Best way to install

trad

I have an oldish Philips Iqon desktop.

Had a lot of problems with XP and later with Vista. I had a disc that came with the computer with Fedora 9 on it. It had dual boot when I got it but no one else liked fedora so I overwrote it with vista.

I have installed Fedora 9 and it works fine, stable but needs to be upgraded to a newer system. I've tried downloading Fedora 15 but failed ad also tried Ubuntu 10, again failed.

Any recommendations as to the best way to update my OS. I am not a techie but can follow basic instructions

syklops

Fedora 15 was a very buggy release so I dont recommend installing that. Fedora 14 was very stable though. I recommend downloading the ISO, inserting it into the computer and following the onscreen prompts.

I cant say anything else untill I see what errors you got installing which ever OS you tried to install.

If you cant download the ISO, let me know and Ill send you it on CD.

trad

I'll try 14 but as far as I can figure out the dvd burner on my system does not do mirror image. I have a go at it now. GRMA

trad

Could you point me to a link to download it. Most are showing 3gb+. Is that correct?

LK_Dave

I had a similar problem a couple of weeks ago with a IBM Thinkpad R31. The laptop was about 10 years old, running XP was like a wet week. The system has a restore to factory install option but but still XP was slow.

So I decided to install Linux. I’d be good with PC's and Microsoft OS's but this would be my first Linux install.

I tried and failed to install (in this order) Ubunto 11.04 Fedora 15 and Fedora XFCE. I finally figured out that the problem was that the laptop had only 128mb of memory and the OS's above require about 300mb to install.

So I installed Legacy OS 2. Its like the laptop has a new life. I just use it for playing CD's a bit of internet browsing. its an OS that is aimed at students as it comed with a whole host of media apps.

Life on the darkside is not so bad!!!:D

LK_Dave

trad wrote: »

Could you point me to a link to download it. Most are showing 3gb+. Is that correct?

The ISO images should be around 600 to 650MB for a 32-bit CD image

trad

LK Dave I've 512 mb ram.

Legacy OS2, Can I run Openoffice and view ebay etc with it?

LK_Dave

trad wrote: »

LK Dave I've 512 mb ram.

Legacy OS2, Can I run Openoffice and view ebay etc with it?

Legacy OS 2 does has an alternative office-type apps installed. The reason is that Openoffice uses too much ram - i read this in one of the release docs. You can save the documents in MS word, pdf and openoffice format.

I comes with the Opera browser, I see no reason why it can't run Ebay.

LK_Dave

trad wrote: »

LK Dave I've 512 mb ram.

Legacy OS2, Can I run Openoffice and view ebay etc with it?

With that amount of ram you should be able to run Fedora or Ubuntu 11.04.
How much disk space you have?

trad

I've 129gb space available, tried the 32 bit with no luck.
System says AMD Athlon 64 processor 3200+ and it's a desk top.

Any in South County Dublin with an install disc that I could borrow

syklops

The Fedora 15 installable live CD is under 600 MB.

http://fedoraproject.org/download-splash?file=http://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/releases/15/Live/i686/Fedora-15-i686-Live-Desktop.iso

There is no need to be going back in time using Legacy OS2 when there are a 1001 other possible options or solutions.

OP, you keep saying 'the install failed' for the different distros. how/where does it fail? Is there an error message?

With a small bit of information, we might be able to get you up and running.

trad

I've got the download onto a disc so far but I can't get the disc to boot. I had already downloaded it from that link (Fedora 15)

syklops

trad wrote: »

I've got the download onto a disc so far but I can't get the disc to boot. I had already downloaded it from that link (Fedora 15)

Now we are getting somewhere.

I would bet good money its the order in which devices load.

When the computer first boots, you have a (usually) black screen, and somewhere it should say something like "Press F* for boot menu" where * is a number. Press the function key that contains that number repeatedly and you should get an option to boot from the CD drive.

Its usually F11 or F12. If you tell us the make and model of the computer, I might be able to find it.

Johnboy1951

Because the OP already installed Fed9 from a disc it seems the PC is booting from optical media, so I suspect that the downloaded ISO was not 'burned' to the media, but written to it as data, and so could not boot.

syklops

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

Because the OP already installed Fed9 from a disc it seems the PC is booting from optical media, so I suspect that the downloaded ISO was not 'burned' to the media, but written to it as data, and so could not boot.

