Ok here I go, another first time attempt to get linux running on a pc!
I have downloaded Simply Mepis 8.0.15 rel 32 from Uni of kent. I have burnt a data cd with the .bin file on. Pc does not boot, "Disc boot failure". I noted in the newbie forum a contradiction among two members as to how the cd should be burnt, i.e. as an iso file and as a data file! Which is correct? How do I burn an iso file? What software should I use, i used Pinnacle.
If I get the cd to boot how do I then go on to install it on a dual boot machine with XP? (XP is already loaded!)
Does anybody have a step by step guide that's written in simple language, or as simple as it can get in linux speak! I have searched the net to no avail. The guide on the Kent server assumes you have bought the cd!

You have definitely to burn it as iso, not as data-CD. You can use the free program Imgburn on your XP-box for it, just install it, do a right-click on your downloaded file and click on "Burn with Imgburn". The boot from it. I have never used Mepis, so I can't help with the rest.

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That certainly sounds wrong (regardless of what you mean by ".bin"). But by ".bin" do you mean ".iso"? Otherwise what do you mean?

Do you have a link to the post in the newbie forum that you think said burn it as a data file? Someone should add a warning there that the information is incorrect.

The terminology varies a lot across the various CD burning programs. I have no guess what the correct terminology is in Pinnacle. But I don't believe any CD burning program would use "data file" as part of the description for the correct choice for burning a .iso image.

I always use ImgBurn (which is free and very good).
http://imgburn.com/index.php?act=screenshots
In ImgBurn, the terminology for the correct operation is write image file to disc
The terminology for the incorrect operation is write files/folders to disc

First verify that you can get it to boot in liveCD mode. If you have any display or network problems, you want to find out how to resolve them before you install.

Once you have correctly burned the CD, there are no more differences between what you would do with your CD and what you would do with a purchased CD.

I haven't reviewed Mepis install documentation since long ago. Long ago the Mepis instructions were clearer than those of other Linux distributions I've tried. But no step by step instructions can be a perfect fit for everyone's situation because your starting point will be different from someone else's starting point.

After you test the liveCD and find out how to deal with display or other issues (specific to your hardware) the next important step is to shrink the Windows partition.

For Windows XP, you should boot into Windows and use the defragmenting tool to defragment the C: partition. Depending on the size of the partition and disk and swap file, it may be helpful or even necessary to disable and eliminate the paging file before defragmenting and leave it disabled until after resizing the partition.

Once C: is defragmented, you boot the Mepis liveCD and use its GUI partitioning tool to resize the Windows partition to be enough smaller to leave room to install Linux.

The rest of the install process probably fits well to whatever Mepis install instructions you already found. The details I just provided are specific to the situation of change from only XP to dual boot Mepis with XP.

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After burning Mepis as an image, you put it in the drive and re-boot. If your boot priority is not set to boot first from the CD drive, change it so it is. I haven't installed Mepis lately but when you boot, you should have several options including one which indicates you can try it without installing. You can run it from the CD this way to see if it works alright on your hardware. If it does, install. You should have an install icon on the Desktop. Just follow the prompts.

One thing you might do before beginning the install is to open a terminal as root user and run the command: fdisk -l (lower case Letter L) and check this partition output. You will be able to see where your windows (ntfs) partition(s) are so you don't install over them later in the process.

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Or maybe your BIOS has a boot menu hotkey and maybe it is easier to press that hotkey every time (which won't be very many times) you want to boot the CD, than to reconfigure the BIOS's saved boot priority list.

In general, you need to get your BIOS to boot the CD, and we can't tell you the details because it varies from one BIOS to the next.

I'm pretty sure the Mepis installer does not prompt you with a choice to shrink an existing install of XP. I expect dbthall needs to perform that step and it is best done before starting the Mepis install program.

I know the Mepis install program will let you install into the unpartitioned space (that was created by shrinking the C: partition).

I'm pretty sure it also gives you a choice to use the entire drive (which would destroy the existing copy of XP). So read the choices carefully in that part of any Linux installer. I'm amazed how many people look at the choice "use entire drive" in a Linux installer and don't understand that it means destroying whatever OS was there before (which usually isn't what they want).


Sometimes a beginner needs to post the existing partitioning details in order to let experts provide more specific instructions. In that case, we need to explain how to use fdisk -l in order to get partitioning info in a consistent expert format for posting.

But for a beginner to look at his own partition info himself, fdisk -l is unnecessarily difficult and displays the info in a form a beginner is less likely to understand.

