Newbie needs help with install.

[PeterOD]

Hi to everyone. I am a complete Newbie to Linux, so please have a little patience. I have downloaded the .iso file pclinuxos-KDE-2011-9 from here and I have burned it to a disk on a Windows machine.
I have an oldish Toshiba Sat. on which I have loaded Windows 98 (with the sole intention of overwriting it) - I have altered the BIOS to look to the CD for boot.
When I power up with the linux CD in place everything seems to go OK - I have to wait a little at the 'probing EDD' bit - it continues and offers me different partition possibilities - I choose the 'remove windows and use all the disk' option and it does its thing. Then tells me it needs a reboot so that the new partition is recognised - OK - CD pops out and it tells me to press 'enter' which I do - the message I get then is that Windows 98 is starting up (though of course it knows nothing of a C: drive or where a command interpreter is) - What can I do at this point? If I put the CD back in and reboot we just go through the same cycle again - HELP!
Regards  Peter

[Neal ManBear]

Choose the LiveCD boot option instead of the install option in the boot menu. When you get to the desktop, you can start the installer.     

[PeterOD]

Thanks - I'll give that a shot in about 30 minutes.

[PeterOD]

Well - that seem to be helping, thanks for you assistance - I've finally got to a login screen - is there a default password for root?

[pinoc]

Well - that seem to be helping, thanks for you assistance - I've finally got to a login screen - is there a default password for root?

yes, the one you entered during the installation process 

[PeterOD]

Hi - it didn't ask me for a password - and leaving it blank doesn't work! - Pete

[Old-Polack]

Well - that seem to be helping, thanks for you assistance - I've finally got to a login screen - is there a default password for root?

Passwords for the liveCD:

guest                  guest
root                     root

Passwords for the installed system:

root                    <whatever you choose>

normal user        <whatever you choose>

[PeterOD]

Thanks - that sounds reasonable - I'd just discovered the guest one - should have tried the root one first - duh! Waiting now - its very slow at the moment, but I guess that's cos its running from cd at present. thanks again. Pete

[Neal ManBear]

The livecd boots to the desktop. In just a second or so, an information window opens. In it is the log in information - names/passwords.     

[Crow]

Could you write the system specs of that machine, please?

[PeterOD]

Specs are  Toshiba Satellite 2770XDVD - PIII 650 MHz - RAM 128 MB - HDD 12 GB - DVD - Savage/IX.
There is more RAM there now - can't remember how much, but I topped it up to max some years ago.

Right now I can't get it to do the same thing twice.
I have been through the whole process multiple times.
First I load a Toshiba recovery disk for Win 78, 'cos this re-partitions and formats the HDD. (I'd love to find a utility that I can just download and run, like a boot disk just with a partition/format utility on board??)
Then I put iso disk in drive and re-boot. I have created this iso disk several times in an attempt to rule out disk failure, on new disk and even tried a DVD, I've used different burn utilities and verified the disk - but the load of PCLinuxOS always seems to fail at a different place.

I can't see that the hardware is duff 'cos Win 98 loads and runs perfectly everytime - buy I confess to being pretty lost at the moment.

Any thoughts would be welcome - I'm in Cornwall, UK - very different timezone to you guys perhaps?

Pete

[Neal ManBear]

128 MB RAM? 12 GB HDD? Pete, those specs are too low for KDE. Try LXDE, XFCE, Openbox or RAW. Let it take the whole HDD. There's not enough room on that HDD for windows, too.     

[PeterOD]

Thanks everyone that gave me advice - I've gone for the LXDE now and that seems to have worked.

Tomorrow is another day I guess.

Pete

[Crow]

Model            Toshiba  Satellite  2770XDVD
Processor                Intel Pentium III
Processor frequency    650 MHz
L2 cache                256 Kb L2
Memory Type           SDRAM
Memory installed           64 Mb
Memory maximum      192 Mb
Hard Drive capacity     12 Gb
Display Technology      TFT
Screen Size           14.1''
Video RAM                   8 Mb SGRAM
3D accelerator          Yes

If you maxed out the memory you have now 192 MB, LXDE and OpenBox should run fine (I still haven't played with XFCE).

This week me and my son installed LXDE in a Celeron 450 with 256 MB (minus shared video memory) and it's running even some windows edu games using wine, so far the only computer that has given problems is a PIII 650 with 64MB memory, I will leave it temporarily with win 98 but I have an old LXDE remaster which I will try to install.