Looking for best UK version which recognises XP install

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vintagepen

Looking for best UK version which recognises XP install

Post by vintagepen »

I notice that there has been no answer to this posting:
billtheplatypus wrote:I've used linux mint 12 for several months. I'm now trying to dual boot mint 14 and windows XP. I don't want to do the inside of windows option because that has a 30 GiB limit on virtual disk size, and I have hit that limit before. When I bring up the install linux Mint program, there is an option for replace windows and other. There is no install alonside windows option. .


I have been having the same problem with a neighbour's HP computer which is running disastrously slowly under its original XP OS. I have booted with a 13 Cinnamon DVD and now she sees a tantalisingly fast and trouble free way of operating her computer!! (I have been using Lisa for over a year now on a box which could hardly run Vista at all!)

But she cant install it at all! The Cinnamon install DVD doesn't recognise that there is any XP installation there and doesnt give her any option to install otherwise than by wiping her whole hard drive. And mysteriously, the DVD operation of the OS seems only to work with a US keyboard. I suspect this can be changed easily IF we could get any version of Mint installed but it is a pain in the neck running from the DVD if you ever have to reboot and lose all customisations. BEsides, having updated old files every few weeks for a year or so, I can only regard running Linux from a DVD as a toy to get people introduced to the OS

Now i see that there is a Mint 14 out there! Can anyone recommend a download site for any version of 14 which stands any chance of not having this 'cant see XP OS' problem and which will recognise that she has a UK keyboard please? I do know that I can install for her inside windows but cant believe that this is a serious option! Doesnt it introduce another level of overhead into a system which can hardly run XP properly? Or does this work completely separately, - like installing bootcamp Windows alongside OSX? If that works and no one can respond to this thread, we may have to forego using all of the hard drive and submit to that 30 gig limit! (or is there a way around this as well?)
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xenopeek
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Re: Looking for best UK version which recognises XP install

Post by xenopeek »

The solutions to your 'cant see XP OS' problem is not a different Linux Mint version, but is solving the problem. Most commonly this is caused by the computer already having four primary partitions. If that is the case, and as you can have a maximum of four primary partitions, there is no free primary partition slot available for Linux Mint to use for installation. Hence it can only offer you to install and us the entire disk. If you don't want that, you would confirm this is the root cause of your problem and then remove one of the four primary partitions. You can get advice from users here with that.

To confirm the issue, please boot from a Linux Mint installation DVD / USB on the target computer and open a terminal. Run the following command and share the output here. You can copy text to/from the terminal, see its Edit menu.

Code: Select all

sudo parted -l
The output of this command will list all the partitions on the computer and some details about them from which others here can hopefully help you figure out which ones you could delete.

This is not a Linux Mint problem; you'd have the same problem with any other operating system you would want to install alongside Windows on this computer.
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vintagepen

Re: Looking for best UK version which recognises XP install

Post by vintagepen »

Hey thanks for that: I thought that the problem was something to do with the beginning of the installation process when whatever is running from the DVD reports that there is no operating system to install alongside, rather than the end where it looks to see/create a partitiion on which to install Mint.

What is baffling is that this is a relatively elderly computer, probably about the first of the core duos, and I seriously doubt that tihere is any more than one partition on it? There may be a recovery partition but I dont think that there is any more than that one in addition to the XP partition. I suppose there might be a boot partition though I cant see why it would be there on such a domestic box which wasnt sold with any intention of installing any further OSs. It certainly isnt a primary partition!

Anyway assuming that is the problem, XP is on one partition. So whatever else there is can be easily deleted if I am going to install a linux bootloader and use tht thereafter. Is there a link i can give her to do this please? The mint install procedure seemed to me to give limited options after it announced that it was going to delete the whole partition where the XP installation is if I want to install mint.
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xenopeek
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Re: Looking for best UK version which recognises XP install

Post by xenopeek »

I wouldn't want to give general advice on that, without knowing the details about the partitions (some computers have their BIOS programs on a partition on the hard disk, instead of on a ROM chip. You wouldn't want to delete those.) You could suggest her to join the forum and we'll help her here. Deleting a partition you can do from the installation DVD / USB, by running GParted, which is a graphical tool to edit your partitions.
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vintagepen

Re: Looking for best UK version which recognises XP install

Post by vintagepen »

Here is what I have been able to glean:

If you choose not to do a wipe-install, it shows a partition table consisting of DEV, DEV1 and DEV5 which appears to be a swap partition (created by the operation of mint from the DVD??) Not sure this helps but there sure arent too many primary partitions there!

