My sister can't use internet with Windows7. She need small Linux distro which I will burn her on cd.

If I understand correctly, you do not have to install it to use internet and download something (on US? She do not know English, so she needs something just to boot a live cd, open the browser and surf, basically ... Just a no brainer distro ...

What would you recommend - Puppy Linux or Damn small Linux or something else?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/11/2010 08:24PM by panzer.

I tried Puppy and it seemed to be pretty good. Have not tried the other one.

DSL is still using a 2.4 kernel.
Puppy is running as root by default, and it is
not quite easy to add a full normal user account.
Slitaz would be an alternative, but it does not
have the correct screen resolution for all
wide screen monitors.
I would suggest CDlinux and in the older version 6.0.1 ,
if you only want web browsing, and do not need office
applications.
You should have a broadband DSL (ADSL) connection, not a
dial-up connection.
The included Firefox may be old, but you would anyhow
have to install current browser releases yourself.
The CDlinux iso file is only about 59 Mb .
Download from here :

http://sourceforge.net/projects/cd-linux/files/CDlinux-ISO/0.6.1/CDlinux-0.6.1.iso.gz/download

Unpack the iso.gz file with 7-zip.
You will get a folder with Cdlinux.iso in it.
Burn the iso to a CD with the special iso burning file
command from the menu of your burning application.
It may be "Burn iso to CD" or similar.
Do not simply copy and burn the iso file, this would not
work for booting.

In a second burning on the same CD you can add additional
programs in a multiburning session.

You can first download wine to a harddisk folder from here :

http://sourceforge.net/projects/wine/files/Slackware%20Packages/1.1.10/wine-1.1.10-i486-1kjz.tgz/download

Create a folder Wine and unpack the .tgz file into this folder
with 7-Zip in two steps .
Go there to the folder /usr/lib/ and rename the existing file
libwine.so.1.0 to libwine.so.1 .
Go now to the folder /usr with 7-zip and pack this folder only in
two steps, first to tar , and then with Gzip to
Wine-1110.tar.gz .

Then download for example my variation KM-NX-18123
from here :
http://one.xthost.info/eichhein/K-Meleon-NX-18123.zip
Unpack it and add to the main k-meleon folder
the two dll's msvcp71.dll and msvcr71.dll that
you can find for example at dll-files.com .
You can also add the flash plugin to the plugins folder,
if you should want that.You can also add a personal startpage
to the main folder.
After having done that, repack the folder
K-Meleon-NX-18123 as a new zip-file K-Meleon-NX-18123.zip .

You can also download the latest Firefox for Linux
if you want it. from here :
http://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-3.5.7&os=linux&lang=en-US
It will be a firefox-3.5.7.tar.bz2 file.

Create a textfile containing the install script in Notepad.
With the Text :

install-pkg /media/CDlinux_0.6.1/Wine-1110.tar.gz
cp /media/CDlinux_0.6.1/K-Meleon-NX-18123.zip /home/cdl/
cp /media/CDlinux_0.6.1/firefox-3.5.7.tar.bz2 /home/cdl/
cd /home/cdl/
unzip K-Meleon-NX-18123.zip
tar -C /home/cdl/ -jxf firefox-3.5.7.tar.bz2
chown -R cdl:root /home/cdl
chmod -R 775 /home/cdl

And save it as Startscript.txt in UTF-8 format.

Burn now the 4 files to the CD in the second burning. namely :

Wine-1110.tar.gz
K-Meleon-NX-18123.zip (your changed zip-file)
firefox-3.5.7.tar.bz2
Startscript.txt

When the CD is ready, you can try to boot it, after
going to the boot menu of the computer, which can
be called by pressing repeatedly a specified key,
which can be different for any computer, for example F12.
Select there the CD as the boot medium.

CDlinux will start up quite quickly, and should recognize
your screen resolution and establish a DSL (ADSL) connection
automatically.

Mount the CD , right clicking on the icon and selecting
Mount Volume.
Open the red root terminal in the taskbar at the bottom.
You should immediately change the root password, typing :
passwd
and press Enter and then type a safe password twice.
Do the same for the existing user cdl, typing :
passwd cdl
and press Enter and then type a safe password twice.

