Dear Sir,

I am very much interested to use linux software for my Desktop PC. To be frank I dont know AB,C of what kind of operating system this is, as I have been using windows for last 6 years and I am no Techie also.

I have windows XP2 presently loaded on my system. The processor is AMD K 750 with 256mb RAM, and a hard disk of 20 GB in four partitions.

Since last month I have been looking around for linux replacement for this pc which should be trouble free, although I am willing to take the trouble to learn the new software! One more thing, I had requested one ubuntu cd on the web, which they had promptly delivered to me, and I am just unable to install it, as after clicking the install icon out of six stages five somehow get completed, than the pc hangs.

I need to know what could be causing it, is my system configuration not competable?

Now, I have read you advising the knoppix version to the new bee's why is it so? will you explain me please?

One very important thing, I am using bluetooth for internet access through airtel gprs, and I would like to continue that, will I be able to do that through ubuntu or knoppix, if yes please guide me for the right distro! Which would help me enter the community as a user participant.

Thanking you,
Ashfaq Shaikh.

Moved: This thread is more suitable in Ubuntu and has been moved accordingly to help your thread/question get the exposure it deserves.

With the information given its quite difficult to determine what could cause the problem, maybe the hardware resources are not sufficiant, try xubuntu instead of ubuntu because it can handle older hardware better. I don't think the processor or the ram should be a problem even for the normal ubuntu, but could you post which options you choose under partitioning the hd?
To the next point knoppix is newbie-friendly because its a live cd, which means you don't have to install it on your computer and can try the linux programs, on the other hand you can't save any data with a live cd ( you can do it, but its quite difficult).
To the last point. I have had good experiences with the bluetooth support under ubuntu, but I don't know if exactly your device is supported try googling for the device name in combination with linux or ubuntu.

Well, I tried last night again, I was through to the disk partitioning, but could not understand and decide, how to go ahead with the partitioning! thus reverted back..

I will give you the details of my contents and partitions please help me out.

I have four partitions, in 20 GB disk. Partition 1 C: has been converted to ntfs by previous xp installation, but presently no Important data is on the drive and empty space is about 2.4 GB.

2nd partition D:is currently holding the windows xp o/s with office and other program files. Empty space is around 2.5 GB

3rd Partition E: is holding about 2 GB Data of downloaded files and files I had shifted from C: to clear space for ubuntu.

4rth Partition F: is packed with all saved Data of Emails, browsed pages etc.

I had formated E: partition initialy for ubuntu, but when it did not go for the installation, I created some space in C: and shifted files to E:

Now Please let me know what would be the partition interface and how should I go about, I would like to install ubuntu in C: but I am told one more partition is required for swapping, that can be done in any of the two partitions (E&D) I dont mind. After I am more familarised with ubuntu I will get rid of xp but til than I had to continue with it.

I hope now you got the clear picture of my problems please help me out!
Thanking you,
Ashfaq

Ok ... Ubuntu (Linux in general) will NOT install onto your Windows
file-system(s). You need empty partition space.


Cheers,
Tink

Ubuntu in its default installation requires at least 3 GB of disk space. As a rule of thumb, the swap partition should be at least half the size of RAM.
You can resize existing partitions during the initial setup, however, being conservatively, I would always recommend not to do so without having complete backups. Here's an installation guide.

Internet via bluetooth should work, but would require some tweaking.

Well, I thought xp is giving problems so I installed windows 98 in one partition now!

Started the ubuntu live cd formated the ntfs partition of xp but could not move further. Now I have a partition which is fat 32 where xp and other programs were initially, and the drive is detected by win 98.

In order to install ubuntu what should be the procedure now, help me to do it, as I said one drive of 4.80 Gb is free for it now, how to go about installing in that drive?

Will I need to further parttion it? the auto partitioner makes a resiszing of the drive 51% but on clicking forward does not move further(Gets hanged) and I am stuck up!

Please help me getting this ubuntu installed once!

Someone?

It actually hangs??? -- That's the graphical installer, where you boot from the CD-ROM, have all the applications around without having installed them, and where's the additional choice to install Ubuntu to the harddisk, finally, right?

If it actually hangs, and there is no other workaround, there's still the "alternate" CD, being available for download.

That's a valuable goal, ashfaq. I'll be listening.

Dear Robbert,

I am located in a remote place in the western pockets of India. I am accessing Internet through GPRS connection which is only on times better than dial up! and your advise for downloading 700MB from net will take me atleast a week.....

