Completely Start Over Needed!

Here's the story of this computer: Originally a Windows XP computer, I decided to install crunchbang on this computer that is lacking in RAM. I am just starting with Linux (I feel like I've been saying this for forever!) and I wanted to switch to Lucid Puppy Linux because I thought it would be a smaller distro and work better. This caused a lot of problems and xorg kept failing and I'm sick of it.

Anyways, I would like to completely start over and probably use SliTaz (but would be open to other distros). I do not have CDs available, but have a 1GB USB flash drive. I still have a decrepit Lucid Puppy installed, so I can do Linux commands. (I also have a Windows 7 PC available to make the flash drive bootable if that would be better.)

I have no files that I would like to save, so reformatting the hard drive would be fine. I need steps on how to install SliTaz onto a hard drive, completely resetting the hard drive in the process. I have tried installing multiple distros with no avail and different versions of Grub…

I may sound like an idiot, but I would like explicit steps on how to do this.

Thanks in advance,
Quevvy

Use unetbootin to create a live usb drive on your thumb drive. You should then be able to boot from that (assuming the system allows usb booting), verify that the OS runs on your hardware, and then allow you to install it to the system hard drive. Here is a link to the unetbootin site (hosted on sourceforge.net): UNetbootin - Homepage and Downloads

Using unetbootin, I installed the stable_live version of SliTaz. I started the "default" setting. A bunch of fast text went by, but then it stopped, saying:

Quote:

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VFS: Cannot open root device "(null)" or unknown-block(0,66)
Please append a correct "root=" boot option; here are the available partitions:
0300 39062500 hda driver: ide-gd
0301 39062016 hda1 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000hda1
1600 4194302 hdc driver: ide-cdrom
Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(0,66)
Pid: 1, comm: swapper Not tainted 2.6.37-slitaz #2
Call Trace:
[<c1378112>] ? printk+0xf/0x11
[<c1378008>] panic+0x50/0x14b
[<c1507b55>] mount_block_root+0x1e5/0x1f9
[<c108a658>] ? sys_mknow+0x13/0x15
[<c1507c6e>] mount_root+0x4c/0x54
[<c1507db6>] prepare_namespace+0x140/0x171
[<c15078ad>] kernel_init+0x17f/0x18e
[<c150772e>] ? kernel_init+0x0/0x18e
[<c1003a76>] kernel_thread_helper+0x6/0x10
_

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Did you follow Rubbermans suggestion and download unetbootin? Did you download it to your Puppy install or to the windows 7 machine? Did you successfully create the usb/flash drive after downloading Slitaz? Did unetbootin show completion of the flash install? Were you able to boot Slitaz from the flash? I haven't installed Slitaz recently but, when I did the installation was begun by clicking the menu icon in the lower left of the Desktop, mousing up to System Tools then Slitaz Installer. Is this the method you used? If not, what options did you see and use?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by yancek

Did you follow Rubbermans suggestion and download unetbootin? Did you download it to your Puppy install or to the windows 7 machine? Did you successfully create the usb/flash drive after downloading Slitaz? Did unetbootin show completion of the flash install? Were you able to boot Slitaz from the flash? I haven't installed Slitaz recently but, when I did the installation was begun by clicking the menu icon in the lower left of the Desktop, mousing up to System Tools then Slitaz Installer. Is this the method you used? If not, what options did you see and use?

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Yes I downloaded unetbootin on my Windows 7 machine.
It successfully created a live USB, shown by unetbootin.
When I tried to boot from the USB drive, it showed the message that I posted.
I couldn't even boot SliTaz from the USB, so I couldn't get the Desktop or anything.

Try another distribution on your system. It may be that Slitaz isn't compatible, or that the iso you used is corrupted (verify md5 or other check sums).

Take a look at AntiX and see if it meets your needs.