To install wine, K-Meleon and Firefox, open
an additional user terminal (without the red frame), and type

mousepad /media/CDlinux_0.6.1/Startscript.txt

select the text , copy all of it and paste it
into the root terminal (with the red frame).
Then press the Enter key several times, until the
commands are all executed.

Close the root terminal
and open the user terminal (without the red frame).
To start K-Meleon, type :

wine /home/cdl/K-Meleon-NX-18123/k-meleon.exe

To start Firefox, type :

/home/cdl/firefox/firefox

(the names will be completed after the first letters,
pressing the Tab-key.)

The browsers should always be started as the user cdl,
and wine does not work when started as root.

You could also add two icon links to the /home/cdl/Desktop folder,
containing the browser start commands, with the
ending ".desktop", and add them later in a third
cd multiburn session together with corresponding
.jpg's ore .png's .

It is also possible to start CDlinux and the apps from
a bootable USB stick, but I think I could write a "how to"
about that later.

Regards

Fred

P.S. :
For audio and video there is xine included.
It should play mp3, mms and rstp (Real Player) files
(except unfortunately from the BBC).
The Volume Mixer can be added as a widget, right-clicking
on the taskbar, adding new item, and then left-clicking
on the new icon.
To play a stream, use xine from the (user) terminal, type:

xine stream-address

You can copy and paste an address from the editor, but
not directly from K-Meleon, paste it first into the
editor mousepad and copy and paste it from there into
the terminal, before pressing Enter.
Other programs in the menu include GPic Viewer, ePDFviewer,
Sylpheed-mail, Pidgin Chat, Xarchiver packer, Thunar File manager.
Inserted USB sticks or photo cards are mounted automatically.
They should be unmounted when not in use.
Other apps working with wine are e.g. IrfanView, Winamp
Abiword-portable . Printing will not work.

Fred

She uses a wireless connection (basically she taps into connection from a neighbour for free ). Could she use a wireless connection with CDLinux?

First, she will try to fix Win7 (error 651), and if she could not do that, then she will go for Linux.

Thank you all.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/12/2010 09:35AM by panzer.

For wireless connection you would have to use the CDlinux Community edition 0.9.5 .
Download the iso here :
ftp://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/cdlinux/releases/0.9.5/CDlinux_CE-0.9.5.iso
This versioon includes the Wicd network manager.
Wine is also already included.
It is bigger than the other version, 214 MB, but quite complete, as it includes
additionally Abiword. Gnumeric Spreadsheet, Gimp, Mplayer, Skype, Xburn
and other apps.
Because you do not need an own Wine, the Startscript.txt is shorter.
The CD is also mounted to a different mount point.
The text is now as follows :

cp /media/CDlinux/K-Meleon-NX-18123.zip /home/cdl/
cp /media/CDlinux/firefox-3.5.7.tar.bz2 /home/cdl/
cd /home/cdl/
unzip K-Meleon-NX-18123.zip
tar -C /home/cdl/ -jxf firefox-3.5.7.tar.bz2
chown -R cdl:root /home/cdl
chmod -R 775 /home/cdl

Tahke care of the spaces inside the commands.
The rest stays the same as before.
Paste the text into the root terminal.
You will find it in the menu System -Terminal Super user mode.
K-Meleon can also be started in the file manager Thunar :
Right-click on K-Meleon.exe - Open with Wine etc
Same thing for Firefox in the HOME folder - doubleclick on firefox.

I hope that you succeed.

Fred

First CD without anything was OK. The second with new FF version did not work, because I wrongly used an option to make boot disc instead of copy iso to cd.
It is great that wine is included, since on my comp Gzip for NT closed as soon as it opened.

Btw, old version of FF can be opened with the taskbar icon shortcut. i tried to copy new version of FF and unzip it on desktop and used it, but id did not worked.

I will try this, thanks.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/13/2010 09:10AM by panzer.

I must be stupid or what. I tried cdrtfe, InfraRecorder, burnaware and ONES but I could not make a multi-session disk when burning iSO to CD. I could made a multi-session boot image or make data cd but they do not work.

