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Problems with PCLinuxOS live cd [solved]


carlito
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I recently downloaded the PCLinuxOS Big Daddy iso, it's currently residing on a 1 Gb flash drive, I burned it to cd using K3b, it burnt with no problems, but when I rebooted and set my pc to boot from cd first, nothing happened. When I opened the cd, there were 2 folders on it, Boot and Isolinux, and a file called livecd.sqfs. I mounted the iso image and those are the same items in that folder. I even tried to take everything out of the folders and burn the cd like that, it wouldn't finish burning for some reason. I didn't see any toggle bootable options in K3b, so I'm assuming it takes care of things like that automatically. Has anyone else ran into this type of problem? I'm not getting rid of my Mandrake installation, just been wanting to try a live cd so when I start school, if the computers are inflicted with M$ bugware, I might can reboot and run a real os. Thanks for any help.

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Yes, I mounted the iso image, there were 2 folders and the livecd.sqfs file, I compared the burnt cd to the mounted folder, everything was identical. I didn't check (and don't even know if there is) the md5sum, I didn't download the file because I am still stuck with dial up, so I had a friend with dsl download it. To be sure it's something I'm doing wrong, I just can't quite figure out what.

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It seems from your second post that you still have not burned the download as an ISO hence your inability to boot from it.

If you burned it using Nero or something else in Windows then I recommend you read up on your Window burner and make certain that you burn the ISO as an Iso and DO NOT UNPACK and then burn it, or let the burner program unpack it and burn it.

 

Cheers. John

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What ISO did you download? If this is it: http://www.pclinuxos.com/page.php?7 then it's a test release.

There is an md5 file here: http://ftp.ch.debian.org/mirror/pclinuxos/...nglish/preview/ you can download it in no time even on dial up.

PCLinuxOS though a grreat distro is not for dial up users. It releases only a live cd from which you can install a complete system but you have to download everything else. Plus it is using a rolling release cycle which means you can download the latest versions from every available software. Unless you have an option to download everything I advise you to choose a distro with a point release cycle.

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I can't really remember where I downloaded it from, but if the live cd is used only to install the system, obviously that isn't what I need. I'm looking for a good live cd that can be booted and run directly from the cd as a standalone os, cause I'm sure once I start school, all the pc's will be running some version of windoze (although I pray it isn't Vista, I don't even want to look at that one). Also, after all my yapping about Linux, I've got several friends interested in trying it out, it would be nice to give them a live cd they can try out without actually installing anything, to see how they like it, and something very user friendly that won't discourage them. Any suggestions?

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It seems from your second post that you still have not burned the download as an ISO hence your inability to boot from it.

If you burned it using Nero or something else in Windows then I recommend you read up on your Window burner and make certain that you burn the ISO as an Iso and DO NOT UNPACK and then burn it, or let the burner program unpack it and burn it.

 

Cheers. John

 

He's burnt it correctly, he said that when he mounted the CD, he found the isolinux folder and a sqfs file and other things. This is correct behaviour

 

James

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If the PCLinuxOS live cd is truly a fully functional cd, awesome, I've already got it and won't have to download anything else. When I burn it to disc, do I need to take everything out of the folders and put them out front, especially the vmlinuz file, so it can boot from the cd, or should I leave it all as is and go with it?

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If the PCLinuxOS live cd is truly a fully functional cd, awesome, I've already got it and won't have to download anything else. When I burn it to disc, do I need to take everything out of the folders and put them out front, especially the vmlinuz file, so it can boot from the cd, or should I leave it all as is and go with it?

If you use k3b you can just choose "burn image to cd", and if the iso is bootable it should boot.

 

Have you set up in the BIOS that the computer boots from cd?

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Please note my earlier post.

It seems that you do not understand the principle of burning an ISO after all.

 

If you have just downloaded a Live CD, it will be in the form of an ISO.

All you have to do is burn the ISO to a cd. If you do it properly then the cd will be bootable automatically. Under no circumstances is it necessary to unpack the downloaded ISO.

 

Please forget your Windows past and do a bit of reading about Linux and how it works so you don't waste your time trying to do Linux things the Windows way.

When you have done that then make sure you follow Mhns recommendation so that the cd can be allowed to boot.

John.

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Acutally, I understand the principles of burning an iso image very well, and because I've been using Linux for almost 2 years now, I may not be a guru yet, but I can do everything on here just as well from a shell as I can using the frontend for that program so I assume I have a little knowledge of my system. I know that when I click the iso image, K3b opens automatically with the correct parameters already set for that image, all I have to do is click the burn button. I've set my bios to boot from cd rom first, and yet it still won't boot the disc. This is the first time I've had this problem, as I've burned several iso images, using Linux and K3b, in the past and they've always worked properly on reboot. I'm just curious as to whether anyone else has tried this distro and if they had similar problems, or if possibly the download is corrupt and I should try it again.

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Allright, after having to dig through my im logs to find out exactly where I sent my friend to download this iso, I went back and downloaded the md5, the two were way off, so I dug a little further and found that the iso image is 695 Mb, the file my friend gave me was only 684, and therein lies the problem. As I have been quite sick for the last week, I was not as thorough in checking everything out as I should have been before posting, and for that I apologize. Thanks for everyone's help in this matter, and in the future I will dig as deep as I can before posting to this forum.

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