Both the Mepis liveCD and Windows XP include GUI partitioning tools that give a beginner understandable view of the existing partitions. That is easier to get to than fdisk -l and easier to understand the results (but harder to post the results).

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Also keep in mind Mepis 8.0.15 is an older release and uses the semi-obsolete KDE 3.5. If you want the shiny new KDE 4 you should be using the current Mepis 8.5.

Generally speaking I find Mepis to be a very nice beginner (or advanced!) distro, good choice.

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Stick with 8.0

KDE 4 may not be ready for ordinary users and certainly isn't ready for beginners. Mepis 8.5 fails to do what previous versions of Mepis did so well, making Linux more beginner friendly.

I hope KDE 4 and future Mepis versions improve at beginner friendliness, because I think you are correct that Mepis 8.0 and KDE 3.5 are on their way toward obsolete.

But meanwhile, I'm sticking with KDE 3.5 and I'm not sure the upgrade from there will even be within KDE. I never liked Gnome, but without some real improvement in KDE 4, I would be forced to pick Gnome when KDE 3.5 becomes too obsolete.

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Gparted comes up in the installer. At least for me using the Mepis installer provided in AntiX. Maybe Mepis 8.0 does not have that feature (though I have seen it in screenshots for Mepis 8 installer). Not sure since I run AntiX instead of Mepis. I know though that Mepis installer in AntiX from 7.5 to present had a run Gparted before going any further into install. My EEEPC tutorial below to show what I mean.

http://yatsite.blogspot.com/2010/04/...eeepc-900.html

I was going to reply earlier but had a brown out while posting. Was just going to post a raidens realm screenshot tutorial for installing Mepis. In his screenshots. He shows gparted button in Mepis 8 installer.

http://www.raiden.net/articles/installing_mepis_8/

As a side note. If shrinking Windows partition. I recommend exiting the install process after shrinking Windows. Eject CD. Boot Windows. Because I have found that Windows wants to do a chkdisk after being shrunk. Make sure Windows boots up first after shrinking before re-proceeding with install. Just my 2 cents.

Edit: I happen to know this as when I cloned XP to a 8 gig External SD NTFS Flash drive using DD command on my Asus EEEPC 701SD. I had to shrink Windows first to fit the card using gparted. Then let Windows do it's chkdisk before booting . Then after successful boot. Then boot up (your preferred flavor of Linux) and dd windows to my card.

Happy Trails, Rok

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You could try the Trinity project instead of changing to Gnome.

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Also have a read of the excellent MEPIS manual. Lots of very good material and links in it to smooth the process.

http://www.mepislovers.org/forums/user_manual8/

http://sblinux.org/m85-01/index.html

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Hi guys
Thanks very much for your help. However, I think I am going to need a lot more yet!
I have downloaded IMGBURN and burnt the .iso file to a CD. I have got a successfull boot form the CD!
I have got a screen with the GRUB> prompt!
Reading the manual that one of you refered me to I should have gone from GRUB> to a menu of boot options by pressing F1. Unfortunately this does not happen!
Have I missed something, or has something gone wrong?
If you have any ideas or advice please get in touch again.
Regards
Tim

A Mepis liveCD normally boots up to boot menu. Grub is actually the program running, which displays that menu. But I don't think a GRUB> prompt should be prominent at that point. There are keys you might press from there to get a GRUB> prompt (I forget the details).

I'm not sure what is happening for you. But one situation I have seen a few times is a BIOS whose CD support is incompatible with grub. So grub gets loaded from CD but then is unable to read its configuration off the CD from which it was just loaded.

If that is the problem, the only solution I know of is to use a newer version of Linux that uses ISOLINUX for booting from CD rather than grub (such versions may use grub or grub2 to boot from the hard disk after install, but use isolinux to boot from CD).

Mepis 8.5 uses isolinux on CD.

I disliked recent Ubuntu (with Gnome) as much as I disliked Mepis 8.5 and disliked the recent Kubuntu (with KDE4) much more than I disliked Mepis 8.5.

So if you need isolinux to boot from CD, I think Mepis 8.5 is a lot better than not using Linux, even if Mepis 8.5 is a lot worse than Mepis 8.0

I have a lot of experience with Centos, and it has used isolinux instead of grub for CD for a long time. But I would not recommend Centos for a workstation (non server) install of Linux, nor for a beginner.

I hate to think Mepis 8.5 might be the best available beginner choice. But I don't know of any better choice (assuming your BIOS is incompatible with booting grub from CD).

