Help Installing (Please Help Me I'm Sick of Microsoft)

[mig_k28]

i own a HP Pavillion PC and i can't get Linux installed, i want to dual boot with my windows and Caldera Openlinux 2.2 which i have on CD. However i need to partition my hard drive so i installed Partition Magic from the same CD which tells me to eject the CD and restart my pc which should then boot Partition Magic but my PC just restarts windows, i think is because of the HP Boot Screen which seems to skip a lot that other pcs dont(e.g counting the RAM at the start) i phoned HP Tech Support who reccomend i don't install Linux as it will Void my warranty, and they refuse to tell me how to remove the HP Boot Screen (but he told me it can be done) so can linux be installed on my PC or am i stuck with a glorified X-Box.

Can some one Please help me feel free to e-mail @ mig_k28@hotmail.com

[Nerderello]

first, why Caldera?

Second, and to answer your question, the order in which your PC searches for an operating system is setup in the BIOS. So, at boot time get the BIOS screens up (either by pressing Del or F2 during the POST checks (where it shows you how much RAM you have) , the key to use depends upon which BIOS is installed on your PC, you should see an onscreen prompt). Then find the boot order section (probably in the advanced options) and make it so that your PC searches the floppy (A: drive) first, then the CDROM , and then your hard disk. This way you'll always be able to get out of any problems, but beware of accidently leaving data floppy disks in your floppy drive, as the PC may fail to boot (easily rememdied by removing the offending floppy).

Once you have the correct boot order, make sure that you save your selection before rebooting (should be a menu option within the BIOS screens).

Now you should be able to boot onto your partition magic CD, resize your partions so that you have one for windows and two for Linux (a lttle one [about twice the size of the RAM you have] for your SWAP partition and a full sized one for Linux's "/" partition.

Then you can boot onto your Linux distro CD, install it, install a boot loader (recommend GRUB) to look after the various operating systems and then it "Welcome to the world of Linux".

have fun

Nerderello

[Opnosforatou]

1st:
One word of caution though: HP used to have a system partition with bios application in their HD.
Be sure you don't delete that one by accident.
Unless you have restore CD from Hp.

2nd:
Installing Linux cannot void you warranty. Specifiying you can only run windows is a sign of cartel playing... (Don't know exact english term for it.)
And it's against most laws worldwide.
The only thing they can do is no longer give tech support.

3rd:

I would recommend installing Fedora Core 1 as your first distro.
Please throw anything caldera in the firplace...
Former Caldera is current SCO.
Read: www.groklaw.com on the who's why's and where...

the Anti-SCO is a personal note, if you wish to continue with the Caldera install, it's your choice.
But we'll keep on helping you when you need.

[mig_k28]

Thanks for all the help. i'm using Caldera because i got a CD with a book i bought so i though i'd give it a try. i've managed to sort out the partition and the boot logon, but whilst installing linux there wasn't my monitor on the list so i went through all the monitors and the only one were i could see anything was really big (i mean each icon is about 3'' x 3'' at so is the menu bar is there a display bar like in windows were i can fix this problems as i can not see full windows to be able to look around myself.

[logan5]

Caldera is pretty old (and it's SCO now so that just makes it worse). It probably won't have drivers for your monitor/video card, sound card and maybe (probably) more on the install CD(s). It will use the base defaults for items that it doesn't know exactly what to do with and as you can see by your monitor settings (such as 16 color vga in 480x480 or less), they are far from ideal. You may be able to get newer drivers for your system, but I wouldn't bet on it. It's like trying to install windows 3.1 when Windows XP is avalible. Even if you get it (caldera) working, you are going to run into problems installing/running/or just finding other software.

The recommendation for Fedora posted above (or any newer distrobution) will make you life and experience with linux much more enjoyable. Take a look here - http://www.distrowatch.com/ for all of the different linux variations and where to download them. Most are free, you just need some blank CD's to burn them onto (some will actually install from the internet). I would stick with the "Major Distrobutions" listed here - http://www.distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=major

Fedora, Mandrake, SuSe and Debian (in no real order) seem to be popular. And for what it's worth I'll second Fedora as working pretty good. It auto detected my monitor, video card, sound card, and network card (but there is a bug with the 3com 3c905b card that I have, more on that if you need it). With out too much effort my system works well.

[Nerderello]

Logan5 has got a good point there. Please remember that unlike uncle Bill's OSs, Linux doesn't have major name changes, but it does change and evolve. So you really need to get yourself a new version of Linux (maybe, if it's all you can find free, Redhat 8 or Redhat 9, or Mandrake 9.x or 10.0, or Fedora Core 1 or 2).

main thing though

Have fun

Nerderello

[scook94]

Mandrake 10 is on currently being given away on one of the Linux mags this months, pop down to WH Smith and grab a copy... Or you can download Fedora for free if you have broadband and a cd-writer....

[mig_k28]

I have decided to opt for fedora linux. i'm downloading the iso file's ( i take it i burn them to a cd as iso's then use them as boot disk)

is this the correct link

http://zeniiia.linux.org.uk/pub/dist...re/1/i386/iso/

i'm downlaoding the yarrow-SRPMS-disc1
yarrow-SRPMS-disc2
yarrow-SRPMS-disc3

is this gonna be correct for a HP Pavillion, 700Mhz 64Mb Ram and
2Gb partitioned for linux

[big_k105]

no actually you will want the i386 ones i would believe
and yeah thats what you do to ues the iso jst burn them as iso and they should work as boot discs

[logan5]

Well, sorry to say, but I see some problems in your near future.

The minimum system requirements for Redhat/Fedora (or most of the distrobutions) are going to exceed your computer's current config. You are going to want more memory and more hard disk space. About 256 megs of memory and 5 + gig of disk space. The 64 megs that you have are the minimum for text mode (basically DOS to a windows person) and the 2gig of disk space will work for text mode, but if you want a GUI (KDE or Gnome that are supplied) 1.7 gig is about as small as it goes.

Here's a doc from RedHat on ver 9 (fedora core 1 is thought of as ver 10 so they will be about the same) - http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/l...ase-notes/x86/

Red Hat Linux 9 Technical Details
Minimum and Recommended Hardware Requirements:
CPU:
Minimum: Pentium-class
Recommended for Text Mode: 200 Megahertz Pentium-class or better
Recommended for Graphical Mode: 400 Megahertz Pentium-class or better

Hard Disk Space*:
Custom installation (minimum): 475 MB
Personal Desktop: 1.7 GB
Workstation: 2.1 GB
Custom installation (everything): 5.0 GB

*Additional space will be required for file storage.

Memory Requirements:
minimum for text mode: 64MB
minimum for graphical mode: 128 MB
recommended for graphical mode: 192 MB

Not all that bad when compared to Win XP - http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/p...on/sysreqs.asp

Here's What You Need to Use Windows XP Professional
PC with 300 megahertz or higher processor clock speed recommended; 233 MHz minimum required (single or dual processor system);* Intel Pentium/Celeron family, or AMD K6/Athlon/Duron family, or compatible processor recommended
128 megabytes (MB) of RAM or higher recommended (64 MB minimum supported; may limit performance and some features)
1.5 gigabytes (GB) of available hard disk space*