Hello all, This is my first post and I'm relatively new to Linux. Here is my situation. I have a relatively new computer with an older op system. (Windows XP SP3 x86 Dell Inspiron 545 2493Mhz Quadcore, 8gigs ram,Hd1 ssd 256g, Hd2 7200rpm 700g, ASUS XONAR DG PCI 5.1 Audio Card, EVGA GeForce 8400 GS 1 GB 16X Graphics Card, Pale Moon v. 25.6.0 Atom/WinXP )of which I will add to my signature as soon as I can figure out how to. Xp is loaded on my hd1 ssd and all of my "stuff" is on the larger hd2 700g. At first I was thinking of doing a duel boot off the ssd but I really don't have any way to back up my drive at this point and can't afford to lose my everyday XP. So I have a #10 32g Micro SD with a USB adapter that I want to load it on. I have been reading a bunch and it seems that there are some different options on how to do this. The first seeming to be the easiest is to use Ubuntu's "universal USB installer" and the second but more complicated is to use the DVD and when going through the partition process making the changes to the type of partition to ext2 and then making sure to add noatime and relatime to it. I also read that when doing it this way that I have to add some rootdelay time to grub so that the drive will initiate properly. This last part seems a little more tricky to me and still a bit foggy. And is spoken of here http://linux.koolsolutions.com/2009/...r-usb-devices/ On part 5 he talks about the rootdelay work around but I get lost on where some of the edits take place like this quote "To make this change permanent you need to edit your /boot/menu.lst file and add the parameter at the following locations:" I have no idea where I would have to go to make this edit and he seems to think I should know this already. So my big question on this is this, will the "universal USB installer" do the rootdelay part for me? Or is it better to do it the second way? If the second is better can someone help me with the last rootdelay part?

Thank you again. I have been reading as much as possible on this site and I see a lot of great comments.

P.S. If someone could point me to the place where I can add a signature and maybe a pic that would be great too : )

I'd install 1st and worrry about editing grub and fstab later on in another thread. I'd format the card as ext2 or f2fs and make no /swap with 8 gigs of ram.

I would not use the ubuntu installer on robolinux. But would do a conventional install like I have done before ages ago.

http://yatsite.blogspot.com/2009/07/...s-eee-900.html

Anyway. That is how I would do it. A persistent robo usb linux install is another way to roll. I will let someone else delve into that as I have not done that with outside tools.

1 members found this post helpful.

Sooo, it took awhile before my post could get moderated and this is what I worked on yesterday. First thing I found out is that the Universal USB installer first does not actually work with Robolinux(maybe to new). So I just did a live CD for a bit to try it out, and after about 2 hours of trying to get my sound card to work and failing I just messed with the system for awhile to see if I liked it. In the end Robolinux is like using a mac. They took so much out that makes a Linux system Linux that it was not worth the trouble.

So next on the list was the Ultimate Edition. This one I was able to use the Universal USB installer and I let it rip. After getting it on the USB I started my computer to find out that it does not actually install Linux as a full operating system. It just loads the .ISO on to the USB so that I can bypass using a DVD to load it on my computer : (

Well lesson learned. So I started from Scratch and Loaded it from DVD on to the flash drive. Ultimate Edition does not give me the options to change anything on load up like I spoke of in my first post. So I just went ahead and let it do it's thing just to see if I would like it or not.

It took a Looooong time to load (Micro SD to USB Adapter is to slow) and finally I was able to use it. Over all it seems like a nice distro and I played with it for a few hours. But a major flaw (as I saw it) was that you could not mount my other hard drives without going through several hoops. The only way I could get to my other drives was to go through the flash drive and then when it opened it had a small bar on the left that if clicked would show my drives. But, unlike other Linux distro's it would not show the size and would not let me mount them or shortcut them on the desktop. The only drive I could do this with was the flash drive. This was not the case with some of his older versions so I'm not sure what happened here. There were other things I won't get into but in the end I decided that it would not do.

So today I will download Linux Mint 17.2 and Slackware 14.1 and try those.

Thanks rokytnji for your advise. I did notice that when installing on the USB that I did not need Grub although it did install Grub on the flash drive. This seemed fine to me as it does not mess with my computer in anyway.

P.S. I looked all over this place for a way to insert a signature but could not find one. Any Idea's?

My LQ on top of site window.
Settings & Options in L/H side bar.
Edit Signature.

Ahh, man I'm blind. Thanks rokytnji. Got it done. : )

So I got my signature done but on my last quick reply I did not see it and was wondering if that doesn't count. I also noticed that there is mention of avatars but could not find a place to upload one. Any ideas?

just one.
https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...editprofilepic

Well it seems I'm not allowed. Maybe I'm to new. This is what I get.

Thehandyman1957, you do not have permission to access this page. This could be due to one of several reasons:

1. Your user account may not have sufficient privileges to access this page. Are you trying to edit someone else's post, access administrative features or some other privileged system?
2. If you are trying to post, the administrator may have disabled your account, or it may be awaiting activation.

MAKE sure it is .jpg and

Click on my profile to see how custom you can make yourself look.
About me about covers it. I am a handyman type also.

Nice rokytnji, But I can't even find the place to do that. I have gone through all the list on the left but I don't see any place to upload anything.

Edit: OOOps , brain fart.

My LQ>Customise Profile>Edit Profile picture

Almost every modern linux can be installed to a usb drive. Modern linux doesn't know it is a usb basically, it thinks they are all scsi hard drives. I'll also assume you have a modern system.

The trick is to prevent damage to your current system. You can remove any internal hard drive before you start. Plug in usb and boot to bios. See that usb shows up as a hard drive choice.

Then use the cd or dvd to boot and use the distro's installer.

Once it is created then you can mount other drives as you wish or the distro and user permissions allow.

Yes, you would need faster type drives generally. The adapter should be fine if 2 or 3 usb.

Yea, But for a newbie like me some of these install programs don't give you all the options you need. I just got done working with Linux Mint 17.2 and it's almost a spitting image of Robolinux including the fact that it won't run my sound card. Very strange. Ultimate Edition will run my sound card fine.

Also I noticed that even though my wireless is up and running it will not connect. It keeps asking me for my password over and over again. The password is correct and I have read about this being a issue on many newer Linux Distro's. Some say it's the new key chain program and others say you have to go and remove it from the list and then restart it. How frustrating is that? Don't they even test these before they put them out. Arrgggg.

I can load an older version of Mint and I don't have that problem at all.

I will finish downloading slackware 14.1 tonight but now I'm out of DVD's so I will have to wait till Monday to start again.

Congrads on getting Linux installed and running, however Windows XP was end of life back in April 2014. Might be taking a risk still running that unsupported OS.

Thank you, I'm still not there yet but I'm still going.