I think I'm an idiot

[Apotherix]

This should be easy but I can't get it -

I just want to boot from the live cd but I burned all the files that the .rar file contained on a disk and my system won't boot from it, even though I have the cd drive set as primary boot device in BIOS. Do I have to burn the disc differently or what?

[dibl]

Re: I think I'm an idiot

Do I have to burn the disc differently or what?

Yep. You have to "burn as ISO". And by the way, you need to have downloaded the ISO file, not .rar files. An ISO file is an "image" of a bootable CD, and you'll have to figure out how your CD burning program is set to burn such an image -- it is different than burning a "data CD".

Also, once you have the ISO file on your PC and are ready to "burn as ISO", you need to choose a slow speed, like 4X, to make sure and get a good burn.

HTH.

[Apotherix]

Re: I think I'm an idiot

How come the site sent me the .rar file when I downloaded kubuntu? Isn't there a way to make the contents of the .rar file an iso in order to make the cd?

(p.s. I'm using Nero)

[dibl]

Re: I think I'm an idiot

I'm not sure where you are or what you are seeing, but here's a link to a North America download mirror, and if you look at the file list at the bottom of the page, you'll see it begins with the md5 checksum files (needed to verify that your downloaded file is intact), and then the ISO images for the several "flavors", i.e. 386, 64-bit, Alternate Install, and so forth. There aren't any .rar files that I can see.

http://ftp.wayne.edu/linux_distribut...ubuntu/feisty/

[Fintan]

Re: I think I'm an idiot

If you are using nero just go to extras-> burn iso image. find the folder you downloaded to and if nero sees your .rar file as iso (which should be the case) then just burn that. Don't extract anything!
I have had that somewhat confusing stuff with win/nero/rar.

I hope that helps.

Cheers
fintan

[Apotherix]

Re: I think I'm an idiot

Okay got it figured it out - of course WinRAR recognized the dang iso file as a rar file and threw me off. Thanks for all the help, Kubuntu looks amazing and I'm going to install it as soon as I get all these partitions figured out.

[dibl]

Re: I think I'm an idiot

I recommend the Alternate install CD -- it gives you more visibility and control over the installation process. Download the version for your CPU architecture (AMD-64 if it's AMD or Intel Core 2 DUO, i386 if it's not).

Also, I recommend you make a separate partition for your /home directory, in addition to the 2 you'll need for / and swap. 3 partitions in all. It's not mandatory, but there are good reasons to do it that way. Make the "/" at least 8GB, and the swap at least 0.5GB, and the rest of your available space for /home (your data and settings).

[eriefisher]

Re: I think I'm an idiot

I wander if there is any advantage of another partition just for personal stuff. Just to keep it separate from the setting that that go into /home.

/
/home
/swap
/personal stuff (mounted in /home)

side note: my /swap is .5g I have 2g of ram and nothing ever is seen in /swap.
is it really needed now with ram so cheap and huge?

[dibl]

Re: I think I'm an idiot

is it really needed now with ram so cheap and huge?

I thought "no" until I started working with these large (15GB) video files. I have 4GB of RAM, and never previously saw swap being used at all. Last weekend, while encoding a AVI file, I saw it get close to 400MB. So I guess maybe I'll set my spec at 0.5GB, only used when encoding videos, perhaps.

[Fintan]

Re: I think I'm an idiot

I wander if there is any advantage of another partition just for personal stuff.

As I have a winxp running on vmware it I find it useful having a /Data partition in fat32 so I can "share" data between win and linux.

Plus I like to keep my data separate from OS's and /home.

[javierrivera]

Re: I think I'm an idiot

I wander if there is any advantage of another partition just for personal stuff. Just to keep it separate from the setting that that go into /home.

I like to have my personal data and settings in the same place (/home), so syncinc it with my laptop is easier.

side note: my /swap is .5g I have 2g of ram and nothing ever is seen in /swap.
is it really needed now with ram so cheap and huge?

Yes. If you don't have any swap and run out of memory, funny things can happen.

Javier.