Very good point.

Good thing Im not manning this thread on my own.

TBH more verbose data would be really nice. We are speculating.

trad

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

Because the OP already installed Fed9 from a disc it seems the PC is booting from optical media, so I suspect that the downloaded ISO was not 'burned' to the media, but written to it as data, and so could not boot.

So where does that leave me?

I have a laptop on XP, should I create the disc on that and then try load on the desk top?

DeepBlue

Google how to burn an iso to cd windows xp and you'll find a few guides on how to do it. ISO recorder is one application that gets recommended.

Once you've sucessfully done that then you can boot up your laptop using your newly burned ISO. If your laptop boots from the CD you'll be presented with a menu with a number of options - one of which is to install Fedora. There's a guide here on the Fedora install that may be helpful.

trad

DeepBlue wrote: »

Google how to burn an iso to cd windows xp and you'll find a few guides on how to do it. ISO recorder is one application that gets recommended.

Once you've sucessfully done that then you can boot up your laptop using your newly burned ISO. If your laptop boots from the CD you'll be presented with a menu with a number of options - one of which is to install Fedora. There's a guide here on the Fedora install that may be helpful.

I'l try that, off to lidl with me to gwt some cd's only dvds left and the laptop only burns cd's

trad

Thanks to all, got fedora 15 up and running.

Want to install libreoffice or open office on it. Libreoffice should have come with it but it's not there.

I can upload libreoffice but van't get it to install in the activities / applications screen. Why is everything so complex in linux, remindes me of Dos, if you don't know the command you're screwed.

trad

Tried to install

Libreoffice
Open Office
Flashplayer

getting same message
internal error has occurred

Is the version I downloaded corrupt?

DeepBlue

By giving more detail you'll get more help. Saying it gives an internal error isn't much use. What exactly is the error and how exactly did you try to install them?

I haven't used Fedora but it seems to have a GUI for installing applications.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kfm1GBGgkeI

Johnboy1951

trad wrote: »

Thanks to all, got fedora 15 up and running.

Want to install libreoffice or open office on it. Libreoffice should have come with it but it's not there.

I can upload libreoffice but van't get it to install in the activities / applications screen. Why is everything so complex in linux, remindes me of Dos, if you don't know the command you're screwed.

It is likely there was no room to fit the LO suite on the CD along with the OS.

I am another that does not use Fedora, so I have no idea what complications you are referring to.

All distros are not the same ..... most these days have GUI applications for doing just about everything.

So I would say Linux is not difficult ..... but it is not Windows, and thus it is different.

If you have an expectation that things will be similar to Windows then you will likely be disappointed .... or frustrated ... or both.

So did you check to see if LO or OO is present in the Fedora package manager? I have no idea if it is, but that is the first to check when you wish to add applications.

regards

trad

Deepblue, there's part of my problem, It requires an updated version of Adobe to view the vidoe clip and I can't update firefox to the latest version.

I installed it on a cd which I downloaded from the fedora site. 565mb on cd labeled Fedora-15-i686-live-desktop.iso.

It has a GUi but when I try to use the add/remove software programme It tells me that it cannot complete the get function because the "database disc image is malformed"

I wasn't expecting windows, I suppose i'm giving this desktop it's last chance of life beforeI skip it.

trad

Many thanks to all.

Found an old buddy of mine who talked me through the rectification of the issue while munching his dinner.

All working fine.

DeepBlue

trad wrote: »

Deepblue, there's part of my problem, It requires an updated version of Adobe to view the vidoe clip and I can't update firefox to the latest version.

Yes it did cross my mind afterwards that adding a youtube link wasn't going to be much use if you can't install flash although I did think you had two computers to work off.

Out of curiosity what was the fix your friend applied?

trad

He talked me through some commands on Terminal using su- then signing into root and then several command line which i can't remember and then 808 updates installed.

Easy when you know how. He's out now so I'll ask him the next time i'm talking to him and i'll post it here

DeepBlue

Ah right, sounds like you were missing a few repositories and he got you to add them and then install. All good.
You'll learn to love the command line. It's much easier to tell someone to run a few commands rather than guide them though several steps on a GUI.