New Installation

[Nubaeus]

Ok, I"m a complete nublet at Linux.

I just finish building my comp and decided not to load XP, I have Slax on a boot cd.

I tried installing it myself but now every time I try to boot my comp without the boot disc in, it requests the disc. How can I get rid of this msg and add the os onto my hd?

[Hayl]

slax is a liveCD distribution which means that you boot it and it doesnt install, it runs off the CD.

you said that you installed it... could you elaborate as to exactly what you did to install it?

[je_fro]

sounds like you should install grub (on the mbr)

[Nubaeus]

It gave me the option to install to the hd or to my ram. The hd didn't seem to be working so I installed to the ram...bad move. Now I cant get it to run off the ram. any way to clear it?

[The Whizzard]

It gave me the option to install to the hd or to my ram. The hd didn't seem to be working so I installed to the ram...bad move. Now I cant get it to run off the ram. any way to clear it?
When you reboot anything in RAM should be cleared automaticaly. If not, shutdown(power off) and power back on.

[Nubaeus]

Nono, it saved it to my ram. Now instead of getting 1250 ram, i get 10496 at startup.

[Nubaeus]

Alrite, I'm trying to boot windows first and at the install screen instead of having 200gb free, it says 137 gb free...anyone know why?

[psych-major]

If you installed to RAM, which is the system memory, then when you shut it off, it is automatically cleared as it loses power.
SLAX is primarily a live CD and although it includes an installer, it can be a little tricky to get working from the hard drive. It's biggest advantage is letting you kick the tires and check for hardware support before taking the plunge into a full install.

If you intend to have Linux as your primary operating systemm, I would recommend installing a full version that is not a live CD.

If you like SLAX, some good distros would be MiniSlack (http://www.minislack.org/) or a full Slackware (http://www.slackware.com/) install. SLAX and Mini are both Slackware based, so you can read all about installing and configuring them here (http://www.slackbook.org/).

If Debian is your thing, then Ubuntu (http://www.ubuntulinux.org/), SimplyMepis (http://www.mepis.org/), and Zen Linux (http://www.zenlinux.org/drupal/) are all excellent choices. Although these are also "Live CD's" they all have excellent built-in installers, especially compared to SLAX. (Specifically Zen Linux, it's very smooth and definitely worth a look.)

So anyway, there are as many distro choices (http://www.justlinux.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=53) as there are days in the year, so it can seem overwhelming. The best thing to do is read alot, try a couple of different flavors of Live CD, and then install Slackware. :D (Sorry, couldn't resist...)

I hope you find this helpful, and good luck with your new setup. We're here to help as you run into "undocumented features" along the way!

[Nubaeus]

Ah, but when I reboot it doesn't show my full ram capability (like it's still saved there)

[Nubaeus]

I"m still trying to figure out the hd situation is too.

[cybertron]

So you have 1.25 gig of RAM and it's only showing something like 10 meg (gig?) now? That sounds like a hardware/BIOS problem since no OS has been loaded yet at that time, and unless you've got some new kind of RAM no one knows about it does get erased every time you reboot.:)

I second the suggestion to use a distro that's not primarily intended as a live cd. They're great for their purpose, but a distro designed to be installed to the hard drive would be better in this case.