How do I boot Linux Mint~!? ( installed from Live CD )

[bruceleejr]

I installed Linux Mint 8 Helena but I cant get it to run/boot~!!! I installed it but when I start up my PC it says to login and I put my correct login information and a command line comes up "steven@steven~" and what the heck do I type~!?!?? I dont want to go to the command prompt LOL i just want linux to start up

I think I have to type something like "find boot/grub/stage1" or "find grub/stage1" but says File Not Found... i Just wanna type BOOT~!! lol

What do I do~~??? haaaylllllllllp

[mick55]

Code: Select all

startx

[tower]

Hi, is is it only text on the screen?

[bruceleejr]

I used "startx" but I get like errors "no such file or directory" & "no such process"

[bruceleejr]

This is retarded. I cannot load ANY CD. What the heck is that about~~~ The stupid grub keeps OVERWRITING the boot menu options , I even turned off the HD in the BIOS~!! yet it still loads~!! wow, i just wanna install another linux distro please for the love of God

[mick55]

You need to install an RTFM interface.

[bruceleejr]

lol and how to I do that~????

[bruceleejr]

Gigabyte MB MA785GMT-UD2H
Athlon II Quad Core 2.8GHz CPU
DDR3 RAM
Hitachi 1TB HD
550W Antec PSU

Regular CRT monitor


btw I am entirely LOCKED OUT of my whole PC.... I can get into the linux command line but I dont what what the heck to write... I thought it was just gonna start up so I can play with the terminal in the GUI and stuff but NOOOOOOOOO I cant even get ANY other CD to boot up because GRUB takes OVER EVERYTHING...

I can get into BIOS,turn off HARD DRIVE and make CD ROM first but GRUB takes over everything and throws me in the command line...


Is there a command I can use to boot from cd-rom in GRUB~???

[bruceleejr]

I installed from the Live Mint 8 HELENA CD from within the desktop.
Even when I pressed F12 to select from the boot menu, it didnt work.. the GRUB takes over from the Master Boot Record/MBR... it overrides the user selection.

I had to do something very tricky. I unplugged the SATA HD so it wouldnt be detected and then finally the CD ROM booted up, I put in a win xp cd and right when i was loading XP i plugged the HD back in and in the XP setup, it seen that there was 2 different partitions from my previous Linux installation, I just deleted those and rebooted the PC without installing yet... then after a reboot I went into the recovery console and was brought up with the Windows DOS command line... i did fixmbr and it rewrote an entirely new MBR... I then installed XP and this is where I am now ...

sucks because I just built this quad core PC specifically for Linux to test and get used to... that sucks I guess that aint gonna happen

[feed3]

I installed from the Live Mint 8 HELENA CD from within the desktop.
Even when I pressed F12 to select from the boot menu, it didnt work.. the GRUB takes over from the Master Boot Record/MBR... it overrides the user selection.

you are using one hdd or two hdd? if you have two hdd, then it is much easier than you think actually.
- plug(connect or whatever you want to call it) the first hdd, let 2nd hdd unplugged.
- install xp or win 7 on 1st hdd
- unplug the 1st hdd with win on it. plug the 2nd hdd.
- install mint on the 2nd hdd. be make sure there's only the 2nd hdd is plugged in to minimize your confusions.
- plug the 1st hdd back along with 2nd hdd.
- go to bios, set it to boot the 1st hdd first (the hdd with win on it)
- it should boot straight to your win
- if you want to boot the mint, press f12, choose the 2nd hdd. by that way, you won't see grub unless ONLY when you want to boot mint.

[mick55]

If your Helena CD is dirty or scratched the CD Drive may not be able to read the boot file.
You may wish to burn a new CD at low speed (2x-4x)

Some PC's have a problem booting to a CD drive if it is jumpered as a Slave drive,
you may wish to check that.

Also in the BIOS boot section, disable the choice to try other devices.

And last, but not least, you will damage your hard drive and/or motherboard
by connecting your hard drive to a running system.

good luck
mick

[bruceleejr]

Well after 7+ years of having my sata hard drives which are still currently working, I've never had any problems hot-swapping them out and putting new ones in while it was running.

