Hello folks,
I am completely new to LInux, and want to install it to my Windows Me laptop. I tried the Debian site, which was supposed to be easiest, but had massive, massive trouble. Perhaps someone can help. For example, the site gave hyperlinks to Debian "mirrors" with lists of files, but did not give the slightest info as to which "iso" file to download. This happened regardless of wether I tried for a floppy download, HTTP download, jigdo download etc. The jigdo links did the same thing, and sites other than Debian were worse. Is it really that tough? Does one have to be a master of MSDOS and fdisk partitions to download freeware Linux? I know nothing of either, nor about partitioning in general. Can someone fill me in?
All help appreciated,
Beginnerx

go to this site here : http://www.linuxiso.org/distro.php?distro=7 and downlooad the three iso's and then burn them to disk, this will give you redhat linux :-)

NO! DOwnload aSuSE Live CD or Knoppix CD to see if you like linux before installing it on your hard drive.

Thanks for the Red Hat site, I'll try that. Right now I'm trying to download Mandrake 9.1. After I get it downloaded, I guess I'll have to "burn" it to CD's, right? Anyway, thanks again, I'll ask my questions about burning on the channel, don't want to burden you with thank you replies.
Beginnerx in Canada.

why don't you make life easier for yourself and buy a distro. (they're pretty cheap). It'll probably be quicker than all the troubles you're having so far.

Yes, you need to download .iso files and burn it as an image (this is very important or your cd's wont boot). Here's how you do it:

Howto burn an ISO image ?
All the CD-Writing software can use ISO image to burn directly a CD-Rom.

Important note: take care to download the ISO in binary mode (FTP). By default Netscape download the file in ASCII mode which corrupt the image. You can check the integrity of the ISO file with the md5 key (md5sum mandrake.iso under Linux), go to http://www.etree.org/md5com.html to get the md5sum.exe version if you are using Windows)

Please avoid downloading the ISO with a 56K modem line. If the download
fails you can use "Resume" which allows you to continue the download. It
works with ftp (reget), ncftp, CuteFTP, Getright, ...

With Easy CD Creator:
--------------------
Open Easy CD Creator
Go to "File"
then to "Create CD from disc image"
make sure to change the bottom drop down menu ("Files of type:") to say
"ISO image files"

It will do the rest after you browse to the *.iso file
(Thanks for zacheyer)

With WinOnCD:
------------
you can select a
"track-image" project when you click the New button. So long as you are
in track mode, not file-system mode (how that looks depends on whether
you have 3.0 or 3.5) then dragging a track image file onto the CD window
should accept it as a raw track. WinOnCD uses .RAW as its own
extension
(Thanks Rick Jones)

With Nero Burning Rom:
----------------------
Open Nero.
Close the wizard if it is started automatically.
Go to "File"
then to "Burn Image...".
In the next dialog, click on "Image Files (*.nrg)" and select "All files
(*.*)".
Choose the .iso file and accept.
In the following dialog make sure:
- Type of Image is: Data Mode 1
- Block size: 2048
- Image header: 0
- Image trailer: 0
- All the checkboxes are unactive.
Click "OK".
In the next dialog check that the "write" and "finalize" option are active.
Click on "Write".
(Thanks Antonio Asensi)
Its from (ftp://ftp.cse.buffalo.edu/pub/Linux/...ake/iso/README)