Installing PCLinuxOS - Full tutorial

Hello William,

I suggest that any Linux distribution that offers a live CD and the feature to install on your harddisk from that live CD, would be a good first option.
Ubuntu, Fedora 7 are examples of live CD's with installation option.
Depending on the amount of RAM, you would choose between KDE or Gnome as desktop environment. Or XFCE if your system is low on RAM.

 

O.K. I will try the suggestions given me, rather than my previous pick.

Thanks everyone..............William

 

OK
I'm new at this Linux too
Fwiw as per above the live Cds are good for trialing

I want browsing, e-mail, office, music and vids, presentation stuff, simple updates and installers. Not a real linux purist sorry. Just trialling oob set-ups.

as a total linux newb, my picks to date ( for Live and installs to VM) are:
PClinuxOS: Love it.
Freespire: nice
Mandriva One: nice
Ubuntu ( very good: just checking others: thinking outside the outside box lol))
Free PCBSD OS !! I actually love it although I might not fully understand it they have a pre-made VM on home site: just a bit ood. Really nice little system.
Dream Linux is developing a nice distro: some issues with installing but good live CD and fun OS X style graphics.
Vector Linux
Sabayon mini: very nice indeed.

This site is a wealth of info: http://distrowatch.com/ you prolly know it already.
Linux.com has good reviews.
Tuxmachines http://www.tuxmachines.org/

I doubt I can teach anyone here anything about Linux: just offering my crumbs. Have fun

 

Hi

Not sure I've got things right - in fact I know I haven't

I've played with the live CD a few times so I thought I'd try installing it alongsides XP.

Tried to get through your excellent articles on installing PCLinux and dual booting Mrk plus the PCLinux own help file was useful

All seemed well but I must have got the dual booting bit wrong as can only boot into Windows

Paragon Partition Manager shows the 3 linux partitions as logical disks on the extended partition

Any ideas where I've gone wrong ?

 

Your bootloader got installed on the Linux partition instead of the MBR.

Boot your LiveCD and go to System> Configuration> Boot and Init> Re-do MBR.

In re-do make sure bootloader is being installed on the MBR of Windows partition.

or

Re-install PCLOS and make sure the same....

 

Hi Fast Game

Ok - went System> Cofiguration> Configure Your Computer> Control Center> Set up How Ssytem Boots

Correct so far ?

This brings up '' no bootloader found creating new configuration''

Click ''ok''

Bootloader to use - GRUB with graphical menu

Boot device - /dev/hda

''Next'' shows 3 linux entries plus windows.

''Finish''

Reboot and only boot into Windows plus put live cd and repeat process and '' no bootloader found'' appears again.

Start over you think ?

 

Hello,

No need to reinstall. The boot loader can be fixed very easily.
When the GRUB boots press C.
This will get you to GRUB command line (grub > prompt).
Then, all you need to do is install grub in the MBR.

1. This command will tell it where to look for grub stage 2.
hd for IDE, sd for SCSI drives, x drive number from 0, y partition number from 0
root(hdx,y)

Example: root (sd0,1) - stage 2 on first disk, second partition - USUALLY also the root partition of your linux installation.

2. This command will install grub in mbr
setup (hd0)

3. This will boot your system.
boot

After you get to the desktop, you can then add further changes.

If you also need Windows, you'll need another stanza like:

# title Windows
rootnoverify (hdx,y) - where Windows resides, usually (hd0,0)
makeactive - will look for relevant files here
chainloader + 1 - will give control over to Windows boot loader

I hope this was clear enough ...

Mrk

 

Mmmm not entirely

..but thanks all the same. Give me some time to try and work that out

 

Hello,

Let's try together then.

1. Boot PC, get to grub prompt.
2. You know where your linux is installed? Good.
3. Set root to that partition, setup grub in mbr, boot.

4. Inside your linux, open grub menu in text editor as root.
5. Check existing stanzas and edit if necessary.
6. If you do not have a Windows entry, add it as suggested.

7. If you get confused / stuck - stop and ask, I'll help.

Honestly, it feels daunting, but it's really simple.

Mrk

 

You may regret this kind offer

1. I see no grub prompt

 

Hello,
Do you see the boot menu?
If so, press C.
If not, boot from CD, try the same.
Mrk

 

In both cases, no. I'm getting lost now with whatever I'm supposed to be looking for.

Don't give up on me though.

 

Hello,
Boot into live CD.
Type as root fdisk -l in command line in terminal.
Post here.
Mrk

 

Hi Mrk

Will do -back later.

Thanks for assistance thus far

 

you can follow this post (in the link at the end of this post) to make linux and windows dual-boot i've copied all the commands you need in to this post, if you have an ubuntu cd use that if not just use the pclos livecd. you only need to boot in to the linux livecd then open a terminal - Konsole or gnome-terminal or eterm etc then run these commands -

Code:

[b]su[/b] (but if you are using ubuntu run this instead [b]sudo grub[/b] then miss out the next command below (the [b]grub[/b] one and run the [b]find[/b] command in the next box next)

then enter your root password. in a livecd it might not ask for a password, if it does it should be the password root

Code:

[b]grub[/b] (miss this out if you ran [b]sudo grub[/b] and go to the next command below)

Code:

[b]find /boot/grub/stage1[/b]

This will return a location. If you have more than one, select the installation that you want to provide the grub files.
Next, THIS IS IMPORTANT, whatever was returned for the find command use it in the next line (you are still at grub>. when you enter the next 3 commands

Code:

[b]root (hd?,?)[/b]

Again use the value from the find command i.e. if find returned (hd0,1) then you would enter root (hd0,1)

Next enter the command to install grub to the mbr

Code:

[b]setup (hd0)[/b]

Finally exit the grub shell

Code:

[b]quit[/b]

That is it. Grub will be installed to the mbr.
When you reboot, you will have the grub menu at startup.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=224351

 

Hi iceni60

That worked like a charm !

I now have a dual boot XP/ PCLinux set up Can't believe it.

Now the learning curve gets really steep !

Thanks very much to you and to Mrkvonic for your kind assistance.

 

Hello,
Damn, I should have written it more nicely like iceni did...
Anyhow, grub tutorial is the next software article I'm gonna post.
It's been waiting for a while, now it's ready to be born.
Mrk

 

No worries Mrk - we'd have got there in the end anyway

 

Don't know if this has been up before but there are some Youtube presentations on getting to grips with PCLinuxOS