Installing Linux Mint 15 (Olivia) from a USB drive

I decided to install Linux Mint on an old laptop that had Ubuntu 12.10. I decided to do a clean install, erasing Ubuntu since it wasn't performing properly.

Used Universal USB Installer 1.9.4.7 to create the bootable USB drive.

Went into BIOS and made sure that the laptop's first boot device was the USB.

Booted up with the USB drive plugged in and just followed the instructions on the screen. At first, it wasn't recognizing my wireless internet connection, so I had to plug my DSL modem directly into the laptop's Ethernet port to get things going.

I also had to do some skipping while it was installing language packs since that was simply taking too long.

Finally, the last "hiccup" was when there was a message prompting me to restart - I pulled out the USB drive, thinking it was safe, and so that it wouldn't boot to it on restart, but there was a kernel panic error message. I hoped for the best and simply did a hard shutdown, and when I booted up (with the USB drive unplugged), Mint was fine.

First thing I did was test if it now recognized my wireless internet connection. Still did not, so just went into settings, networks, and entered my password for wireless access. Was able to surf just fine on Firefox.

Tested an .mp4 and .mp3 file on VLC, and they played ok, so there were no problems there either.

My laptop's keyboard was causing all sorts of weird behavior, perhaps because of sticky keys. I decided to hookup a USB keyboard from a desktop. I then ran a terminal and typed in xinput --list. This gave me a list of all devices and I looked for AT ... keyboard and made a note of its ID. Then, I ran xinput float ID to disable the laptop's built in keyboard. According to some forums, you'll have to do this everytime you restart in order to disable the keyboard. I think there might be a more permanent solution out there, so that I don't have to do this process for every reboot, but for now, this temporary fix will do.

This should keep the users happy. All they want is a computer to access the internet from.

I must say, for new software an old device, Mint sure runs smoothly and looks good. Might help you breath new life into your aged computer.

Running Ubuntu 12.10 from a USB

This post is being done from Ubuntu 12.10 ran from a USB drive. I simply followed the instructions on how to create a bootable USB on Ubuntu's website. Just make sure your system can handle it, (check system requirements, like the computer being able to boot up from a USB device), download Universal USB Installer 1.8.9.2 and the Linux flavor you would like to install, (figured I'd try the latest version of Ubuntu). I would recommend getting Ubuntu via torrent since directly downloading it off of their site using your browser is prone to disconnections and interruptions which can ruin the file.

So far, the main advantage of this installation is that my DSL Internet connection was immediately detected even during the boot up process. For other Linux installations, getting the Internet up and running can be a pain if you aren't very knowledgeable with Linux.

Ubuntu 12.10 immediately gives you the option to run the OS from a USB or to install it alongside Windows. After seeing the first fee screens of the installation option, I immediately backed out. It wasn't recognizing the partitions I had set up in windows and I was afraid I might overwrite my stuff. I will probably check this option out once I am sure that the hard drive partition I am messing with is the correct one.

My files in Windows 7 are inaccessible from Ubuntu. I guess it has something to do with Windows having its own file system format, and Ubuntu running under FAT and FAT32. I'd have to create a FAT or FAT32 partition in Windows so that files in that partition and in Ubuntu can be shared between the two OS's.

Running the OS from the USB can become slow at times. I guess the performance would be faster if the OS was installed directly on the hard drive.

Just discovered that I can't get Youtube to work because of a missing Flash plugin but when I try to install that, it keeps messing up. I also don't have any audio so those two problems might be inter-related.

In terms of applications, Libre is the Ubuntu equivalent of Microsoft Office. The Word document saved fine. I'll try the Excel equivalent (Calc) and the Power Point equivalent (Impress) some other time.

Gotta go for now! Will just add to this post if I find more interesting things on Ubuntu 12.10. If your the tech-adventurous type, then try it out.

Installling Tiny Core OS on USB Drive

Wanted to experiment with a new operating system so I decided to give Tiny Core a try. It is an operating system that is only about 12 MB in size and should easily fit in a USB drive.

Here is the steps I went through using Windows 7.

• Download the Tiny Core 12 MB .iso file from  http://distro.ibiblio.org/tinycorelinux/downloads.html
• Download core2usb from  http://sourceforge.net/projects/core2usb/. This program will help install Tiny Core on your USB drive. You have to format your USB drive first. (right-click on it and select format and choose FAT32 for the file system and put a check box on quick format).
• I then ran core2usb. Below is a screenshot of the program.

• First, browse to the directory where you downloaded your Tiny Core .iso file. 
• Make sure that you double-click on the USB drive that you just formatted. Be sure that this is the correct drive letter for the USB drive. If it is a valid drive, the INSTALL button will no longer be grayed-out. The status line to the left of the INSTALL button should indicate whether or not the installation was successful.
• Reboot your system, then go into BIOS, usually by pressing DEL just when the computer is starting up. Look for options to boot from the USB and make sure these are enabled. BIOS differ from one computer manufacturer to another so you'll have to explore your own BIOS options. If you have an old machine, then booting from the USB may not be an available option at all and this guide would have been pointless for you.
• If you are sure that you can now boot from the USB drive, choose that option the next time your computer restarts. You should then be able to see a DOS like screen with several options for Tiny Core. Just choose the default option. Wait through a few more DOS like screens, and you should be able to see the desktop below.

  

The next challenge is connecting to the Internet to get all the applications (which Tiny Core calls extensions) from sites like  http://distro.ibiblio.org/tinycorelinux/tcz.html

Unfortunately, I can't seem to get my Internet connection up and running while I'm using Tiny Core since it requires several extensions which I need to install. But installing these seems to be difficult without a good background on Linux commands and on using the vi editor.

But if the Internet connection was up and running, I would imagine installing additional applications would be as simple as adding extensions to Google Chrome or add-ons to Firefox.

Hope this guide was useful in some way.