Hi , I am considering using linux and I don't know what is best to download. I clicked on a link to CentOS 5 but the mirror wasn't very helpful since I don't know exactly what files I need to get and use OS 5.It's confusing. Can someone put together for me a ONE PACKAGE DOWNLOAD of OS 5?

Ok , what about damn small linux? Can it be installed onto the HD?

You can install DSL to your harddrive, but I wouldn't unless you need a very lightweight distro for old hardware. CENTOS is primarily for servers. Is that what you're looking for, or are you looking for a desktop OS? http://wiki.centos.org/Manuals/ReleaseNotes/CentOSLiveCD5.2 A direct link to the iso image: http://mirror.trouble-free.net/centos/5.2/isos/i386/CentOS-5.2-i386-LiveCD.iso Here is a guide to burning ISO images to a disc. It's from the Ubuntu wiki but is basically applicable to any ISO image. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BurningIsoHowto

Yeah , I'm looking for a desktop.

I would burn a live cd image of a couple of distros and test them on your machine, before installing anything. This way if there are any problems with your hardware, you can research solutions before committing to anything. Check out Ubuntu or Linux Mint for friendly distros. Mint is based on Ubuntu, but will run proprietary multimedia out of the box, Ubuntu you need to do a little post-installation configuring. Both have strong support communities, and any tips for Ubuntu will generally work with Mint as well. http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu:Intrepid#Installing_Ubuntu http://www.linuxmint.com/download.html

Thanx Reed.

http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/ In the "netinst (generally 135-175 MB) CD images" section click on your processor type. Once downloaded, burn the image to CD and boot from it.

I downloaded a version of DSL and burned the iso to a cd but when I try to use it...nothing. It was on a clean drive and it said invalid system disc.

anyone?

I would guess that either your BIOS isn't set to boot from a CD, it doesn't support booting from a CD, or it was a bad burn. Here's a guide on changing the boot order: http://pcsupport.about.com/od/fixtheproblem/ss/bootorderchange.htm

Damn small linux 4.4.10.I had my bios set to boot from cd rom. It was a good burn.The hard drive was completely cleaned using system mechanic 7. No format afterwards. I just don't understand why it says invalid system disk.

To install CentOS 5.x (they are at 5.2), you need to download the disc image from either the i386 (32bit) or x86_64 (64bit) directory. If you have a current (recent) desktop computer, then I strongly recommend the x86_64 distributions - I use CentOS 5.2 64bit on my system with great success for software development, video/audio processing, running Windows in a VM, etc. Anyway, that will take you to a page with a bunch of mirror links - pick just about any of them - and select the ISO images you need. The ISO images will download directly. The torrent files will require a bittorrent client. I usually get the DVD iso since then I get everything on one disc. After you get the ISO image you will need to burn it to a blank disc, load that into your computer and reboot. It will walk you thru the installation process. FYI, CentOS is the free version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), and is widely used for 24x365 commercial and technical operations such as web sites, stock trading servers, scientific computational work, so it is very robust. [Modified by: Rubberman on January 09, 2009 12:14 PM]

I would try a different distro and see if you get the same results. Also, are you sure you burned the iso image to disc properly, ie, you didn't accidentally burn it as a data disc for example? What program did you use, what steps did you take?

Googled your invalid system disk. http://www.harddiskrecovery.net/invalid-system-disk.html If you have a Floppy drive, I wrote a tutorial on booting up and installing Damn Small Linux on a Laptop with no capability of booting up ISO from cdrom. If you are interested, Here http://yatsite.blogspot.com/2008/10/damn-small-linux-40-install-on-compaq.html

noob, how did you burn the CD? Is it possible that you just burned the ISO file to a disc, instead of using it as an image?

