installing debian i386 on inspiron 5100 laptop
 

I have this old laptop from '03 that I've decided to use for learning Linux. The catch to this is I'm not really sure what I'm doing. The computer has windows xp home edition on it now and I don't really care about keeping that os on the computer (it doesn't run very well at all). There's nothing on the computer i want to save. I would like to install debian, preferably from a cd or usb. Can anyone point me in the right direction? The computer I use daily is a 2010 macbook pro and that is how i'm connecting to this forum (and the internet in general), if that even matters.

You can start by going to the Debian site where you can download it:

http://www.debian.org/CD/live/

And then go to their site where they have installation guides for whichever Debian selection you have made.

http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/installmanual

You might also see if you can find their hardware compatibility list and minimum hardware requirements to compare to the hardware you have.

Sure. Download the Deb ISO that you want to use (http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/), and that matches your hardware. Burn it on the Macbook to a DVD, plop it in the tray and boot to the DVD. That will bring up the Deb installer. You might have to go into your bios to promote the DVD to the first boot device. Otherwise, on some systems, it will be a function key that you have to hit while you are booting.

Follow these instructions: http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/

The big question from here is how you want it installed, Deb should have an option to borg the entire drive and use the whole thing for linux. If you don't care what's on the Windows side, then by all means go that route. Follow the prompts from there and it should be a breeze.

Forgive me for being so naive, but I'm not getting it. I've been reading the debian page for about 3 days now and a bunch of related info from pages it has linked me to. I still don't understand how to actually get the installer, or the images, or how to use jigdo properly (which it suggests to use). It's truly an exercise in patience for me right now, but I'm sure one of you wonderfully skilled individuals will be able to help this severely struggling newb understand what i'm currently not.

I would just downlaod the iso image. Using Jigdo can be difficult the first time and it is also a command line download.

Debian Install
 

1. You need to download the ISO image. You can either download ISO image for CD or DVD. If you have unlimited internet you only need one CD or DVD to get started. CD download is quicker
as the image only has 648 MB

2. Assuming that you have downloaded CD version of the ISO image from http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/...-i386-CD-1.iso

3. If you don't have CD burning program, download http://www.imgburn.com/ program that you will use to burn the ISO image "debian-7.1.0-i386-CD-1.iso" onto empty CD disk

4. Burn the ISO file "debian-7.1.0-i386-CD-1.iso" onto the CD "Write image file to disc" in ImgBurn program on your Windows machine or any other CD burning program you have (DAO - Disk at Once) method

5. Restart you laptop and when booting up keep pressing F12 key to select as boot device your CD/DVD drive.

6. Select from MENU of boot up devices your CD/DVD drive and press Enter

7. If all OK with your BIOS and your hard drive, you should see and Installation Screen for Debian

8. Check out rest of the installation process over here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIuOFqQ-XTk

If you don't have burner program try cdburnerxp

I'm going to rock the boat and say "don't get Debian". The fact that you find its site and the documentation confusing should be a warning!

Unless you've upgraded it, your computer has a P4 and 512MB, and the latter is the limiting factor. Have a look at SalineOS: it's based on Debian and runs in 384MB.
Read the manual, which has installation instructions
http://www.salineos.com/Downloads/UserManual.pdf
and get the download from here
http://www.salineos.com/Downloads/SalineOS-1.7-i686.iso

I have been trying to get on the boat of Linux for past few years and finally last month re-installed my last PC with Debian Wheezy
and got rid of Windows 7 (well I have purchased another hard disk (SSD) for my laptop (Latitude D830) with the caddy cover for it, so I can swap the drives
easily and now completely migrated all of my e-mails / bookmarks etc. to Debian so I have the Windows as a backup / or if there is something I still can not do
in Debian. (I have Wheezy running on Latitude D420 and Squeeze on LatitudeD410 with GNOME on all of them with no problems at all)

I have been playing with different distros as well, but found as a beginner Debian is actually easy to get started with.

When you install it and get into the GUI (Windows) environment see how responsive it is, you can install different GUI environments apart from default "GNOME" like "KDE" or even
one that runs on Raspberry Pi "Xfce"


I have 4 Raspberry Pi's (Rasbian 2013-07-26) as well running (TVHeadend+MiniDLNA_Samba, RasPBX, RasPi camera Streaming at 1080p and last with RPi camera module for testing)

- I would recommend to make a notes of all the commands you try, so you know what you done and it worked when you re-install your computer (I did numerous times)

- There is good and FREE book "The Debian Administrator's Handbook" you can download for start as well http://debian-handbook.info/



Have you got and idea what you want to use that Laptop for when you have installed Debian on it?


Here is my file with config of my machine so far, with some of the stuff not working (have to read more about it):
http://pastebin.com/0j9FctRq

So I've burnt the image onto a cd and had the computer boot from the cd drive. It sounded like the drive was running and the little light on the side was flashing, but then the computer beeped at me and told me there were no bootable devices. I tried this method with a USB drive and the same thing happened. I then, just to make sure I guess, burned another cd and booted again only to have the same results. No clue as to why neither drive is being picked up. It seemed like both the cd and the USB were trying to be read. Is it possible that the computer doesn't recognize the .iso file as bootable? Totally at a loss here (but not because I'm getting poor directions. you all have been helpful in some way thus far).

Yuck, those 10 year old Dell laptops are rather dreadful. I would simply recycle it and learn Linux on capable modern hardware. :)

To answer your specific question, you can't simply burn the .iso as a file on a data disk... you must burn it as an image. When you open the disk on your Mac, do you see the one .iso file, or a lot of files/folders?

it won't allow me to open it on the mac. it says 'there are no mountable file systems'. doing a file info on the icon it lists the kind as 'iso disk image'

To burn a disc from an ISO file, you need to use the "burn image" tool in your burning application; different burning programs hide it in different places. There's really nothing to open--it is an image of a disk used to recreate that disc on a different blank.

I just looked up the specs for that computer. The stock production model had 256 MB RAM, expandable to 1 GB. If it's at 256 MB, you likely will not be able to run any type of contemporary desktop environment on it, unless you go to something specialized for that purpose, such as TinyCore or Puppy.

If you are looking to use this laptop to learn desktop Linux, you will be better off checking your local Goodwill or thrift store for something newer; $5 or $10 goes a long way in those places. If it has been expanded to a GB RAM, you have a fighting chance for a usable, but still rather slow, computing environment.

The fact that it is a P4 is not such a big deal; the box I'm typing on right now is a P4 with 4 GB RAM and it works just fine, though it's not my first choice for video.

Afterthought:

There is a chance you might be able to find compatible RAM for that machine, but, given its age, you might have to hunt about for a bit. Ten years can be three lifetimes in laptop years.

Check out this link. It will show you how to do it on a mac. http://alvinalexander.com/blog/post/...cd-on-mac-os-x

so i've done the proper burning of the image (which i was unaware of being a thing) and tried again. unfortunately i am again greeted with "no bootable devices".