Looking for a stable, good Linux version

[mikkh]

Ah JoJo, what am I going to do with you - did you not notice the '200708' in the first link? That means the year 2007 to 2008 and what's in there can't possibly apply 7 years (and maybe 20+ versions) later.

As I've told you previously I don't do multiple drives, but I do recognise the sizes in that picture from installs I've done. On Disk 0 you have an almost 12 GB partition, that will be the PClinuxOS system partition where the OS lives. Because of your multiple drives, the automatic partitioner has decided it's ok to use all drives for the install, so the 4 GB partition on Disk 1 is a Linux swap partition (equal to the amount of RAM you have) The other bigger partition is what Linux calls a home partition.

It's meant to safeguard your data if the system partition goes down, but in real life it has a slight flaw because some of the data it retains is your desktop settings and you can end up with strange things happening when installing a new copy. It does keep your data safe though.

I usually manually partition choosing a single partition for system and data because it's tidier and easier to keep track if I have multiple Linux's on there

Back to Disk 0 you have two other small partitions which I guess are remnants of other Linux adventures (I'm talking about what Windows calls 'unknown partitions' in all partitions I've mentioned so far btw)

I would remove Disk one and two (after deleting the two Linux partitions and formatting them back to NTFS so Windows can see them) delete all 3 Linux partitions from Disk 0 and try again with a fresh install

[jojo]

OK. I dun wrong there, yessum. I sure did dun bad



I was keeping the two drives physically separate, until I could be sure the Linux wasn't going to jump out and bite me, sort of thing.

But it's not good to be constantly changing plugs as you know, which is why I looked for the BOOT menu.

Will do as you suggest with the Linux disc. I hope it's OK to keep the XP disc as it is? It's behaving itself rather well and hate have to start again.

[mikkh]

Linux will always see Windows partitions and include it as a menu item in the boot menu, unless you do something crazy like telling it to use the whole drive of course ;o)

I've always used a single hard drive and there's absolutely no need to panic about it wiping Windows. The worst case scenario is a badly programmed Linux not adding it to the boot menu and that is easily fixed or avoided altogether by not using a Linux that doesn't have a long pedigree

[jojo]

I've written a short, to the point, direction to install PC Linux. But there is a problem with point 10.

---

Installing PCLinuxOS.

1. Restart and select BOOT set up. Check the BOOT order is, CD, HDD, HDD. Insert CD into Drive. Select Save and Exit. The computer will BOOT from the CD.

2. After a minute or so, a menu will appear, for a short time. Press a Down Arrow key to select Install into RAM.

3. Eventually, panel will offer US keyboard, select UK (or other).

4. Wait, while Desktop open and eventually, the CD will stop spinning. (If a panel appears saying you are logged in a a guest, press OK)

5. Click the icon Install PCLinuxOS on the top of the screen.

6. Install Wizard panel appears. Click NEXT. Choose the Hard Drive you want to install upon, if you have more than one. Default is the first drive available.
Click NEXT Click NEXT Click NEXT

7. Eventually panel appears headed Draklive-install. Click NEXT click FINISH.

8 Wait while, Panel appears reading:

Draklive-install
Please click finish, restart your Computer, and remove the live CD media when prompted.

9. Click finish. Click PC (on the bottom left hand corner of the screen). Select Restart. The screen goes black with an option Restart and Cancel. Wait 30 secs and restart continues.

10.

11. Choose time zone on prompt. Enter an Admin password. Log in Menu. Press Enter.

12 Update. PCmenu > Software Centre > Synaptic Package Manager.
Ect.

13.

---

The problem with point 10 The message to remove the CD doesn't appear. I let the machine restart, this time running LiveCD. Eventually I restarted again, removing the CD anyway.

At 13, I tried to restart and chose Windows.

When I attempt to restart in Windows from the menu, I get a dark screen

root (hd0,0)
Filesystem Type ext 2fs, partition type 0x83
Chain Loader +1
Error 13 : Invalid or unsupported executable format
Press any key to continue ...

I've tried selecting Windows but was briefly flashed the message:
Cannot open delete file,
before being presented with the above again.

I pressed Linux and was again presented with:
Cannot open Delete File
but this time, it opened to Linux

After a time



Squeek!

[mikkh]

After you've finished the install and pressed finish (there should be no need to press restart) the screen should blank and if you're watching carefully -f appears briefly top left of the screen and the DVD will eject - remove the DVD, close the draw and then press enter, it should restart immediately then

Linux really hates you doesn't it. I know I told you to load into RAM was an option for the DVD not ejecting, but I meant in live mode, you don't need to do that if you're installing to hard drive.

