Hi, I think I am in the correct forum.... I am a newbie. And, not what any one would call an expert at installing operating systems, maybe at best, I have medi-ocher skills at installing operating systems...I have installed windows programs only twice. So with that said, I think the Mint version is the version I should choose based on my abilities and skills.
My issue:
I am attempting to install the Mint version to my old desk top computer that allows only 512MB of RAM and has just 512 MB of RAM, and a 250 G. hard drive; A CD player and two USB ports. There is no operating system installed on the hard drive.
Thus, I am having to download the MINT version onto a computer running windows XP home edition. All is well so far with the download but, when I go to burn the Mint version to a CD I discover that MINT is too large to fit entirely onto the CD. So I thought about burning Mint to a DVD but, the desk top computer I want to install MINT on, does not have a DVD player, only a CD player. SO that option is out. Plus the computer is telling me, that not all files will transfer during the burning process and do I still want to continue? { Can some one explain to me why all files may not be burned to the CD or to a DVD and, what files may not be burned?}

So now I am thinking about utilizing a flash drive and a USB port, however I do not know how to boot my computer to look for a flash drive for the operating system? How do I do this?

Plus I would like to know, Will the mint version have everything I need to cleanly install it to a hard drive?
Please, Lead me by the hand on this!
Thanks
8-24-2010

With that limited power of RAM I would advice you to install Xfce Mint 8, a lightweight DE.

You have downloaded a DVD image not a CD 600+Mb iso image. Certainly with your limited CD drive DVD wont be available this time.

You can download Xfce Mint 8 Helena here. It's a CD iso live CD, just the usual size most Mint editions run live and install.

1st: If the image is a DVD (usually 3.0-4.0G size) it will not fit to a CD media because the latter is commonly only up to 700Mb.

2nd: Granting you have downloaded a CD image, sometimes problem occurs when the downloaded file (image) is corrupt. So the solution is to use bitTorrent downloader. Under Windows there are many torrent downloading clients like Vuze, rTorrent, etc. Use google, find one that runs in windows xp, install into the xp system, and use it to download the CD image (link I give you above) into your drive to burn when complete.

You can do that way by learning a bit more. But for this time you don't need to do it that way if your CD drive is working fine and you can safely download a good iso image without error through torrent client.
Yes, a good live CD installer has everything you need to run a usable linux in your machine. If you need more software to install that is one very very easy under Mint (with all goodies available) if you have an internet connection.

Any more question you are welcome to come back and ask.

Good luck.

1 members found this post helpful.

Thanks for repling, your method of answering my questions was great! I was clearly able to follow along! Thanks!!
OK I followed your instructions and your link.... thanks so much for that link!! I am so glad I did not have to search for it among all the offerings of linux!

I down loaded the Mint 8 it is 694 mb. I burned it to a CD, I installed the CD to the computer I wish to install Mint to, and booted up, I set my CD Rom to be the first boot device. The computer boots, sees the hard drive and the CDRom...but that is where it all stops. the CD Rom's green light goes out and there the process stops.

Could it be that not everything was burned to the CD? because again before i started the burn process, a window popped up saying "some files may not transfer, do I wish to proceed?"

Tell me how I can check and see if the CD actually has info on it?

What do you suggest, ...I will follow.

Did you burn the iso file to CD as a standard file, or as an image? An iso file is an image of the disk contents, so it has to be burned as an image. If you burn it as a regular file, it won't work. The "Some files may not transfer" message makes me think that this is the problem.

If you put the CD back into the XP machine, what's on the disk? Is it blank, the iso file, or something else?

What software are you using to burn the CD?

1 members found this post helpful.

Thanks so much for repling!

I am not 100% certain if it burned as a standard file or as an ISO. Exploring the CD I see Helena Mint8 Xfce.iso and moving my curser over the words, it reads : iso file 694mb

I am not 100%certain what I am using to burn the CD...here are the steps I take and what happens:
when I put a blank CD in the drive a window pops up and asks me to choose either:
real player,windows media player; i Tunes; or make a audio disc or a data disc; or Do nothing....I choose Nothing.
Then I go to my computer and to My 'downloads folder' and right click on the Mint download and choose send to D drive ( which is my DVD/CD burner) and on my screen pops the "CD writing wizard."
Which informs me of the following:

Confirm Stream Loss:
the file, Linux Mint 8 Xfce.iso has extra information attached to it that might be lost if you continue copying. The contents of the file will not be affected, do you want to copy the file any way?

Would U please, recommend to me, software to burn CD and DVD?, I would sure like to have something I knew would do the job and that I could recognize and 'click on', when that list pops up...thank you
Thanks

I attempted again, to boot up and load a new operating system, using the burned CD with Mint 8 installed in the CDROM player. ( is this correct proceedure?)

Still the computer will not start the process of installing an operating system. From viewing the screen I can see that the hard drive is recognized and the CDRom are recognized; memory is recognized .... but the process stops with these words:
Searching for boot record from CDROM.....Not found
Searching for boot record from Floppy...Not found
Searching for boot record from IDE-O ...OK

Please tell me what this means to me, and what I should do next?
Thanks to all!

