Linux and Other free OS's

[Raven]

Bleh, perhaps something can be 'too basic.' I can't vouch for any of them so I probably shouldn't pass an opinion, but I think those are a little extreme and would probably do the opposite of entice you to use them.
Having said that, my very first go at Linux was with Knoppix on a LiveCD. I can't say much about it since I didn't know what the hell I was doing back then, but it seemed ok to me. I *think* it used KDE?

I know ZA said don't install it yet - for a very valid reason. I will be using that release as a reason to finally wipe that desktop and starting from scratch. However, its only 700MB and its so easy to install and then re-install over later. Mint makes it even easier, and all the *buntu distros are pretty damn similar aside from the DE. Its probably the best place to start, just don't fine-tune it to exactly how you like it.

[Clavin12]

Problem. I download and burn a *buntu cd and it always has problems with the disk. I checked the md5 sum and its fine but i cant get it to even start the installation. The one that works the best from CD is Slax and thus i am copying it to the hard drive. Afterwords I will install something else from a CD in Slax. BTW - Tada! Slax - http://www.slax.org/

[Raven]

I really, really don't mean to insult your intelligence - but you burnt it as a bootable ISO and not just data, right?

[Clavin12]

Yes of course. It works as far as the menu but i select install and then it freezes for a while then gives me a boot disk error message.

[Raven]

Ooo thats new. Hmph... Honestly don't know.
When you say menu, do mean you go straight to install from the boot menu, or do you boot to the LiveCD first? If you try to just install, I'd try to boot to the desktop. If something goes wrong there it might give you a more detailed error message as to exactly what went wrong. If it happens to boot all the way, double click the installer on the desktop and try it that way. I highly doubt it will work but theres no harm in trying.

[Zero Angel]

Yes of course. It works as far as the menu but i select install and then it freezes for a while then gives me a boot disk error message.

Couple things you can try, like burning it at a lower speed, or using a different CD burning program. You can also try putting a linux distro on a thumbdrive and booting from that. Its possible to make thumbdrive and portable HDDs bootable, as I have done it and it works really well for some distros.

[Clavin12]

Thankfully I was able to install puppy and its working fine.

[sabrebattletank]

Ubuntu will also mail you Live CDs for free.

https://shipit.ubuntu.com/

[Clavin12]

I don't like puppy. I know this seems like a poor reason but does anyone know of an OS (free) that can run on 128 mb RAM?

[sabrebattletank]

Hmmm... I'm wondering if you'd have better luck with Damn Small Linux, not really sure how it compares to Puppy though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damn_Small_Linux

Also, you could boot off a live cd and not install?

[Clavin12]

Lol, I'm trying dsl right now. Attempting to install. I installed once and it said there was a problem with my partitions so I repartitioned it. I might try a different partitioner than the one that comes with dsl.

[sabrebattletank]

I've always used gparted and that worked fine for me. But then again, I've never actually run any of these small distros because I didn't need to. Google Chrome OS is coming out within a year (?) and that should be lightweight and such. Little hardware support though, so... yeah... I don't think it'll be available for "download and install."

[Clavin12]

Can you recommend a bootable hard drive wiping utility?

[sabrebattletank]

If you can boot (but not install) from a Ubuntu live CD, you might be able to run "gparted" from that. Not sure what to recommend aside from that though.

[sabrebattletank]

A quick google search gave me this page: http://www.thefreecountry.com/security/securedelete.shtml

I can't vouch for any of them because i haven't used them before, but that's an option.