Hi new one here, a struggling new one (SOLVED)

[Mike Oxmall]

Hi all, hope you are well. I'm new to linux so new that I've spent the last 12hrs trying to install several distros on my old laptop.

Unfortunately I have stumbled across numerous problems during this and I am hoping some kind soul can take pity on my lack of computing knowledge and possibly assist me in completing this supposedly simple task lol.

Any help would be much appreciated.

I'm using a Acer laptop that's only got 4gb ram and I believe 1tb in storage.

 

[SlowCoder]

Welcome to the forums! Your laptop specs are fine for general Linux use. If you decide to get into heavier things like video editing or running virtual machines, you'll want to consider upgrading your RAM.

As far as your questions, post 'em in the Getting Started forums, and I'm sure we'll be able to help you.

 

[Condobloke]

G'day Mike, Welcome to Linux.org

@SlowCoder's suggestions are spot on.

Getting Started...... https://www.linux.org/forums/getting-started.148/post-thread
Tell us what you have already tried...blow by blow.


For other questions once you have moved on from square one.....


..........https://www.linux.org/forums/general-linux.143/post-thread

 

[Mike Oxmall]

Thank you so much condobloke, ill update the thread tomorrow with my attempts,

Much appreciated.

 

[KGIII]

You might want to visit the 3rd link in my signature.

 

[Mike Oxmall]

Thank you KGIII

 

[wizardfromoz]

G'day @Mike Oxmall and welcome to linux.org

I am moving this to Getting Started, as it is a Support Question.

Cheers

Chris Turner
wizardfromoz

 

[kc1di]

Hello @Mike Oxmall,
Welcome to the Linux.org Forums.
Have you been successful at getting any of the live usb's to boot?
if you can do that go to a terminal and type this command and post the output here.

inxi -Fxz

This will give us the info about your machine that we need to be of better help.

 

[Brickwizard]

Welcome to the forums
you do not say how old your box is, so I will make some assumptions, and first will assume it has/had Windows 8/10 installed, So

First, open the main BIOS and disable Windows quick start [usually found in battery or power settings]
Second, use a good quality pen-drive for burning your ISO
Third, make sure you download the correct distribution for your processor [AMD 86-64 bit for Intel
and AMD or arm for arm CPU's]
Finally, choose a well-supported distribution, you will find it easier to get help.

How Do I Install Linux (A General Guide) • Linux Tips

 

[bob466]

Welcome to the Forum,
All the help you'll ever need is right here.

 

[Mike Oxmall]

Hello @Mike Oxmall,
Welcome to the Linux.org Forums.
Have you been successful at getting any of the live usb's to boot?
if you can do that go to a terminal and type this command and post the output here.

inxi -Fxz

This will give us the info about your machine that we need to be of better help.

Thank you for kindly replying and welcoming me KC

Ive had 3 successful boots and from there it heads to the screen with lots of commands, some say ok in green some say failed in red and then it does this for a while before eventually getting stuck on a black screen where there is a single underscore

_ <--- flashing like this

 

[Mike Oxmall]

Welcome to the forums
you do not say how old your box is, so I will make some assumptions, and first will assume it has/had Windows 8/10 installed, So

First, open the main BIOS and disable Windows quick start [usually found in battery or power settings]
Second, use a good quality pen-drive for burning your ISO
Third, make sure you download the correct distribution for your processor [AMD 86-64 bit for Intel
and AMD or arm for arm CPU's]
Finally, choose a well-supported distribution, you will find it easier to get help.

How Do I Install Linux (A General Guide) • Linux Tips

Hi Brickwizard, thanks for replying and the advice given,

The machine is an as follows:

Acer
Windows 10
AMD A6-6310 APU with AMD radeon R4 graphics 1.80ghz
4gb RAM
64bit operating system x64-based processor and 1tb storage.

Thats all im able to pull up on it, hope it helps as all I can gather from this information is that this is a rather basic machine and doesnt have much going for it in terms of specs.

 

[Mike Oxmall]

Welcome to the Forum,
All the help you'll ever need is right here.

Thank you Sam much appreciated hope you all are having a great day

 

[Mike Oxmall]

G'day @Mike Oxmall and welcome to linux.org

I am moving this to Getting Started, as it is a Support Question.

Cheers

Chris Turner
wizardfromoz

Apologies Chris, but much appreciated thank you.

 

[Brickwizard]

AMD A6-6310

This processor may be considered entry level when produced, but with quad-core and 4 thread it matches the performance of the Intel I3-4010u, and is more than capable of running any Linux distribution for normal daily task, [not good for high graphic rendering or gaming]
Being an entry level acer, I would be inclined to hard-wire it to the router whilst you set it up and install your chosen distribution as it is likely to have one of the problem Wi-Fi cards [that can be sorted after installation] but I see nothing that tells me you should be having installation problems with it.

 

[Mike Oxmall]

This processor may be considered entry level when produced, but with quad-core and 4 thread it matches the performance of the Intel I3-4010u, and is more than capable of running any Linux distribution for normal daily task, [not good for high graphic rendering or gaming]
Being an entry level acer, I would be inclined to hard-wire it to the router whilst you set it up and install your chosen distribution as it is likely to have one of the problem Wi-Fi cards [that can be sorted after installation] but I see nothing that tells me you should be having installation problems with it.

Ive ended up bricking my usb stick with the attempts so will need to buy a new one, I did have the ethernet connected when installing the OS however I stumbled across an issue once the initial logo of the distro showed up, then following this the command screen brought up many different texts before it eventually got stuck on a single flashing underscore line like this "_"

From there it did nothing whatsoever.

 

[Brickwizard]

Symptoms of
A corrupt download
A bad burn of the iso
Faulty pen-drive

 

[Mike Oxmall]

Symptoms of
A corrupt download
A bad burn of the iso
Faulty pen-drive

Ill be buying a new pen drive soon, could you suggest any os that would be best suited to my system?

Ive seen,
Ubuntu
Linux mint
Manjaro

 

[Condobloke]

Simple and straightforward wins the race every time


Linux Mint 20.3


Make sure to verify your image after downloading it.

Instructions are on that same page

 

[Brickwizard]

Personally, would try to see which runs best of the following mid-weight distributions and avoid the more resource hungry ones
MX21-64
Linux Lite
Kubuntu
peppermint
Expirion (edited by another Wizard)