The process you describe in your post #5 will not work. You have the Linux Mint file with the iso extension. You need to use whatever CD burning software that comes with windows and select the option to "burn as an image". You can do this with Nero if you have it or with Image Burn which is a free download. I'm not familiar with windows software so I don't know what comes as default burning software if anything. If you burn correctly as an image, when the process is completed and you put the CD in the drive, open it in windows or whatever OS you have, you should see several folders/files and not just the iso file.

Windows doesn't come with CD burning software. Windows Explorer is capable of burning simple files to a CD, but it can't handle images (it also can't handle writing to DVDs, and can't create bootable CDs). When you right-click and select "Send to", then you're using Explorer to burn it as a regular file.

You need to get actual CD burning software, and figure out how to use it to burn an image.

download & use that.

even under windows, it should be recognized as a Mint O/S disc.
eject the cd & then re-insert it back into the drive - it should be recognized as a Mint O/S disc.
you should be able to browse the cd's contents.

don't forget to check the ISO's MD5 checksum, before burning to a cd.

Real player, media player and other Windowisms are not ISO burning applications. In my windows days I remember I have used Nero and a cracked proprietary software called NTI Cd Master for burning ISOs.

I do not know anymore what and which burning software to recommend: I am one very "political" and I don't want to promote abusive proprietary programs if there is a "free software" available. But there are plenty of cracked iso burner around just for the sake of burning ISO, a sort of "goodbye" to windows, you will not need these anymore forever under linux, we have better software here and they are "morally free:" free to use, free to modify, free to share and distribute to friends, and it is even free as a free-beer.

I have rechecked the link for Mint Helena Xfce and it offered a Torrent file. Procedure is-- download the torrent file for the ISO image, click this, and then paste this into your Vuze or rTorrent client (assuming you have installed a torrent downloader). The torrent downloader will take care of downloading that very large file without error. Do not use the IE downloader because the iso image is very large and chances of error is high.

Burn the image using an ISO image burner.

Good luck.

Windows 7 **DOES** come with a Disc Image Burner, but it is **NEW** in 7. As such, I would probably recommend ISO Recorder to burn the image to CD or DVD in XP. It installs as a DLL (and you need to reboot before you run it), but when you reboot and then right-click the image, a "Burn to CD or DVD" option will appear in the right-click menu.

Edit: And ISO Recorder is also free and open source.

Hope you have joined the mint forum-Or just take a look.
If you do a search you will find all you need.
Hope you're enjoying Mint, On windows I use Ashampoo Burning Studio to burn ISO's easy to use and free to try Much Luck

If you're just having huge problems with burning the image, there's always the good ol' professionally burned CDs available from OSDisc.com! I have a very limited bandwidth allowance, so I never download those big ol' files. They're dirt cheap from vendors like OSDic.

If you go to http://distrowatch.com and look at the left and right columns near the top of the page, you'll find Linux Mint CDs for as little as $1.75 (USD) shipped to your house in a few days.

Just offering it as an alternative since I use that service anyway just because of my bandwidth limitations.

-Robin

I have an AVERATEC 2100 Series Widescreen Notebook which is installed with Microsoft Windows XP Home:AMD Mobile Turion 64 MT-28/80 GB Hard Drive/512 MB RAM/Dual Layer DVD Burner/USB and FireWire ports/4-in-1Portable Media Reader and 12.1"WXGA. I recently experienced certain problems with the laptop and sent it to the repairman. When it was returned to me,I was informed by the repairer that he encountered certain problems with Microsoft aspect and he decided to partition the Hard Drive and installed Linux Mint Gloria 7 in addition to downloading OpenOffice.org.After using the laptop for a period of time,I discovered problems when trying to use MS Word and there was also a loss of audio.The latter has been corrected by a different technician and I happy with the performance.However,I decided to explore the LM partition and found that among other problems audio was totally absent.As a result, I went to the Internet to get more information on LM and found that Gloria 7 is being phased out and there will be no further support from October 13,2010 (I believe I have the day correct?)
I decided there and then that I will have Isadora 9 downloaded and installed,thus having Gloria 7 removed from my system and replaced by the former;i.e Isadora 9.However, I encountered difficulties finding the site that has the installation instructions.My intention has been to use the ISO method of installation.
My question therefore is where can I locate the above-mentioned installation site in addition as to whether my laptop meets the necessary requirements to have Isadora 9 installed.

Linux Mint Hardware requirements at the link below:

http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=628

Download page for various Desktops:

http://linuxmint.com/

I'm not sure what installation site you are referring to but, if you google "how to install linux mint 9" you should get a number of hits including videos of the installation process. If you do not have a DVD player, make sure you download the CD. If you do not have Nero or some other image burning software you can download Image Burn, free download. Make sure you burn it as an image.