[quote=Reed]I would try a different distro and see if you get the same results.[/quote] I'm on a gig budget with this internet [quote=Reed]Also, are you sure you burned the iso image to disc properly, ie, you didn't accidentally burn it as a data disc for example? What program did you use, what steps did you take?[/quote] Using this laptop with windows vista ,I burned it as a data disc , yes. What should I have done? I guess I shouldn't have followed the instructions provided by one of the links that said to burn it as a data or music disk? noob in distress regards [Modified by: thenoob on January 10, 2009 02:14 PM] [Modified by: thenoob on January 10, 2009 02:16 PM]

That's your problem. You need to burn the disk as an image file (ISO). If your burner won't burn an image file, you can download Infrarecorder for free and it will do the job for you. Sorry, I don't have a link for Infrarecorder but you can Google it and find the download site.

[quote]Using this laptop with windows vista ,I burned it as a data disc , yes. What should I have done? I guess I shouldn't have followed the instructions provided by one of the links that said to burn it as a data or music disk?[/quote] I don't know which posted link said that, but it is wrong. I'll post this link again. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BurningIsoHowto There is a link to the infrarecorder site and a guide to burning an iso using infrarecorder there.

Hey thanx a lot man. I'm running linux one one of my machines now. But theres a new problem now. DSL sux. I spent a lot of time today trying to get comfortable with it and it's nothing like I was hoping it would be. ( come to mention it , I'm not sure just what I was expecting )It's really complicated for me to navigate. Any suggestions for a better lightweight linux I could try?

Glad you solved the iso-burning problem. That is not at all obvious as we come over from Windows! If your install must be light, take a look at Puppy Linux. The hardware recognition is better than DSL and it is designed to work directly from the LiveCD, because it will load entirely into memory when you boot it. Unlike most LiveCDs you can save settings you customize. Worth Checking. If Puppy is still to clumsy try Ubuntu with the Xfce desktop, which is to say Xubuntu. It does not make quite the demands Ubuntu does when running the larger Gnome or KDE environments. Playing with a few LiveCDs should help you choose.

See, now, didn't I warn you away from DSL in an earlier post? ;) What are your computer specs? (RAM, processor, etc.) That will help inform our suggestions of what to try. For example, I wouldn't try Xubuntu with less than 512 mb ram. Good lightweight distros are Antix and TinyMe. http://antix.mepis.org/index.php/Main_Page http://www.tinymelinux.com/doku.php Of all the lightweights I know of, Antix uses the most modern linux kernel, which means better hardware support. Also, it's based on Mepis which is based on Debian, and fully compatible with the Debian repositories, which means access to thousands of software packages. But I do like TinyMe as well. Puppy is great and very fast, but it's software selection and package management are poor.

Im on a gig budget with this internet. So I just want to have a look at the linux before i get serious.But all the linux I can find are what seem to be internet-os. The machines i want to put linux on will never access the web. Ever. I have a few interests in a few different things is all. I need one that is very simmilar to windows.I guess that couldve helped to have been mentioned earlier though :) I have to be able to locate my hd with ease and add or delete files hassle free.It needs to read and write cd roms too. [Modified by: thenoob on January 12, 2009 04:16 PM] [Modified by: thenoob on January 12, 2009 04:20 PM]

If one of you smart peeps here can build me a linux like this I would be thrilled to download it. And even honored if you could call something like LinuxNOOB :P

Some of the distributions also have discs with many applications on them. These are suitable for installing on computers without internet access. These can include Fedora 10 or Scientific Linux (6 CDs or 1 DVD) which is based on a RedHat/CentOS code base. Most of the distributions that have a Live CD/DVD will have many applications on the CD/DVD, though obviously you will have more options with a DVD. If you are interested in Scientific Linux, you can access it from the Argonne National Lab Linux Mirror site: http://mirror.anl.gov/ The mirror.anl.gov site has a lot of other Linux versions mirrored, such as Fedora, Suse, Ubuntu, YellowDog, and Gentoo. There is a lot of high-level brain power going into Scientific Linux with regard to stability, performance, and security. That is the software that runs most of the experiments at CERN, Fermi, Argonne, et al. I'm somewhat familiar with it because my wife (a particle physicist) helps maintain it at Fermi outside Chicago.