Zorin 8 on Win 98

Folks,

I am not new to computers BUT am not conversant with a lot of the techno babble.

Sick of being held to ransom and frustrated with win 8, I am trying to get to grips with Zorin.

Before I muck up all the machines in the house, I would like to run it from DVD on an old PC.

It has an athlon 1300 with 1 GB PC 133 ram which I will upgrade to 1.5 Gb after the OS swap it is currently running Win 98 ( yes I know but that's what I have). The MB is a Gigabyte GA7 ZXE, which can handle the Athlon 2400+.

I have an OS iso-disc courtesy of eBay, but no md5 checksum

The machine is incapable of accessing the disc - is this normal? Or have a bought a duck?

Thanks.

Hi,

1: never buy a (I assume) pirated version of Linux from eBay as you don't know what they have done to it in terms of bugs (malware) and things.

2: Was the disk burnt at the slowest possible speed?:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=4771

3: When you say "Cannot access it", I assume that you have set the PC (enter BIOS and change boot order to CD ROM) to boot from a CD?. Or do you mean you can see something but it still won't boot?.

4: You can download Zorin OS for free here:

http://zorin-os.com/free8.html

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BurningIsoHowto

(Make sure you download the 32 bit version and I would opt for the Lite version first, you can always burn the normal copy of Zorin OS later if you decide you like it!.

The other bit we don't know - as it is old kit is it a CD-Rom drive? Zorin discs are on DVD!

Folks,

Problem is partially solved.

Yes the drive was indeed a CD rather than DVD drive (doh!)

I have now swapped the drive and reattempted an install on a formatted drive. Error message appears advising me that the installer was unable to mount the file system.

I can enter a maintenance mode (code required - don't have one ) or re-boot. I suspect HDD issues.

I will attempt a download myself, but not entirely confident about the process.

Thanks.

Hi,

just make sure you burn the disk at "the slowest possible speed"!.

Well,

I've followed the link for ImgBurn from the Get It page.

The page that opened up put the fear of God into me - why so many dodgy looking adverts and links which one do I choose without malware and other stuff I DON'T want?

In the end I went for the ImgBurn host mirror thinking that would be 'best' to find I ended up with malware which AVG removed and something called Outfox TV which I couldn't avoid.

IMHO if Zorin expect people to use the software they are going to have to host ImgBurn directly and improve the 'image' of the download process - I'm petrified I now have all sorts of stuff that will affect my security.

Can you advise on ditching Outfox TV?

Thanks

Folks,

Managed to get rid of outfox TV, start, programs, outfox TV, uninstall.

Burned and verified the iso-file and rebooted PC, some hopeful flashes and Zorin logo, then nothing, just a blank screen, no drive activity.

Help!

Hi, to get imgburn, make sure you get to the official site - be sure to use duckduckgo search engine from https://duckduckgo.com - the official site will be marked with a label 'official site'.

I ALWAYS download from the imgburn.com mirror - usually the last one listed - make sure your browser does NOT have any BHO's (Browser Helper Objects) as these can get infected and direct you to a fake site!

Now in respect of the last posting, you could try this at boot time:

1. Press the TAB key as soon as you see the boot menu for Zorin

2. Add at the end of the boot command line a space then:

Code:

xforcevesa acpi=off nomodeset nolapic

and see if things improve!

Keep us posted!

Thanks,

I have no idea what BHO's are (thanks for the definition) how to check for them or turn them off.

It just seems that all this faffing about with weird links, burning software and checksums is fine if you are computer wise, but until this is simplified, these alternatives will never become mainstream.

I've tried opensuse too - got further began to install then crashed at 14% - bad sector on DVD.

Reluctant to spend more time.

Hi, BHO's are 'Browser Helper Objects' (Google Bar, Bing Bar, Ask Bar etc etc - you just turn them off in preferences/tools - but I don't know which browser or what add-ons you are using!

The advice we give is of personal experience - you have just had a bad dose of poor burns it would appear. Quite a while ago a forumer was having continual problems until they used one of these!:

http://www.allsop.com/cleaning-/dvd-carbon-edge-pro-/

Windowsdefector14 wrote:Thanks,

I have no idea what BHO's are (thanks for the definition) how to check for them or turn them off.

It just seems that all this faffing about with weird links, burning software and checksums is fine if you are computer wise, but until this is simplified, these alternatives will never become mainstream.

I've tried opensuse too - got further began to install then crashed at 14% - bad sector on DVD.

Reluctant to spend more time.

Hi,

try using a different PC to burn the disk (your burner might be naff!) and just make sure you burn the disk at "the slowest possible speed"!.