Hi new to linux and I have a question on how to get started.
 

Hi my name is brent and I have a toshiba laptop that is wiped clean from the restore disks 2 of them... I want to install linux and make it a linux only machine, since I already own two other computers with windows xp installed. could anyone help me by linking me to a guide how how to burn a cd with the linux install on it and then how to run it and get started... the computer is a toshiba satellite and I hope that the restore disks the two of them worked properly and wiped it clean... when I turn it on it is a black BIOS screen I believe... thanks a lot! any help will be appreciated ... I decided to get this new hobby and learn linux :)

Welcome to LQ

To burn the iso in windows:
http://www.petri.co.il/how_to_write_iso_files_to_cd.htm
Then boot your laptop from the CD/DVD (you may need to set the BIOS to boot from CD)
Then just follow the instructions.
Depending on the distro you are using, go to the homepage from the distro, and read the documentatoin, or ask here.

Kind regards

Ok when I turn on the toshiba which I am thinking is totally cleaned off the BIOS screen pops up with just black screen ext... so I burn the iso on to a bootable disk and put the disk into the cpu and the linux operating system should do its thing? I just don't have any operating system at all running on the computer at the moment... if it is too hard to do I might just put a faster version of windows on the computer but I would really love to learn linux i think it would be a great hobby ...

thanks again!!

Yes, boot from the CD and follow the instructions.
It's like booting from a windows install CD

Kind regards

could anyone link me to a bootable form of the linux os that would be good on a toshiba satellite computer?

I would suggest ubuntu for a beginner
http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop/get-ubuntu/download

Kind regards

Thank you sir. I have had ubuntu on this netbook when I had the hard drive partitioned but I never got around to using it but now I am placing it on this toshiba laptop as the only operating system that will be on the cpu... I hope drivers and such aren't too hard to figure out. Thanks for all the help .. I hear linux is unlimited to the amount of things you can do ..and I am excited it is free :) ... I am downloading the ubuntu iso right now then I will burn it to a disk and hopefully it will boot up when I place it into the toshiba satellite ...again I really appreciate the help

Brent

No problem.

Enjoy

Kind regards

Linux is certainly the most exciting OS human beings have ever invented! Enjoy experimenting with it! Let us know if you face any problem / trouble!

ok i have a toshiba satellite and the computer is at a black screen after i did the two recovery disks and wiped everything clean.. itsays intel(r)boot agent fe v4.1.18
copyright (c) 1997 2005 intel corporation
then next few lines

pxe-e61: media test failure. check cable
pxe-m0f: exiting intel boot agent.
operating system not found.

thats all it says i am wondering if did not make the boot cd correctly

It is very hard to tell from that whether the laptop wasn't set to boot from CD or whether the CD was burned incorrectly.

The messages you quoted are from a failing attempt to boot from the network. But they don't say why the laptop tried to boot from the network.

Many beginners write a .iso file to a CD as a file rather than as an image. That could give the symptom you report, but many other errors also could give the symptom you report.

Try putting the CD back in the computer you burned it on and view it with the windows file browser (explorer). If you see the .iso file on the CD, you burned the CD in the common wrong way. I don't recall what you should see if you burned a Ubuntu CD correctly. But seeing the .iso file definitely is wrong.

i dont have any operating system on the computer right now just the boot from cd option as listed as number one on the list I did this by pressing f2 to getting to that menu

Try to boot the cd on another computer.

Kind regards

It sounds like you did not burn the .iso as an image. It should be an option within your burning software.

Simply burning it as a data disk (or any other option besides image) will not make it bootable.

You seem to have a second computer that you are posting on.

I jumped to the conclusion that you have a computer you burned the CD on. I suggested using a computer that has an OS to examine the CD to see if it was burned in the common incorrect way. You can't easily prove it was burned correctly. But if burned incorrectly, that is usually easy to see.

Since you used F2 to get a boot menu (as opposed to using the BIOS menu to set boot sequence rules) it is less likely you did that wrong causing the boot attempt from the network. So incorrectly burned CD gets that much more likely. But I rarely ever rule out operator error from my list of theories. So the Cd might have been burned correctly and somehow used incorrectly.