Need help before I even start....
Hodgins Family
ehodgins at telusplanet.net
Sun Sep 18 14:12:35 UTC 2005
Good morning (at least it is here!)
Step 1 is to get your friend to go here
http://gulus.usherbrooke.ca/pub/distro/ubuntu/iso/5.04/ This is an Ubuntu
download mirror for the current distribution.
Ask him/her REAL NICE to download this iso: ubuntu-5.04-live-i386.iso
(I'm assuming that you have a Intel based machine.)
You want to know 2 things:
i) is the machine able to boot off of a CD (if it doesn't, there should be a
file on the CD called SBM that you can write to a floppy that "encourages"
many machines to boot off of a CD.
ii) does the machine have enough RAM, nice enough video, etc. etc. to make
the install worth while for you. No point in going through the learning
curve if the end result is not worth using!
If you can get the live CD to boot do yourself a favour and watch the screen
as the the OS is loading...the gibberish is a kind of like a linux
fingerprint of your hardware and will make more and more sense to you as you
read what other folks on the web have to say about their systems: hda?,
fsck?, fd0?
Assuming that i) and ii) work out OK AND before attempting an install, I'd
suggest getting (yet another!) file off the web: you want DBAN. This floppy
based program "cleans up" hard drives by writing and rewriting stuff all
over them...nice way to sanitize an unknown drive. It has a hidden benefit
as well: the prgram can take hours to run. That's hours of constant reading
and writing. If your drive is on its last legs (it might be :-( ) DBAN might
help to put it out of its misery BEFORE you waste too much time.
Good luck!
Rob
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