Well as you might be aware of my story, I had a windows XP version which was certified as not genine by microsoft and a warning message was displayed, this started my quest to search an alternative, but with my limited knowledge I was not able to decide and risk linux. I somehow traced the ship it address and requested them which they did it, thankfully!

During this time I Installed a copy of licenced xp2, here I faced problems again as I was not able to connect through the bluetooth as before, because the microsft team has come up with thier own bluetooth capabilities and my bluetooth software started giving me trouble!

I wiped up some more Data and formated another partition for Windows 98, this worked fine but with limitations, I am writing you this mail through the same connection on win98. Now again I took up the ubuntu live CD, this live cd wiped out the ntfs partition along with xp2. The partition is free full 4.87 GB and I need hlp to install this linux on this partition.

If you can help me do that being aware of my limitations please do. For your info, now the 98 status shows four partitions of 5GB each, one is running 98, one is blenk the two others have some data on it. My processor is AMD 750 Duron, with 256 Ram installed but the available memmory is shown 224 mb only. so this is the status, come out with some logical procedure and dont just liston, please!

Ashfaq Shaikh.

Dear Sir,

As i had just explained my full story to Robbert I would not like to repeat, if you go through that thread.

Sir, the empty partition is ready now, of full 4.87 GB! Even now the situation is I am able to go upto the 5 stages of installation, when the option of resiging the drive 51% is displayed I clicked that it did not move any further got hanged! The third option of manual partition hangs at the time of displaying partions, once I had gone to a further stage when the Gpart window showed up, but I got confused and restarted after studying a bit about partitions, will you help me get this ubuntu installed? Now it wont show that window also.

I am willing to sacrifice the Data on my full disk, if required, and if no alternate method of installation is available, but what if the second option of formating the full disk does not work, I will loose everthing! Hence please help me out as fast as you can.

Thanking you,
Ashfaq.

Sorry, I don't know whether the Ubuntu installation CD offers this, but
can you try to post the current partitioning scheme? And maybe some more
detail about the hardware.


Cheers,
Tink

I am pasting the system info as displayed in window for you. D: is free for linux.
presently I am using win98 as described in earlier posts.

Microsoft Windows 98 4.10.2222 A
Clean install using Full OEM CD /T:C:\WININST0.400 /SrcDir=F:\WIN98 /IS /IZ /II /NR /II /C /U:xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
IE 5 6.0.2800.1106
Uptime: 0:00:13:14
Normal mode
On "A" as "a"

AuthenticAMD AMD Duron(tm) processor
224MB RAM
52% system resources free
Windows-managed swap file on drive C (3876MB free)
Available space on drive C: 3876MB of 4994MB (FAT32)
Available space on drive D: 4994MB of 4994MB (FAT32)
Available space on drive E: 1965MB of 4994MB (FAT32)
Available space on drive F: 1473MB of 4438MB (FAT32)

OK ... and where is the free partition space? Or are you referring to
your D:\ as free because it's empty?

You need to delete the partition, not the files from the partition.


Cheers,
Tink

Hi ashfaq.s,

first off, regarding your GPRS connection, Linux can be more difficult than Windows. You would need to put some efforts in to make it work (however, it appears to be absolutely possible to make it work).
To me, this sounds serious, and apparently, you've already tried alot. - Unfortunately, early Ubuntu Dapper releases had major bugs related to partioning within the install procedure (just as a reference, this one), and your problem could be related.

So, what to do? - I could imagine two options. Both presume you do not format the target partition during install time, but before that. At install time, you would just select that partition being already formatted. (You'ld probably prefer the ext3 file system, BTW.)

1. You can format Linux partitions from Windows, i.e., using PartitionMagic. That's a commercial tool, supporting Linux partitions, too.

2. Using the Ubuntu Live CD, you could use fdisk, mkfs, and parted from the command line. After that, you would click the install button.

Best of luck
(I'm just another Linux newbie BTW)
I'll be listening
Robert

hi,
u need to first delete at least one partition (to put Ubuntu on)!!
This will move that partition to FreeSpace..

1.While Partitioning, choose "Manual partition"
2.Select the "free space"
3.Create 3 new partitions (/ , /home, swap)
4.U need to give at least 2-3 GB to /, 1 GB to /home & 224*2 MB to swap
5.Also label the ur different partitions(already up there) with good names like /media/Win98 , /media/drive1 , /media/drive2 , etc...
6.Move ON!!