Almost any Linux can be customized after you install it, even for major changes such as reverting to KDE 3.5. But that requires a fair amount of Linux expertise (just installing KDE 3.5 doesn't give you the setup of Mepis 8.0's KDE 3.5), which means a beginner needs to get through the initial learning curve before making such changes. The big advantage of Mepis 8.0 (and earlier) vs. other Linux distributions is in that initial learning curve. Once you would know how to customize your install to make it more beginner friendly, you no longer need to.

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Hi Johnsfine & Co
Thinking about your last posting. I have had problems with the cd drives under XP, they don't recognise that they have a disc in them!
So to boot from the Mepis CD I used a usb drive! That seems to have been the problem.
To test the theory I dug my old laptop out of the cupboard and it booted Mepis fine! Though I couldn't work from the the CD on a regular basis as it is too slow.
Now I have to go back and find the problem with the ide cdroms! Any ideas? They both stopped working at the same time! I have been through the new hardware route with no success. I think i'll buy a new drive and hope for the best.
Next task is to go for a dual boot. Any advice? How do you shrink the windows partition?
Regards
Tim

For the Windows half of that job. I'm looking at an XP pro system that has many advanced settings, so the two dialogs you need may be buried in less obvious places on your system. There are multiple paths to get to each. Hopefully you can find them.

1) Left click the start button
Right click My Computer
Left Click Properties
Click the tab Advanced
Click The Button Performance Settings
Click the tab Advanced
Click the Button Virtual Memory Change
That gets you to the Virtual memory dialog. Any other path to the Virtual Memory Dialog is also OK.
In that dialog, click "No Paging file", then SET, then OK, then OK out of all open dialogs, then reboot.

2) Control panel
Double click Administrative Tools
Double click Computer Management
Double click Storage
Double click Disk Defragmenter
Select your C: partition
Click Defragment, then wait a long time.

For the Mepis half of the job, I would need to boot up my Mepis 8.0 liveCD to get you exact instructions. Maybe I can do that later or maybe someone else will first.

Roughly, you boot into the liveCD, select the GUI partition manager from the menu, then right click on the large partition (probably identified as sda1 or sda2) and select resize, then type in the desired smaller size, then click the button to do it.

Edit: The instructions for resizing an NTFS partition given here look pretty clear:
http://www.mepislovers.org/forums/us...ml#section03-4
Those instructions do not mention disabling the paging file before defragmenting and re enabling it after resizing. That step is usually unnecessary, but even when unnecessary is usually a good idea.

After resizing the Windows partition, the next time you reboot Windows (which is OK to do before or after installing Linux), Windows will force a chkdisk during boot. That is normal behavior. After that, you probably want to go back to the VM dialog and re enable the paging file.

When installing Linux, I usually create the partitions I will use before starting the Linux installer, then use the installer option to select from existing partitions and use them (rather than partitioning during the install process). After my quick look today at Mepis documentation, I think that sequence may be easier for a beginner as well. So at the time you resize the ntfs partition and using the same tool, you may want to create the partitions you will use for Linux.

I usually start by making all available space into an extended partition, then I make the Linux partitions I want as logical partitions inside that extended partition. There is usually no strong reason for or against that plan as compared to making some or all of the Linux partitions primary partitions.

Most sources will advise you to have a /home partition separate from the / partition. For the majority of people who have no specific reason for that split, I always recommend against that split. I would have only a swap partition (usually 1 to 3 GB) and a / partition (ext3). When you tell a Linux installer to use an existing / partition and no /home partition, it will install /home as a directory inside /, which gives you maximum flexibility in using the disk space. In theory a separate /home partition might make some future upgrade to a different Linux version easier. But in practice it usually doesn't. Something would be incompatible enough that it is worth making a new /home for the next version anyway.

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Hi johnsfine
thanks for that info. I found an old cd drive in the garage and fitted that to the desktop, and it worked so it seems both cd drives developed faults around about the same time.
With a working cd drive I was able to boot properly from the cd just as i had with the laptop.
With the desktop I decided in the end to do an auto installation and get rid of xp altogether.
Mepis installed very quickly compared to an xp installation and is working fine. I have no hardware issues at all so far.
I'm still exploring and trying to my head around the folders and refering to the built in manual when necessary.
All in all with all of your help and guidance the process was not too frightening!
I read somewhere that I won't need to defrag the disc, is that correct? If so, that is a big bonus as I am facing a big defrag on my sons vista PC. I can't convert him to Mepis because he likes his games! But I might sneak a dual boot on him one day!
My next task is to dual boot my old xp laptop and that's where the above info will come in very usefull.
Many thanks again to you all.
Regards
Tim