So I just burn ISO without additional software and is working OK. FF version inside is 3.5.5. Basically, almost last FF version. You can use latest FF, if you copy it from a USB to desktop.

Could you tell me which good linux native browser are out there which can be run without Wine? i think my sister is to good to be left alone with FF.

She could not repair Win7, so it is rather this: Linux or reinstall XP. I'll keep posted about her progress.

I have installed Galeon (for my wife). It seems to be faster than Firefox (not too much difficult), but I think that K-Meleon 1.5.3 is faster.

A+

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Mozilla/5.0 (x11; U; Linux x86_64; fr-FR; rv:38.0) Gecko/20100101 Ubuntu/12.04 K-Meleon/76.0

---

Web: http://jujuland.pagesperso-orange.fr/
Mail : alain [dot] aupeix [at] wanadoo [dot] fr

---

Ubuntu 12.04 - Gramps 3.4.9 - Harbour 3.2.0 - Hwgui 2.20-3 - K-Meleon 76.0 rc

---

You must have used burning programs that finalize
a burnt iso cd automatically.
I do not know which programs do that or don't, I used
NTI CD DVD maker 7, where multi-session is possible.
There is a 30 days free trial available for
NTI Media Maker 8 Premium, here :

http://www.ntius.com/en/us/download/media_maker8_trial.asp

Another possibility would be to put the apps on a USB stick,
download K-Meleon-NX-18123 from here:

http://one.xthost.info/eichhein/K-Meleon-NX-18123.zip

unpack it, add the two dlls msvcp71.dll and msvcr71.dll,
copy the K-Meleon folder to the USB stick, and start the
browser from USB, using wine for K-Meleon.
After inserting the USB stick, it would be mounted automatically.
Applications started with wine would work in the mounting mode that
is automatically used by the distro, but not Linux executables, as
for example Firefox for Linux. Firefox for Windows would work with wine.

To use Linux apps from the USB stick, you would have to unmount the stick
on the icon, after checking the location of the stick in a terminal :

df

This would show you the location of all drives, it could be for example /dev/sdc1
for the stick. You can see it from the small size compared to harddisks.
CDs would be /dev/sr0 or /dev/hdc may be also /dev/hda.
Then create a mount point, for example /usb in the root terminal :

mkdir /usb

and mount the stick in the root terminal with :

mount -t vfat /dev/sdc1 /usb -o umask=000

Use the correct location instead of /dev/sdc1,
for example /dev/sdb1, or /dev/sdg1, that you found before.
000 are three zeros, not letters.

Other native Linux Browsers are Epiphany, Galeon or
Konqueror, or Dillo (no javascript, but fast). but they will
need additional libraries, and as there is no repository
for CDlinux, you would have to search for the missing files
yourself in the internet.
It is easier to use K-Meleon, especially if wine is
already included, as it is in this distro.

Fred

@panzer

You can try AmoK CD/DVD Burning. Not sure but if I recall exactly it can burn ISO/multisession.
It's a fine lightweight portable burner for Windows.

I'm not sure that AMok can do multisession of ISO

I have found two documentations about how to modify the ubuntu iso. it can perhaps help, even it's in french.

personnaliser le livecd
found an english version perhaps a bit different
customize-your-ubuntu-live-cd

remastersys

A+

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Mozilla/5.0 (x11; U; Linux x86_64; fr-FR; rv:38.0) Gecko/20100101 Ubuntu/12.04 K-Meleon/76.0

---

Web: http://jujuland.pagesperso-orange.fr/
Mail : alain [dot] aupeix [at] wanadoo [dot] fr

---

Ubuntu 12.04 - Gramps 3.4.9 - Harbour 3.2.0 - Hwgui 2.20-3 - K-Meleon 76.0 rc

---

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/14/2010 12:18PM by JujuLand.

I had tried it before but then it began to crash so I deleted it.

