a kick in the right direction

Fionn101

Hi all,

I recently purchased a Dell lattitude LS as a couch-side web browser.

This little laptop has a 6gig hdd and no cd-rom nor floppy drive.
I am hoping people can help with the following

1) Is there a way of downloading a distro onto the hdd and then running setup ?
I seem to find iso' on the web , and i don't have any cd-burning software. The laptop has a very bad XP install that won't allow updates nor validation,so I need to get it off this laptop (if only to stay legal)

so I suppose I'm looking for an .exe setup file , or similar. I'm completley new to linux but not computers. Really I'm just looking for a way to get an OS onto this laptop as it's got only 500mb left free with XP on it.

Any help or link to a distro that will work for me is greatley appreciated.

Fionn

bushy...

You could try http://goodbye-microsoft.com/ , just click on the link on the front page and it will start to install debian

Fionn101

legend , nice one

Fionn101

well that was rather painless, and what a small footprint left by the O.S ,that , and the fact I now get to learn a bit o' linux , sweet

Khannie

Welcome to the promised land.

Fionn101

log 24.2334.1

well I'm so bloody impressed with Linux despite all the stuff I still have to get working that I am now converting my 2nd and last machine to linux.

Goodbye MS / youre ma !

compiling debian kernels by the way, anyone got a link on the ins and outs of this ?

ntlbell

Fionn101 wrote: »

log 24.2334.1

well I'm so bloody impressed with Linux despite all the stuff I still have to get working that I am now converting my 2nd and last machine to linux.

Goodbye MS / youre ma !

compiling debian kernels by the way, anyone got a link on the ins and outs of this ?

Is there a specific reason you want to re-compile it? in general normal users shouldn't have to be going near it.

sobriquet

ntlbell wrote: »

Is there a specific reason you want to re-compile it? in general normal users shouldn't have to be going near it.

Indeed. Debian and Ubuntu have stock and non-stock prebuilt kernels in their repositories. Named either kernel-image-* or linux-image-* iirc.

If you still want to, google for the debian specific way of compiling it (there's a howto and more out there), then turning it into a package for normal installation. I used to have to do regular compiles for debian, made things a lot easier.

Fionn101

Thanks for all the replies,

I was led to believe that when I first install debian, it will go onto my mahcine with every service/driver loaded ? kinda like a base install .

And then I compiled the kernel with only the active services running ,and this was like tuning the OS to match my machines hardware, is this kinda what it does???

basically Debian is running like a dog on my laptop and it keep wanting to install updates modules on my rather limited HDA1 , (updates for like HPprinting and I don't have a printer). So I kinda (wrongly) presumed that all these extra un-needed services were running on the OS.


What does compiling a kernel actually do ? and what are the benefits ?
should I really wait until I'm more profeccient before trying to compile a kernel ?
And sure while your all in the mood for questions, what firewall's are available for debian?

thanks

bushy...

These two will show you whats going on , type them in a terminal:

top

ps -ef

sobriquet

Fionn101 wrote: »

I was led to believe that when I first install debian, it will go onto my mahcine with every service/driver loaded ? kinda like a base install .

I think you've been off down the wrong path and confused the what you can do with the kernel - omitting drivers etc - with Debians package management system. Installing everything it has to offer by default on an old machine might well cause problems. Hard to be specific though.

I normally don't like telling people to try another distro when they have a problem, but I've no experience of that type of Debian install so it's hard to offer advice as to how to recover it. The Debian Forums might a better place to get some advice that's more appropriate.

Otherwise, you might like to try Ubuntu, which is Debian based but intended more for non-specialist users. It has a sensible default install and from what I hear is pretty friendly to older laptops. (I don't have experience there though.)

Fionn101 wrote: »

What does compiling a kernel actually do ? and what are the benefits ?

The kernel is just the core of the OS, there's piles of software on top of that. For example, Debian provide a net installation ISO that provides only the core of the Debian system - no GUI, no servers etc - you get the rest off the net. It's about 150MB in size - the kernel is probably only about 2MB of that for perspective. Compiling your own kernel allows you to include specific drivers that aren't included by default, or omit things you don't want to keep it leaner. It also allows you to choose options that aren't on by default for better stability or performance.

Fionn101 wrote: »

should I really wait until I'm more profeccient before trying to compile a kernel ?

Yes, definitely. The benefits aren't that great compared to the headaches it'd cause you if you're new to linux.

Fionn101

lads, cheers for the replies, man that cleared things up a bit , so your saying that she can't get pregnant in the first week, and that the kernel is grand really but my base install was probably fattened out by unneeded services....right.

yeah I reckon I will try out Ubuntu,two of the lads in work use it so it would be handier for the suport, that and the fact that I can only learn more by doing another install.....

suppose I'll chat to you's in a week or whenever I get my machine back on the net.

Thanks again
Fionn

tinofapples

Something similar to Fionn101 only possibly a better laptop.

I've a IBM Thinkpad T40 which I have want to install linux (Possibly Debian) on. Basically I just want an o/s that can be downloaded from the net and burned onto CD.

I use a Dell desktop most of the time but would like to be able to use the mobility of the laptop.

I have access to the internet through the desktop and can burncd/dvd from there to boot the laptop.

Any recommendations or tips as like Fionn101 I am also completely new to linux.

Thanks.

tinofapples

After a little reading I downloaded a "mandriva-linux-2008-one-KDE-cdrom-i586.iso" onto my desktop. Someone mentioned that Debian wouldn't suit a beginner to Linux.

What do I need to do now to create a boot disk for the laptop ? Sorry lads I am clueless.

martin84

Heres another one. I posted about this before.
Instlux. Ya can install Ubuntu, Suse and Linkat off the net from a windows box.


http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=151507

tinofapples

off the net from a windows box

By this do you mean use my desktop ? I don't really wanna install anything other than my current o/s on my desktop as the wife uses it.

I've tried burning downloaded iso's onto cd and then booting my laptop from the created cd. I'm getting so far and then the installation fails. WTF ??

tinofapples

For example when trying to install Ubuntu 7.04 I get
" Loading isolinux: Disk error 80, AX = 4200, drive 9F"

I/O error
Error reading boot CD

Fionn101

http://goodbye-microsoft.com/

that link above will install debian, in fact I found debian the easiest by far to install. It download the installer from the web and sets itself up with minimal amount of questions.couldn't be easier. and now I'm back sufing wirelessly in no time at all.

I will be switching to Ubuntutu soon however as there are more people using it (in my work) , it's just that ubuntu doesn;t install easily from the web like debian does.

Did I mention debian at all ............

tinofapples

Okay but that link will install to the machine I am currently using (Correct ? Not what I want). I need to burn a boot cd for my laptop.

Khannie

tinofapples wrote: »

I need to burn a boot cd for my laptop.

http://ie.releases.ubuntu.com/gutsy/ubuntu-7.10-desktop-i386.iso

Fionn101

D'oh!