If you can load Linux eventually, the 'redo MBR' should hopefully fix the boot menu problem

Press start(the PC button) go to 'more applications' move to 'configuration' pick redo MBR

Why you've been given a file system type in the loader is very weird, the command for loading Windows should be a very simple.... root(hd0,0) (basically means the C drive) followed by the Chain Loader +1 instruction - that's it

When you do the redo MBR, it should open the menu items in an editor after it's said something like... you appear to have other systems on here, do you want to add them to grub, pick yes. I'll look at mine in a minute and post what it should look like

[mikkh]

timeout 10
color black/cyan yellow/cyan
gfxmenu (hd0,5)/boot/gfxmenu
default 0

title linux
kernel (hd0,5)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=linux root=UUID=e01e7cb9-af73-4dc4-b25d-20b0e1d6f852 quiet nokmsboot vmalloc=256M acpi=on resume=UUID=6ad42749-d484-4731-87be-d244c0ebf5f1 splash=silent vga=788
initrd (hd0,5)/boot/initrd.img

title failsafe
kernel (hd0,5)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=failsafe root=UUID=e01e7cb9-af73-4dc4-b25d-20b0e1d6f852 quiet nokmsboot failsafe vmalloc=256M acpi=on
initrd (hd0,5)/boot/initrd.img

title windows
root (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

title memtest-4.20
kernel (hd0,5)/boot/memtest-4.20 BOOT_IMAGE=memtest-4.20



That's my bootloader, as you can see there's no file system type allocated for Windows - edit yours to look the same and you should be fine. Why it's made that mistake in the first place is beyond me, never had that problem myself in countless number of Linux installs

[jojo]

Thank you mikkh. Knew I was wrong. Wayhea!

I didn't put windows into the loader, the program did. Can't remember the exact sequence, but sure it offered me Windows and I went for that option. I was trying to keep a log but since I needed to write it and my writing is illegible, I'm afraid I'm not sure now.

My current bootloader doesn't have such comprehensive entries for Linux and failsafe as yours but the third on mine is like this:

title windows
root (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

It seems to be missing the makeactive command. I've loaded it now and saved it. Gonna try it out and be back.

PS, just shut redo MBR, it flashed a box asking me if I wanted to redo my bootloader. Clicked yes.

[jojo]

OK, It hasn't worked. Same result, but this time:

root (hd0,0)
Filesystem Type ext 2fs, partition type 0x83
makeactive
Chain Loader +1

Error 13 : Invalid or unsupported executable format
Press any key to continue ...

Below is a print out:

---

timeout 10
color black/cyan yellow/cyan
gfxmenu (hd0,0)/boot/gfxmenu
default 0

title linux
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=linux root=UUID=ba15b104-49a3-47fe-b414-e4f51e5123e5 quiet nokmsboot vmalloc=256M acpi=on resume=UUID=31719322-b940-4872-a186-3335c7f430d6 vga=788
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/initrd.img

title failsafe
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=failsafe root=UUID=ba15b104-49a3-47fe-b414-e4f51e5123e5 quiet nokmsboot failsafe vmalloc=256M acpi=on
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/initrd.img

title windows
root (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

title memtest-4.20
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/memtest-4.20 BOOT_IMAGE=memtest-4.20

---

[mikkh]

It's not you that's wrong, the bootloader has gone haywire somehow

That will never work because they're all pointing to hd0,0 which is obviously wrong

hd0 means the first hard drive, but it's the second 0 that is important - that is the partition number and it can't be the same for all entries. Partition 0 is the C drive and the Linux ones have to be a different number.

Now for reasons even I don't fully understand the numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4 rarely get used. I understand that 2 means the extended partition and I assume the other numbers are reserved for primary partitions. So, as you'll see from my boot loader, my installed copy of PClinuxOS actually lives on hd0,5 and depending where your swap partition has been placed on the drive, yours is probably the same

Anything that is not Windows needs to be changed from hd0,0 to hd0,5 assuming the same hard drive layout as me that is. You may need to try different numbers but it's definitely not 0

All the Linux ones are the same number btw - failsafe, memtest etc

[mikkh]

Yours should like this after you've edited it


timeout 10
color black/cyan yellow/cyan
gfxmenu (hd0,5)/boot/gfxmenu
default 0

title linux
kernel (hd0,5)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=linux root=UUID=ba15b104-49a3-47fe-b414-e4f51e5123e5 quiet nokmsboot vmalloc=256M acpi=on resume=UUID=31719322-b940-4872-a186-3335c7f430d6 vga=788
initrd (hd0,5)/boot/initrd.img

title failsafe
kernel (hd0,5)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=failsafe root=UUID=ba15b104-49a3-47fe-b414-e4f51e5123e5 quiet nokmsboot failsafe vmalloc=256M acpi=on
initrd (hd0,5)/boot/initrd.img

title windows
root (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

title memtest-4.20
kernel (hd0,5)/boot/memtest-4.20 BOOT_IMAGE=memtest-4.20