how to download operating system

[misswham]

I want to try a new distro and I CANT seem to get it to burn on disc. I also downloaded the mirror ISO and put it on a flash drive also and went into the boot menu and tried to boot from the flash drive and when i clicked, it said no operating system found and it IS on the drive.

I have also gone through 5 dvds trying to burn on 3 different burning software on mint and all of them give me an error message when trying to burn.

can someone help me?

[DataMan]

It would probably help if you could supply some additional information.

1. What platform are you trying to burn the iso's from (Windows 7, Mint 10 etc.)?

2. What application are you attempting to use for burning the CD/DVD?

3. Are you burning the iso images as an iso image an not as a data type?

4. Have you verified the md5 values against your download files?

-DataMan

[misswham]

i'm using mint 8 helena and i tried it on brasreo & devede. i downloaded mint 13 cinnamon iso mirror image to my computer and when i tried to burn it in BOTH dvd burning software it gives me an error. im using a blank dvd. the other question u asked i have no clue what u are asking.

how do i burn it? what software do u recommend and how?

[Oscar799]

Moved here by moderator

[misswham]

trying to burn cinnamon ISO onto disc and cant. i keep getting this error message when i try to burn in brasero

Unable to mount Blank Optical Disc

DBus error org.gtk.Private.RemoteVolumeMonitor.NotFound: The given volume was not found

im using blank dvds and i have also tried to boot from flashdrive and when i do it says missing operating system. what seems to be the problem? i want to try the new distro cinnamon. i am using helena

[dagon]

I think this could be wodim that is failing you. Wodim is a buggy, unmaintained fork of cdrecord that works under the hood of a bunch of cd burning programs, including brasero and is used in many linux distributions because of a license dispute.
Unfortunately, since you are using Helena, I don't think there is a .deb package for cdrtools(cdrecord) but here is the project homepage:
http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/cdrecord.html

I recommend you try a USB stick instead if that is an option.

[breaker]

I've used wodim from command line ok to burn in Gloria and Helena. You said you used 3 different programs, maybe your drive or media has a problem?

@misswham, which method did you use to make usb flash? What kind of BIOS do you have? You can try chainload the flash from your GRUB boot loader assuming you have GRUB as your initial boot manager. You might also be able to chainload the iso on the flash drive directly from GRUB. You can basically add entries to the grub.cfg or just type commands from the grub shell at boot.

If booting directly from BIOS, or your usb flash drive needs to be made bootable in case you didn't know. There are several methods of doing this.

I won't get into details right now, unless you are interested in a particular method.

[misswham]

I have been having the SAME problems with my helena on my desktop also. that is why i want to get another distro. my keyboards lag, meaning that when i type sometimes, it takes four words later for the text to show up on my screen. My firefox is bouncing all over the place and freezing up on my desktop AND laptop. So when i tried to boot from my flashdrive, i went into the bootmenu and clicked rocketfish and then i got an error message saying MISSING OPERATING SYSTEM and i have gone through 10 dvds trying to burn it. i have never burned on this system and someone told me to try k3b and it wont even download from the synaptic manager as if it doesnt exists and i CANT update anymore my operating systems on BOTH laptop and desktop. i keep getting the SAME error messages there also.

im not really as literate as you all are when it comes to linux because i have been spoiled by mint. i was a little more intelligent when i had UBUNTU and had to set it up.

and yes i have GRUB as my bootloader but the other things u mentioned are foreign to me but i follow instructions very well

how do i prepare my flashdrive then to where it will boot from my flashdrive? also was i supposed to extract the files before burning? i have tried burning and booting BOTH ways with the whole ISO and extracting the files.

[dagon]

how do i prepare my flashdrive then to where it will boot from my flashdrive?

You may have to enter the BIOS and choose USB drive as no.1
To set up the USB stick you use "unetbootin".

also was i supposed to extract the files before burning? i have tried burning and booting BOTH ways with the whole ISO and extracting the files.

You mustn't extract the ISO. If you use Brasero you choose "Burn Image" and enter one whole ISO as prompted.

[tdockery97]

The reason you are having trouble installing with the package manager is that Mint 8 reached end of life some time ago, and the repositories are probably closed down. I agree with the above about Unetbootin. I use it all the time to burn iso's onto my USB stick for testing out distros. It has worked very well for me.

[dagon]

Download unetbootin here instead:
http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/

[misswham]

I have gone to unet link and downloaded it to my desktop and when i double clicked it i got this message

there is no application installed for executable files.

i have NEVER had this problem before.

HELLP hahaha thanks in advance again.

[misswham]

i tried to download it through the terminal and i got this message

The following NEW packages will be installed:
p7zip-full unetbootin unetbootin-translations
0 upgraded, 3 newly installed, 0 to remove and 17 not upgraded.
Need to get 423kB/1,827kB of archives.
After this operation, 5,304kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y
WARNING: The following packages cannot be authenticated!
p7zip-full unetbootin unetbootin-translations
Authentication warning overridden.
Err http://archive.ubuntu.com karmic/universe unetbootin 356-1
404 Not Found [IP: 91.189.92.184 80]
Err http://archive.ubuntu.com karmic/universe unetbootin-translations 356-1
404 Not Found [IP: 91.189.92.184 80]
Failed to fetch http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/u ... 1_i386.deb 404 Not Found [IP: 91.189.92.184 80]
Failed to fetch http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/u ... -1_all.deb 404 Not Found [IP: 91.189.92.184 80]
E: Unable to fetch some archives, maybe run apt-get update or try with --fix-missing?

[dagon]

Try this one. It's a binary without a distribution specific package. I just tried it and all you do is download and make it executable:
right click file > Properties > permissions > Allow execute file as a program
http://sourceforge.net/projects/unetbootin/files/UNetbootin/575/unetbootin-linux-575/download

[misswham]

I went to my windows and did it there and it worked. Now is there a way to put the WHOLE OS/distro on an external harddrive and always boot from there?If so, how do i do it? I am going to have to get rid of helena because it is gone and its doing the fool on both my lap and desktop. which distro should i download that will last a while if anyone has any suggestions? i have downloaded cinnamon is that one ok?