RE: LiveCD's don't work
>From: mlf@liszt.debian.org [mailto:mlf@liszt.debian.org] On Behalf Of
Mike Fontenot
>Subject: Re: LiveCD's don't work
>
>Kent West wrote:
>>
>> I had great difficulty installing Debian on a Dell Optiplex 320; it
>> would NOT boot from a USB jumpdrive or a LiveCD; finally had to
resort
>> to using an external USB hard drive. The whole experience really
makes
>> me skittish of Dells now.
>
>That is REALLY scary! I THOUGHT Dell was a safe bet, since they ship
an
>Inspiron 530 with Ubunto installed!
>
>How did you use the external USB hard drive? (I've got one). Can I
>copy the liveCD to a partition on that external hard drive somehow, so
>that I can boot from there somehow?
>
>Or can I get a minimal linux on a floppy that I can boot from, and
which
>will have enough stuff on it that I can format a partition on my 2nd
>hard drive, and then install lenny either from a CD or over the
>internet?
>
> Mike Fontenot
I think it is more personal experience. I usually say Dells are a safe
bet because of the many /many/ Dells I work with almost all of them are
real easy to install Linux. My personal experience has better luck with
Dells then any other brand.
However, they are far from perfect. My friend has a laptop (about 4yrs
old) that googling for it and Linux just turns back thousands of people
having many issues. It was a week long fight to get Debian on my
Precision 390. I also had one old Dimension system that Debian installed
onto perfectly but Fedora croaked on and CentOS never ran quite right.
I think between the many different models and distros that it is just
going to be something that is on a person to person basis.
As for the using of an external USB drive, I have seen someone who
installed Ubuntu using one computer then plugged it into a second
computer and it booted. Though if the installer can boot and see the USB
drive, I don't know why you couldn't just install to it on that system.
Once you have an install running, it shouldn't be hard to find the
internal disk and copy the files over (and setup your boot manager).
Also, for booting off of a floppy check out this:
http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/ch05s01.html.en
I have never tried this, but at least it might help point you in the
right direction.
Have fun!
~S~
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