Surely there is some relevance in the stage before the install stage to the report that the install procedure cannot find any windows installations on the hard drive? When I did my Lisa installation, it saw the Vista installation immediately and knew exactly how to treat it. Everything was so easy. I wonder why the 13 cinnamon install is going so badly wrong, with no options to correct anything? Should I try to make a 14 DVD (whatever that is!) and see if it has the same problem?

In case onlookers havent noticed, I am in the US and the computer is in the UK. I was in London last week and was trying to do the installation then, That was when I was having these problems. With a DVD I had specifically burned for her. The user has parkinsons and isn't capable of joining a group like this or of following instructions unless I am on the phone with her! I was hoping that installing mint was going to be as easy for her as it was for me. All she knows is that once I have shown her how amazingly her computer runs on mint, she LOVES it! And that is from the DVD!
usbtux

Re: Looking for best UK version which recognises XP install

Post by usbtux »

Really you need to boot to a live cd start gparted find the hard drive and post a screen shot of the gparted program.
We could then probably offer valid info on the problem.

This will be difficult due to the distances between you and the computer.
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xenopeek
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Re: Looking for best UK version which recognises XP install

Post by xenopeek »

Suggest you ask her to boot from the installation DVD and then go to https://www.teamviewer.com/en/download/linux.aspx. There you can download the Team Viewer software either for Ubuntu (which you'd then install on the installation DVD, which works until reboot) or you can download the "Other system" archive which you just extract and run (I usually use that). You do the same, and I'd recommend you try it first on your end before contacting her so you know how the program works. It's very easy, she starts it and gets a key which she can give to you over the phone, and then you can use that key to set up a remote desktop connection to her system with this program. It's the easiest remote desktop I know to set up, as you don't need to configure anything.

Or if you can talk her through it, indeed a screenshot of GParted would help. Just run GParted, and press the Prt Sc / Print Screen button on the keyboard (usually on the top right somewhere) and have her upload or email the file to you. Or you could do this for here from the remote desktop session.
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vintagepen

Re: Looking for best UK version which recognises XP install

Post by vintagepen »

I really appreciate the suggestion but her hands are so unsteady that any individual step you describe would probably take an hour or so to achieve! I was going to do it for her while I was there but had hoped that I could send her some other flavour to try to recognise the Windows installation.

At the moment she loves Mint so much that she wont turn her computer off!
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xenopeek
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Re: Looking for best UK version which recognises XP install

Post by xenopeek »

There are various Linux User Groups (LUGs) in the UK: http://lug.org.uk/listings. If there is one nearby to her, you might check to see if somebody would be willing to help her. Usually they have a regular meeting where you can walk in with a computer and they'll help you install Linux, but perhaps something more accommodating to her may be possible.
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vintagepen

Re: Looking for best UK version which recognises XP install

Post by vintagepen »

xenopeek wrote:There are various Linux User Groups (LUGs) in the UK: http://lug.org.uk/listings. If there is one nearby to her, you might check to see if somebody would be willing to help her. Usually they have a regular meeting where you can walk in with a computer and they'll help you install Linux, but perhaps something more accommodating to her may be possible.

Actually that was quite a goood idea. There does seem to be a North West London Linux UG. However it doesnt seem to be active and email messages are bounced back.

I suspect I am back to (assuming there arent a plethora of primary partitions on this highly domestice computer) making a 14 install disc and seeing if it works any better than the Cinnamon 13 at recognising the XP installation
vintagepen

Re:Am I cheating by installing 14 in a VM through Fusion?

Post by vintagepen »

Am back with this Mint install in London from New York

Just installed 14 Mate very easily indeed on my Macbook Pro. It goes through a process of creating a partition and then reporting that it cant find any OS in that partition and asks if it can erase it and install mint in it, which is obvious enough. But it makes it very easy for you on a mac 'cos it says it is creating a parition of 20 gig and it is obvious then that you can go into preferences and change the size. This is obviously just a function of Fusion.

I was just wondering whether the UK computer is doing this as well (without Fusion) and will install Mint in a parittion it has just created, - or is the probability that it is doing just what it says and it cant see the Windows partition and will wipe her 500 gig hard drive?
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