Kubuntu Live CD freezes...

[Superion]

Hello all...I'm trying Kubuntu after trying Mepis. :-)

I downloaded and properly burned the Kubuntu Live CD, and I wanted to test it on a spare computer. The hard drive on that computer is bad, but a friend of mine said that since it's the live CD version, it should work without a hard drive (since it's all pretty much done from CD). I've tried it, both with and without the hard drive connected, and Kubuntu always crashes on a blank (black) screen with the cursor simply blinking at the top. I can't recall EXACTLY where it happens, but it's not long after it asks if you want to include Firewire support (or something like that).

I tried two downloaded ISO's of Kubuntu (one from me, one from a friend) to make sure I didn't just get a bad disk. Both of those CD images were burned (correctly), but with the same result.

Is my friend right? Does Kubuntu running in LiveCD/Demo mode need a hard drive? If not, has anyone else here encountered this before? What's going on?

THANKS!

[askrieger]

Re: Kubuntu Live CD freezes...

I too would have responded that you don't really need a hard drive to run a live CD, but in the light of your experience, I did a rethink. I seem to remember that the reason you can't use an ordinary live CD, like Knoppix, for forensic work is that regular live CDs use the swap partition on the harddrive even if they use nothing else. Of course, I could be wrong. Since it's a live CD, you can't do too much harm by running it on your windoze box. That would eliminate the possibility that your correctly burned CD wasn't.

[Superion]

Re: Kubuntu Live CD freezes...

Thanks...I have a brand-new hard-drive I'm about to install on that older machine, so after I install it and format it, I'm going to give Kubuntu LiveCD another try.

Oh...I plan on formatting that drive as either FAT32 or NTFS...can Kubuntu use that? I thought one while Kubuntu exclusively used several Linux-only file systems...I figured I'd better double-check.

THANKS!

[askrieger]

Re: Kubuntu Live CD freezes...

Kubuntu, and just about every other Linux distro that I know, can read and write to fat32 (vfat) partitions, but can only read ntfs. If I were getting a new hardrive I would leave something like 15GB unformatted, at the end of the drive so I could install Linux later on. I would make two partitions at the start of the the drive a fairly big Windoze ntfs partition, and a one or two GB fat32 partition so that I could exchange data between Linux and windoze. Of course, if I were me, I'd just format the whole drive for Linux because I gave up on windoze a while ago.

BTW, my deliberate mispelling is an attempt to avoid getting sued for violating a trademark.

[Superion]

Re: Kubuntu Live CD freezes...

That's a lot of partitioning! I just figured that since I'm starting out fresh, I'll try formatting it fat32 and giving Linux a try at the whole drive first. I figure if I have problems with it, I SHOULD be able to reformat the drive and go back to XP from scratch...I tried Mepis previously, so I'm not a complete and utter stranger to Linux, but I still don't know jack. ;-)

If I'm wrong, and there is something I need to watch out for that may make reformatting the drive and switching over to XP difficult, please let me know. When I was trying Mepis out on my older system's drives, they started acting a little funny. It's almost certain they were going bad on their own, but the timing was a little suspicious for my taste...so I've always been a little wary of Linux distros and file systems.

THANKS!

[Nirvana]

Re: Kubuntu Live CD freezes...

That's a lot of partitioning! I just figured that since I'm starting out fresh, I'll try formatting it fat32 and giving Linux a try at the whole drive first. I figure if I have problems with it, I SHOULD be able to reformat the drive and go back to XP from scratch...I tried Mepis previously, so I'm not a complete and utter stranger to Linux, but I still don't know jack. ;-)

If I'm wrong, and there is something I need to watch out for that may make reformatting the drive and switching over to XP difficult, please let me know. When I was trying Mepis out on my older system's drives, they started acting a little funny. It's almost certain they were going bad on their own, but the timing was a little suspicious for my taste...so I've always been a little wary of Linux distros and file systems.

THANKS!

Linux doesn't run on FAT32. If you want to give Linux the WHOLE ENTIRE drive, then just pop in the install/desktop CD and install it saying that you want to erase the entire disk when the partitioning step comes up.

You should install Windows first, then try installing Kubuntu. I think the Kubuntu partitioner can resize NTFS, but if not, your gonna need a Desktop CD to download QTparted or Gparted (or just parted...) with.