I just wiped the dust off my old PIII and i'm about to trash everything on it. At the moment it has windows 98 se and Fedora Core 3 installed. The reason i'm trashing it is because my son has all the usual nasties on it ( file sharing virusware, windows media player spyware, MSN messenger and Inept Explorer ) and as a result it is barely running. If I start from scratch it makes using this piece of crap OS almost bearable.
You DON'T need to do any of this if you are happy with the way that heap of shit OS is working, just skip ahead to the start of the Linux install. We don't really want to be doing any windows howto's so if you need to reinstall winslop before you start, here's some links to what you need to do http://www.cyberwalker.net/columns/jul99/290799.html format the HD http://www.windows98.windowsreinstall.com/ reinstall winshit.
If you decide to go with what you have, then you'd better defragment your hard drive first.
Now put the Mepis Live CD in the CDROM and restart the PC
First we need to setup the boot sequence in the BIOS To get into it on my PC requires holding down the del key while booting up the PC. When you are in there you need to change the sequence to CD-ROM, C,A
"Every computer's CMOS/BIOS is slightly different so it is impossible to provide detailed, step-by-step instructions that will apply to every computer. You will have to read the instructions on the screen carefully and follow them exactly." (i stole this bit)
The process on my PC is as follows (remember, this bit is only an example)
Turn on pc.........hold down del key till bios appears..........use arrow key to move highlight to BIOS FEATURES SETUP...........press enter .....................use arrow key to move highlight to boot sequence.............use plus or minus key to change values to CDROM,C,A............................press escape key........................press F10 key,,,,,,,,,,,,press Y to save and exit.
Allow the PC to continue booting and it should boot to the Mepis cd
Mepis Boots
Mepis opening screen ..............choose kernel...........2.4 for older machines Login screen.........................click on demo.....................password?..........type in demo.............click login
This box only has 256 mb ram so it takes a while for everything to load, when it finishes. Kmix opens up.......close it and start the Hard Drive Installation
Click on the INSTALL ME ICON ..........a little box opens up and asks for the root password which is...............root............click ok The Mepis OS center eventually opens up...............click on install mepis on hard drive..................click on next This screen is for partitioning the Hard drive............click on run qt parted
Our next little window opens with all the hard drives listed.........click on /dev/hda.........this will open a new window with one partition...............click on 01 /dev/hda1..............click on operations then click on resize..................type in half the amount highlighted...................then click ok...........click on number 2 /dev/hda1- free ...........click on operations..............click on create ......... in the new box, highlight the amount in the size area and type in an amount 250mb LESS than what is already there...............then click OK. (this spare space will be our swap parttion which is usualy the same size in MB's as the amount of ram in your PC
This will give you some free space called 03 /dev/hda-1............click on it, this highlights it........... then click operations...................... then on create...................select partition type,..........choose linux-swap...............click on OK
Click on file ...........then click &commit which will bring up a warning............click yes .........QtParted will do its work and then should tell you Operation completed successfully.............click OK.........file............quit
We should be back at the install mepis window............click next..................brings up a list of partitions where mepis will be installed.....................click next............a warning comes up saying it's going to destroy /dev/hda2...............click YES................and/dev/hda3.................click YES,,,,,,,,,,,,,This starts the install packages process
That part is complete, the next window is for setting up the GRUB bootloader............accept the defaults (which are install in MBR and use both Kernels)...........click next.........................OK to install grub bootloader at hda?..........click yes
Grub installed ok........................click ok
break out the pencil and paper so that you can write clearly in big legible letters and/or numbers what your username and passwords both user and root are, now carefully type them in and click next............and next again..............and next again which brings you to LOCATION defaults and SET CLOCK...........If you live in the US and the clock in the bottom right hand corner is correct..............click next.................then click FINISH and reboot without the cd in the drive which you can retrieve when it opens during the reboot...............Let it reboot back into mepis
Click on your username type in your password and click on login.....................Congratulations You did it:-)
If you are wondering how to get into windows at the boot menu use the arrow keys to move the highlight up and down to your selection and press enter
http://ct.enews.extremetech.com/rd/cts?d=185-323-1-9-69260-40198-0-0-0-1 This ariticle posted in another thread my my old mate Melloe is essential reading if you want to understand how qtparted works, before you have to use it.
First job if you haven't already done it is change the boot sequence in the bios to CD-ROM,C,A
Place the Xandros 3.0 open circulation edition CD in the CD-ROM .......boot up.......... having already changed the boot sequence to cd first............ and after a 5 minute wait the xandros welcome screen appears, so I click next..........accept the licence agreement.............click next
Choose the custom install.............next
Accept the default standard desktop.....................next
Choose Resize a windows partition...............click next
Xandros does the thinking for you and offers a default, dont accept it ( on the first attempt I accepted the default and it ended up telling me it couldn't format the partition )
This PC has a 10GB hard drive so I allocate 5GB for the Xandros partition by typing 5000 in the highlighted xandros partition bar.....................click next
On the next screen Xandros has automatically allocated a root and swap partition so I accept the default by clicking next
Network connection configuration...........If you have a DSL connection via ethernet .............accept default.........next
Administration Configuration............Type your password in both bars............don't forget to clearly write it somewhere safe so it wont get lost...............click next
User Account Configuration.............click add............type your everyday user name and password and write it down somewhere safe.................click ok.....................next
Installation summary..........click FINISH and be patient while xandros installs
About 30 minutes later its finished............click exit to reboot...............enjoy