it boots properly. Good Luck.

[Kevin_329]

This is the different machine. I used the same HDD though. Thought the mobo in the other system was bad. I've ordered the CDs from their website. Free, and Free shipping. Thats nice of them to make at least one thing easy. Ill keep trying. Thanks.

[Karsten Breivik_1]

Could be that you made a bootable CD containing the .iso file. Which is not what you want.

Test the CD you burned. If you open the burnt CD in win explorer you do not want to see the .iso file. Instead you should see several other files on the CD. If you see the .iso file on your CD you made an error when burning it.

Try using this utility for burning ISO's. It utilizes the built in CD burn capability of XP. This has done the trick for me.

http://alexfeinman.brinkster.net/isorecorder.htm

It only burns ISO's, so I guess there are a few less things that could go wrong...

Just make sure you have the right pacth level of XP as stated on the site.

[Karsten Breivik_1]

Btw. I did try Ubuntu. It seemed very nice as a workstation distro.

However, I found it to be a little too light for heavier development or server applications. It took a while with apt-get to install all the extras needed. I ended going back to the massive Fedora releases which arguably contain loads of stuff that most people will never need...

[Alan_152]

Kevin... up above you said you told nero to take the iso and burn a bootable disk. Instead, you should have Nero burn the image to disk.

[Kevin_329]

I think the reason is that the drive is not FAT32. The text said something like "not FAT32, exiting". Does LInux not work on NTFS. I attempted to reformat the drive but windows setup will only allow NTFS. I plugged the drive into a diferent system and it posted but did not how up in windows or disk management.

[Alan_152]

That won't have anything to do with it. If you use the liveCD, it might try to build a swap file on a FAT partition, but if one doesn't exist, it isn't a big deal.

If you are doing an Ubuntu install, fdisk/disk druid/autopartition will nuke whatever is on the hard drive if you let it.

[Alzhy]

Kevin,

Just want to find out if you've hurdled one of the most common problems newbies have with Linux "images" or .iso files. As folks before me had so clearly indicated - you need to have Nero or any disc authoring software you're using to "burn the ISO image" to the CD instead of "getting the ISO file on to a CD that was made bootable". An ISO image file is basically a whole "raw" copy of a CD disc - be it bootable, OS, data, whatever...

And welcome to the world of Ubuntu! In my card - undoubtedly one of the best Linux distributions around. Updates and support is quite excellent I might add.

[Steven E. Protter]

I love Ubuntu, good distribution. good multi media, good hardware support.

The ISO issue can be gotten around by using an NFS install point. This permits on some distributions an install without creating CD's.

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