How do I get rid of Xandros?

[Ravendon]

I tried out Xandros on a spare computer. I have to say that I am very impressed with it. Hardware detection was awesome, clean desktop, minimal, but very useable apps, slick installer, easy configuration, etc.

Well, hardware detection was almost perfect. I hooked up a Belkin Wireless G USB 802.11 G adapter.

Xandros recognized the device and was able to pull some information about it, but the name is unknown.

Okay, so I downloaded Linuxant's DriverLoader driver and installed it. However, it didn't work for some reason.

So I found my old Windows 98 SE disk and was going to boot up from it and format. The manufacturer has a windows only driver for the usb wifi adapter.

However, despite setting the boot sequence to start with cd, it doesn't boot from cd. It always gets to the Xandros bootloader, which I understand is a customized version of LILO.

Now, I don't have a boot floppy to try booting from floppy first. I doubt it would have worked anyway.

So, is there any way to blast the MBR or get around the Xandros bootloader so I can boot from the cd?

[sether]

So, is there any way to blast the MBR or get around the Xandros bootloader so I can boot from the cd?

this wont work because the order goes as follows:

power on -> BIOS (primary device, secondary, until it finds one that works) -> bootloader -> OS

so you *have* to edit the BIOS settings to boot from cd. double-check to see all the settings are correct to boot from cd, and make sure the cdrom drive is recongized correctly (as primary master, secondary master, primary slave, or whatever). it could be possible that your cdrom drive is bad or the ide controller on the motherboard is bad. check to see if all the cables are plugged in all the way. perhaps the win98 cd is damaged. see if you can boot any other cds. i could offer a million suggestions but try these first.

btw, why do you need to go back to windows? have you asked this question in the forums here? maybe you won't have to give up xandros.

[Ravendon]

I think it was the cds I used. I found my XP Pro cd and it booted without any problems.

I loved Xandros. It's definitely the best Linux distro I've tested, and I've tested quite a few.

The only issue I had with it was that the WIFI usb adapter was unusable, since the company doesn't make any drivers for non-windows and the linux driver I found didn't work.

So, is there any way to blast the MBR or get around the Xandros bootloader so I can boot from the cd?

this wont work because the order goes as follows:

power on -> BIOS (primary device, secondary, until it finds one that works) -> bootloader -> OS

so you *have* to edit the BIOS settings to boot from cd. double-check to see all the settings are correct to boot from cd, and make sure the cdrom drive is recongized correctly (as primary master, secondary master, primary slave, or whatever). it could be possible that your cdrom drive is bad or the ide controller on the motherboard is bad. check to see if all the cables are plugged in all the way. perhaps the win98 cd is damaged. see if you can boot any other cds. i could offer a million suggestions but try these first.

btw, why do you need to go back to windows? have you asked this question in the forums here? maybe you won't have to give up xandros.

[sether]

The only issue I had with it was that the WIFI usb adapter was unusable, since the company doesn't make any drivers for non-windows and the linux driver I found didn't work.

so, i guess you could say it wasn't an issue with Xandros but an issue with the wifi usb adapter company?