Hey im about to run attempt to run damn small linux on my windows 7 laptop. The last time i attempted to run linux i was absolutely lost. id appreciate any help. as i dont know what to do. thanks heaps

you should know how to ask questions,

well as you told last time you tried to use DSL then can you tell us what procedure you followed that time??

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@ sd|| -- how do we know the OP had tried specifically DSL in the past? Besides, it may have been 10 years ago that he/she tried Linux, and things were a lot different then.

Hi shadow-69-91, welcome to LQ

First things first -- I don't use Windows and have never even seen Win-7 so that part will have to come from someone else if there's anything really specific to that OS that needs to be done, but generally, the procedure is usually similar, regardless which Windows you have:

1) Download a DSL CD or DVD .ISO image (lol, DSL is probably not on a DVD -- get the CD)
2) Using a Windows tool such as "md5summer" or similar tool (try google) you should verify the md5sum of the file you downloaded; this is a checksum, so you know that you downloaded a good file that is not corrupt.
3) Using your Windows burner program (assuming the checksum checked out OK) you want to select "Burn ISO image to disc" or "burn bootable image to disc" or whatever the option happens to be called. If possible, don't use NERO for this task; download something like "Infra Recorder" or similar functional CD burning tool for Windows. I'm not sure exactly what there is for Win7, but back when I used XP, I used Infra Recorder to burn my first Linux disc. Use a slow burn speed, the slower the better.
4) You *should* now verify the burned CD's checksum again, to make sure it burned OK. I'm not sure if your Windows md5sum tool will have an option like this, but if someone else knows of a tool that does it, they'll tell you.
5) Stick the CD in and reboot your machine! Make sure your BIOS is set to boot from the CD or DVD drive, or you know what key(s) you might need to press on power-up to make it boot from the CD/DVD drive.

Last I checked, DSL booted as a live CD, which means you can run it, play around with it, etc., without necessarily installing it to the hard disk. It will run without affecting your machine at all.

If you actually want to INSTALL it to the hard disk, then let us know if you have gotten this far, so far, and someone will continue to help you do what's needed to get it installed onto the hard disk.

Cheers!

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@GrapefruiTgirl

yeah! right!!!!! interpreted worngly oops!!

http://www.etree.org/cgi-bin/counter...are/md5sum.exe
http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Wikile...msAfterBurning

PS - Here are a couple links to an md5 tool and/or information about md5 checksum for Windows 7. These two links, I found in another thread, where they were posted by LQ member onebuck.

Good luck!

Windows 7 will automatically burn an ISO file as an image, not a data disc. This is what you want.

As far as I remember in Windows Explorer, right-click on the ISO file and there should be an option to burn it as an image.

All that information helped heaps guys.

I made a live usb using the program the linux site got me to use. now ive burnt the image to a disc and it loads with a big picture of tux and says i can install it by pressing enter or use optional boot settings by pressing f2 or f3. when i press enter it starts to load then says "Can't find KNOPPIX filesystem, sorry. Dropping you to a (very limited) shell. press reset button to quit."

"Then below that it has a menu that says additional built in commands available:"

These commands are as follows.
cat mount umount
insmod rmmod lsmod

I am absolutely lost now. does anybody have any advice? thanks.

I assume you have knoppix 5x or below? If you want we might find solution for that. Until then consider the following suggestion.

My suggestion is to install a virtual machine. Consider VMware's VMplayer 3 or Virtualbox or VirtualPC.

All would run almost an unlimited number (few at a time) of linux distros from ISO files directly and at the same time as Windows 7 and at native speeds. This assumes a modern computer, which is most likely if you have windows 7.

A VM is really the most easy way to learn linux and still keep your Windows install safe. No need to burn cd's or rebooting needed.

A virtual machine is a software program like word or works or such. You install it and then you have more than one computer. The VM is a software computer running on files. Way to easy to use and as along as you don't attach your windows 7 (they warn you when you try I think) your W7 will be safe.

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Um im not sure what knoppix i have. im not really sure what that is. Im sorry if this sounds rude but i dont really like the virtual machine programs. i had it but it still didnt run dsl for me. um i have actually completely removed windows 7 from my hd and made an ext3 formatted partition for dsl. but no matter what setting i try to run it just wont seem to install for me. so does anyone know what is going on? because i kind of dont want to run windows anymore.

AFAIK Knoppix does not support SATA drives (which almost all new computers use now).

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Hi,

LOL!

If the KNOPPIX distribution wasn't aware of 'SATA' then the above would not be possible.

I believe the OP needs to select a booting option for kernel for a 'laptop': use 'F3' at boot to show the options.

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Are you still trying to install Damn Small Linux as you indicated in your earlier posts? The reference to knoppix is another Linux distribution which DSL is based on.

What other options do you get when you load the CD?
You did burn the CD as an image?

You should be using live distros in order to check that the system you finally use is happy with your hardware... DSL is good but so also is Puppy or Macpup and many other distros... Puppy is interesting because you need to do things manually and it provides everything you need to connect to the internet,having said that most distros connect up automatically.

With regard to MD5summer I find that you can check the MD5 sum from the optical drive but it only does CD,s,I can,t get it to check a DVD in the drive.

i tried the command "knoppix tohd=/dev/sda1" but it couldnt find the kernal image i tried debian aswell as the boot screen said that dsl is based on knoppix, debian and GNU Linux technology. does this mean my boot cd is damaged or corrupt? i also have a slitaz live cd but i cant get any of my windows files to run and i dont understand the wine commands.

Hi,

You want to see what options that are available to you when boot from that distribution. Just because DSL is based on KNOPPIX doesn't mean they use the same options. You should see prompts that indicate what to do.

Choose the correct kernel and pass 'noapic' & 'noapci' to it. What happens?