There are no BIOS difficulties. Let me elaborate...

I built this PC fresh from the ground up. ALl brand new hardware. ALL.(except for old monitor lol) I put in the newly burned Linux Mint 8 Helena CD and ran it from the CD. Everything works great.

I double-clicked on the "Install Linux Mint 8" that was on the desktop. I installed it. During the installation process somewhere towards the end, it said if I wanted to install a boot loader, I said Yes and chose GRUB instead of Lilo. Well it turns out that after the installation and rebooting the PC, GRUB was installed on the MASTER BOOT RECORD/MBR.

So no matter if I chose to disable the hard drive in BIOS and make the CD ROM the first boot priority, the GRUB took over FIRST before anything else. It was installed on the MBR. Taking over anything. I had to remove the HD SATA cable connected to the MB while starting up the PC WITH WINDOWS XP in the CD ROM. THEN the cd started up without GRUB taking over. Once the XP CD was loading I plugged the HD SATA cable back in and the partitions were then seen at the windows xp parition setup. I deleted both of the partitions that were Linux ( one was a linux one and the other was swap for linux)

After deleting the paritions, I restarted the PC and got into the Windows XP recovery console, the DOS prompt came up and I ran "fixmbr" and it rewrote a whole new master boot record to the hard drive. After that I was able to get things back to normal and install Linux Mint again but this time I chose NO BOOTLOADER. But I still couldnt get into the darn GUI.

[gravelbay]

Bruce, did you check the CD data integrity before you installed? I don't think I'm the only person who had a good md5 checksum, burned a disk that verified successfully, and still failed the integrity test. Normally, on a Mint install, you will boot right into the Gnome, KDE, or whatever desktop you chose when you downloaded the iso file. The only thing you should have to type is your password.

As for grub taking over when you want to boot from CD, my guess is that the bios may have two places you need to set for boot sequence. I saw that in mine, anyway. It may be that one is over riding the other. Because if it's properly set to boot from the optical drive, it will never see the grub loader.

My recommendation is to check the md5 of the iso you downloaded (if you didn't blow it away in getting Windows running). If that's good, do the integrity check of the live before installing Mint. You may need to burn another disk.

Hope this helps. Don't give up. Mint is worth it!

edit to add: I agree that SATA drives are hot swappable. That's one of their great features. Just don't try it on an IDE drive.

[bruceleejr]

So I'm back after my horrible first Linux distro episode lol. I am a Linux virgin so bear(bare~? lol) with me. Right now I am running XP. I am about to burn a copy of "Linux Mint: Isadora" & install it on the same system which would be a dual-boot.

I know alot people say that Windows is the BEST Desktop OS. Linux Is the BEST Server OS.

I don't play any Windows games, but I do:

[*]surf the web - so Firefox/Iceweasel is a must. I hate internet explorer.


[*]stream media from my capture devices - so I am hoping there is a program that can support my capture device. I have the software for it. Is it possible that Linux has the drivers for it~???


[*]convert formats - I use format factory on Windows. Hopefully there is something like this on Mint>Isadora


[*]photo & video editing (adobe photoshop/adobe after effects/sony vegas etc) - I know there is GIMP. What are the alternative to Linux video editing software?

[*]MSN - Yes, I use MSN ALOT. Hopefully there is an alternative for this.


[*]7zip,Utorrent,Notepad++,CakePHP - Any alternatives for these?

[*]batch files - I am very much a Windows Power User. What is the alternative for Windows Batch Files~? BASH files~?

[*]Networking - Yes, I do networking & LOTS OF IT.


There are many more things I do with Windows. Should I just stay with Windows as a desktop OS & create Linux as a server instead~??? I do LOTS of file sharing.

I strictly want to move over to Linux & Linux only. But yesterday I installed Ubuntu & had a hell of a time trying to access Windows File Shares (even researched about samba.nautilus etc) but could not get it to work. I also could not configure Ubuntu to set my PC up for a static IP address. I thought I had did it but then when I go to the terminal & use the "ifconfig" command, it came up with the dynamic IP which means it did not take my settings even though they were still there.