Need help installing *any* linux distro
 

Ok, I'm a linux newbie. Please let me explain what I can not understand.

First, I have had the bad luck to never have been able to make a good installation of any linux whatsoever. If there was not one problem, there was another.

Now I have a basic hardware setup which I will list, and every distro I have downloaded hangs during install or has serious issues, such as hundreds of error messages.

The biggest problems I never solved were fan control and graphics drivers, but overall nothing ever works.

I have Windows 10 now, and I am ready to move away from Windows permanently, but I'm *stuck*. If I can't get this to work, there is no use for it.

So the *GOAL* -> Install a decent Linux distro on my hardware without having to rewrite computing history in the process.

If anyone can help me, I will keep this thread open with additional questions as I try to do what everyone in here tells me to.

Ok to start, here is my Computer hardware. There is nothing on any of my hard drives and I don't know what to do with the bios either.


Asus Motherboard
M5A97 R2.0

AMD FX 8350 cpu

XFX Video Card
R9 2xx it has 2 fans on it

120 GB SSD Patriot Blaze
1TB Western Digital Blue HD

16GB Ram Kingston Fury

LG DVDR

Enough coasters to open several bars with (I have had bad luck with cdroms also in the past).

and a determined want and effort to properly install linux without all the media crap that we are bombarded with today.

My monitor is 1920x1080 and having crisp and simple graphics without blurring is very important for my eyes, so whatever I setup I'm going for a classic interface, which will be a separate set of questions in some other thread. I'm just mentioning it, so if someone helps, they get the idea that I don't want to install multimedia players and effects like wobbling windows and etc.

and last ... if you can, please help!

Lots of install how tos already on youtube. With moving pictures and dialogue even.

https://www.youtube.com/results?sear...l+ubuntu+14.04

Bad luck with cdroms is usually because you need to md5sum a linux iso
download to avoid file corrupted cds.

Youtube has that covered also

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=md5sum

I've installed and run everything from Slackware to Puppy to Debian on any hardware I wish that can handle it. Even pentium 3 and pentium 2.

So you should be OK with what ever your druthers are as far as which
linux operating system feels like comfort food to you.

You might try making a bootable USB stick. unetbootin is a great program for doing this. I don't know if there's a windows version of this program but maybe there's a similar program that will run on windows. I have done both bootable CDs and USBs. I find it easier and faster to go the USB route.

jdk

Pendrives are faster than optical media, but if you insist on CD/DVD then at least use rewritable media. ;)

I've also had some frustration with CD/DVD media. I suggest not cheaping out on the media. I've had good luck with memorex disks, but I've had more than one pack of imation disks that simply refuse to burn correctly (also using a LG burner by the way). So the physical media can matter. Mark that up to one more reason to use bootable usb sticks.

One other notion is the burn disks slowly. 4x on the dvd side is usually as fast as I go.

I also see that your particular board has some issue with fan control particular to that board. You may want to upgrade the bios/uefi before trying another OS. You may also have some issues with some linux systems that don't deal well with uefi. for many linux distros, you will need to disable secure boot and enable legacy boot options.

One other thing...if its not working for you in a liveCD/DVD/USB environment, then move on to the next distro. I wouldn't waste my time installing. You'll likely have the best luck with Ubuntu or one of its countless children. If you like a simple interface, xubuntu and linux Lite are quite nice. With the 'buntu's, you'll need to install your radeon card's proprietary drivers after install if you wish. Open source drivers are provided by default. the 'buntus provide a "restricted driver" utility to install things like that.

krbri, the first thing you have to succeed is to create a bootable linux live medium (most distros come as live media these days).
i'm not quite sure why you have so many coasters (=cds?) - can't you make a usb instead?

once you have taken this first hurdle, and are able to boot into it (do not install yet!) - you open a terminal and type this command:and copy the complete output (can use mouse dragging for highlighting) and paste it here, preferably in code tags (go advanced => '#').

I've had no trouble using Linux Live Creator on Windows 7. You might give it a try.

My first thought was that you were having trouble burning a DVD, but in that case the problems should probably have manifested at an earlier stage. Then I checked your video card: the dreaded Radeon! It does not have a reputation for doing well with a free driver:
http://phoronix.com/scan.php?page=ar...nr9_270x&num=1

AMD have a driver you can download:
http://support.amd.com/en-us/download#
The Red Hat version should work on any distro using .rmp packages and the Ubuntu one should be OK for those using .deb packages.

I can't guarantee anything: this computer doesn't have a video card!