This one time, at band camp, George L Smyth said: > As a Windows user from the 2.0 days, I have decided to learn a bit about Linux, > but am becoming increasingly frustrated. I have an old computer (Pentium > 166MHz) that I chose to use as my learning tool, and installed Mandrake on it. > Unfortunately, Mandrake's Control Center screen is too large for the 800X600 > screen I am using, so I was not able to get to all of the areas that would have > allowed me to set up an Internet connection. When I tried changing the screen > to 1024X768, Mandrake decided to no longer work. > > So it was suggested that I try Debian, and I have an installation CD. However, > when I boot the PC with this CD, the CD ROM apparently is not recognized. I > looked around to try to find a boot floppy, but the directions for doing so > were completely inadequate for someone of my level of knowledge. > > So can anyone give me some pointers on installing Debian? I am close to the > give-up stage, but am hoping that someone can speak in baby words that will > allow me to get this thing running (it's not nearly as simple as Windows). > > Cheers - > > george A couple of questions, as I am unclear on what exactly you mean by some things. When you say, "the CD ROM apparently is not recognized", do you mean that it does not boot from CD, or do you get an error message? Booting from CD is a BIOS setting, and I am not %100 sure an older motherboard can do it. If there are error messages, please post them. Boot floppies for Woody (the current stable release) can be found at: http://http.us.debian.org/debian/dists/woody/main/disks-i386/current/images-1.44/ That should get you started, although you'll need either CD's or a decent net connection - these boot-floppies only give you a very minimal system to start with. As a last note, many people regard Debian as a difficult distro to start learning linux on. That being said, it was the first distro I installed, and I've never looked back. Good luck, and HTH -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | Stephen Gran | Mad, adj.: | | steve@lobefin.net | Affected with a high degree of| | http://www.lobefin.net/~steve | intellectual independence ... | | | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's | | | Dictionary" | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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