This tutorial is only short and describing how you can install Linux on your harddisk by using a liveCD with installer; most recent linux distribution versions provide Live CDs.
Advantages:
- You can first run the CD as LiveCD without touching your current OS Installation and see, if you like the distribution
- You can check, whether your hardware works with this distribution
- You can start the install process and e.g. surf on the internet until everything is ready
Before you can run a liveCD, some prerequisites must be met:
- Your computer must support booting from CDs (chances are good, but very old PCs don’t support that option)
- You must configure your computer to boot from CD
- You have read a bit of the docu for the respective LiveCD, at least as much that you know, whether you must enter a login name and a password, and which ones exist.
Configure your computer to boot from CD
While starting the PC, enter your bios. Most computers display a message during boot how to enter the bios. Most often, the key combinations are <DEL>, <CTRL>+<ESC> or <F2>
In the Bios, you will find something like “boot order”. Enter the CD Rom as your primary boot device. Make sure that your hard disk is the next device in the boot order. Afterwards, save and exit the Bios (do not change anything else unless you know precisely, what you do) !
After saving, your computer will reboot.
Insert the LiveCD
Insert the LiveCD into your CD Rom drive and reboot. During the startup, a menu will appear, offering you different options. Choose one that says something like “Run Linux from LiveCD”. Do NOT choose anything that says “Install”.
Now, Linux should boot. Most often, you are asked to enter your login name and password. Do so. Now you can check whether you like what you see, whether your hardware is supported or not and whether you want to install or not.
Start the installation process
Most often, you will find an Icon on the desktop to start the installation process. If not, you might need to log out and log in as root again. The information on the root password should be indicated for liveCDs that require this step.
TAKE CARE: From now on, the content of your hard disk will be modified. Be sure to know how you want to do your partitions. In case of error, all data may be lost!
The rest of the installation process is guided and differs from distribution to distribution. Read the documentation of the LiveCD to get further information.
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Prior to editing, authors agreed to license their contributions by the terms of the GPL.
See our licensing page for details.
Linux® is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.
tutorials/during/installing_from_livecds.txt · Last modified: 2007/11/16 12:24
Welcome to LinuxBasics.org - The online community that helps people to get Linux installed and running.
During this tour, we will guide you through our website, which has many facets which wait to be explored
The biggest project we are running is our Linux course, based on the LBook.
The book is stored in wiki-format, which enables us to update and correct it as we go.
Discussion for the course is on our Forum
Our mailing-list is for any Linux-related question.
The questions and answers from the list are stored in the list's archives in order to help others with the same problems.
Every weekend, we meet to chat in IRC. These meetings are NOT mandatory, but are a nice chance to get to know each other better.
IRC is also a great tool to solve many problems, since it is very quick and easy to ask for more details if you need them.
The tutorials are one of the oldest sections on the LBo-website.
Here you find explanations on how to do specific tasks in Linux. Many of the tutorials were created after a certain problem
has been discussed (and usually solved :) on the mailing-list.
The tutorials are categorized in
In the links section, you find outbound links to other valuable resources.
One of our later additions to the site. We maintain a mirror of the Linux Documentation Project. This is our contribution to the "home of the HOWTOs"
Another later addition is the LBlog which focuses on how to do stuff on the Linux Desktop. It begins with the basics on installing Ubuntu.
Using the integrated site-search, you can search the tutorials, the LBook and all other wiki-pages
Simply type the search term into the box in the upper-right corner of our webpages
As a community, we depend on your feedback and collaboration. So, if you have something to share with others, please contact us. If you have a suggestion for a topic you would like to see covered here, please add it on the Wishlist.
There are many ways to contribute: You can answer questions on the mailing-list, you can write a complete tutorial or just a step-by-step documentation on how you completed a specific task using linux. Ask questions if the information on this site is not clear, tell us if we got something wrong, spell-check our writings, whatever.
We are looking forward to meeting you at LinuxBasics.org
Anita, Jisao, Sam and Stefan