Hello,

I am brand new to the world of Linux. I was just given a Zotac mini PC that has LILO installed and I know absolutely nothing about it.

I've tried googling and searching forums but I can't seem to find anything that will help me.

My problem is, I have no idea how to configure or edit LILO at all. Whenever I boot up this PC all that it does is goes to this screen:

http://i422.photobucket.com/albums/p...psmn7etxgw.jpg

Then loads the Kiosk thing which is just a slideshow of pictures. Once it loads that up, there is absolutely no input that works. During the slideshow I have hit every single button or keyboard command I could possibly think of and none of them do anything.

I have also tried typing in commands when it's on that LILO screen, but nothing seems to work.

From what I've read LILO is "Bootstrapped" (Not sure if that's the right term) to the system memory since it's the only OS installed so I can't simply just wipe the hard drive and install a new OS. I have also tried removing the hard drive and plugging it into my windows PC to look at whats on the drive but it will not display any contents at all (Which I suspect is because of LILO but I'm not certain). The hard drive is absolutely 100% fine, it is recognized and works in the mini PC and my windows PC recognizes it but it just won't show up for me to explore the contents.

LILO is not the operating system. The OS could be a number of things. It doesn't look like you have a problem with LILO, which is the bootloader for Linux and a few other OSs (an incredibly unpopular bootloader).

It sounds like the system does not recognize the keyboard. You could try enabling "legacy USB" in the BIOS setup.

The keyboard works, on the screen pictured I can type and it will come up its just nothijg seems to do anything.

Windows can't understand any filing system other than its own. You could get a Linux distro, put it on a usb stick, and run that to examine the hd. How about the person who gave you the computer? Can't they tell you what you have? I'm afraid I can't comment on your picture, as neither of my browsers can cope with Photobucket — perhaps you could post it here directly?

You said when you get to the slide show your keyboard and mouse do nothing. The keyboard might work initially but not after booting.

Your issue is not with LILO, which is (merely) the "boot loader" that loads and starts the operating system. Since you are seeing Linux startup sequences and then slide shows, you know that LILO has done its work. You seem to have inherited a "kiosk system" that is designed to immediately launch a slide-show program upon startup and to confine the end-user to it.

Depending on the setup, there is usually a certain keyboard key that can be pressed and held-down at startup which will prevent the kiosk sequence from starting. (Read: "boot into single-user mode.") Or, there is some hidden (and perhaps, password-protected) way to stop it.

If it's your hardware and the internal storage is not soldered on, you could disconnect that storage device and it will likely try to boot ANY available and bootable storage device by default. At which point you could mount the storage, modify it, and get things the way you want it. Otherwise many systems have a hotkey(s) to bring up the bios/cmos/uefi/... and "change" the hardware preferences. Sometimes that may only be an option with a ps2 keyboard, or serial type connection.

This is good to know, however, the person who gave me the computer got it from a thrift store so I have no way of finding out the password if it is protected. I'll definitely do some digging and try to find a key to prevent the kiosk program from booting.

If I'm not able to find a way around this kiosk program or anything is there a way for me to wipe it all and start completely fresh?

You could try burning a "live" distro to DVD or USB - almost any distro will do.

You will need to ensure that your BIOS boot priority favours the DVD or USB.
This will give you a proper Linux, that runs in main memory - so there's a big performance hit.

This can be used to explore your disk files and also (optionally) to install it, possibly overwriting anything already on disk.
I would suggest you give Mint a trial run.

Looking at the advertisements, those little Zotacs seems quite capable. Anything that runs Windows 10 will run any Linux distro, although an Intel Atom is not going to break any speed records! I too would recommend trying Mint, preferably the Mate version, which is less demanding. You can download the user guide here
http://linuxmint.com/documentation/u...glish_17.3.pdf

Thank you for the input, I'm absolutely going to give this a try but I'm not sure what version to use?

https://www.linuxmint.com/download.php

Cinnamon 32-bit 64-bit An edition featuring the Cinnamon desktop
MATE 32-bit 64-bit An edition featuring the MATE desktop
Xfce 32-bit 64-bit An edition featuring the Xfce desktop
KDE 32-bit 64-bit An edition featuring the KDE desktop

Those are the options I have, which one should I try?

Any would be fine, but Xfce will take the least resources.

As you can see, only the Mate and Cinnamon versions have dedicated documentation. They are the two default versions. The KDE and Xfce versions are produced because people have asked for them and Clem has obliged. The manuals aren't there because it's assumed that anyone who asks for an Xfce version is (1) already a Mint user and (2) already knows about Xfce.

It's usually best to get a distro with the default GUI because that's what most people do, so if ever there are any problems, they are quickly reported and dealt with. The only time I ever looked at the KDE version of Mint, it had the sort of problems you never see in either of the defaults.

The last time I checked, the Mate version was using much the same amount of CPU time and RAM as the Xfce. That's the one I'd suggest.

I can't remember if your computer has an optical drive or not. If it doesn't, here's how to put the Mint installer on a usb stick using Windows:
http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/744