The methods that Jujuland suggests would certainly work,
but this would mean a real remastering, producing remastered CDs.
It would be probably too difficult for most
users.
Basically it is no problem to create a multi-session
iso CD. I have made dozens, if not hundreds of them
of many different distros with the NTI burning program.
Only with a program that finalizes the CD after the iso burning
it would not work that way.
I have the same problem, if I copy a CD or DVD to a new one.
In this case the new one will not be writable anymore.
If a multi-session is not possible with a given
burning program, I would prefer creating a bootable
USB stick from the iso. There you can always add other
applications, and it is easier to create such a bootable
USB stick than a real remaster.
In Ubuntu you now even have a program included, to
create a bootable USB stick with Ubuntu on it automatically,
and for other distros it is also not so difficult to
do this manually, formatting the stick, creating a primary
FAT32 partition on the stick with Gparted (included in CDlinux CE),
and making it bootable with syslinux and mtools, before simply
copying the compressed distro over from the burned CD, and
writing the correct boot string into syslinux configuration.
The system will also boot and work much faster from the
USB stick then from a CD, and USB sticks have become
really cheap nowadays.
Remastering for a CD (or also for a USB stick) is certainly
a perfect solution, because you will get a system perfectly
tailored for your needs, but nevertheless a bit more
demanding, because you should already have some Linux
knowledge.

Fred

Thanx.

Does FF have a memory leak in Linux also? :O Weird that CDLinux uses FF as a default browser ...

This bigger version of CDL is much better looking that the first one. I like it.

Only problem Linux has (apart that you cannot play games at high frames per second) that it has too much distros. If I would want to switch to Linux, which one to pick?

It is like that old American saying: "If I want to speak to Europe, who do I call?"



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/14/2010 07:21PM by panzer.

There are many different distros, as you say,
and this is a good thing.
The different architectures improve Linux security.
There is no "Linux", only a shared Linux Kernel.
This makes serial hacking difficult and not
worthwhile - you don't know what you are hacking.
So there are no viruses for Linux existent, a
virus scanner is not necessary and also not included
in most distros. Even a firewall is not a must, if
you connect to the net via a router.
Nevertheless you should never work as root (admin),
but always as a simple user, to avoid unnecessary risks.
Which distro you prefer is actually a matter of taste.
Cdlinux CE is surprisingly complete, but it has
no own repository, to add more applications from,
it is mainly a live cd distro, as the name says.
The big distros for install all have repositories,
from where you can easily add programs.

The most popular distro for private users is Ubuntu.
It has the Gnome desktop, but there is also Kubuntu with
the KDE desktop and Xubuntu with the lighter Xfce desktop.
Mint is an Ubuntu derivative, and uses the same repositories.
Its advantage is, that proprietary codecs and mp3 and dvd
libraries are already included, while Ubuntu and most
of the big distros have not included them out of the box
for legal reasons, although it is no problem for a
user to add them himself from the repository of
unfree apps. Mint has also forks with KDE or Xfce desktops.
Both Ubuntu and Mint are based on Debian and use .deb packages
to install libraries and apps. Debian Lenny itself and also
Sidux (based on Debian Sid) and Mepis are also very good choices.

Fedora is the free version of Red Hat, which is the
preferred distro in commercial use. It uses .rpm packages,
as well as openSuse and Mandriva.
PCLinosOS uses .rpm packages as well, but installs the
with apt. All these distros are also good and apt for
newcomers.

Sabayon is interesting for Linux gamers, it has many games
included. It is a Gentoo derivative, preconfigured to make
it easier for normal users, but as in Gentoo you cannot
simply download new applications, but their source code has
to be compiled by the user everytime.

Musix and Ubuntu Studio contain multimedia apps for audio,
video and graphics enthusiasts. Medibuntu is a repository to
install a Mediacenter for TVcards, video and sound.

The mentioned distros are by far not the only good ones.
There are many smaller distros which may be the best for
your needs. Go to Distrowatch :
http://www.distrowatch.com
where most distros are listed and described.

All these distros have live CDs or DVDs, and I would
download and check several of them, before installing.
Most of times all of them work well with the existing hardware,
but you can never be sure of that. If the live CD works
with every component, the installed distro will too,
at least almost always.

Fred

So far no good. No connection is found. She will try for a couple of days since it was weekend and others were not at home.

So that is why it is not working:
Wicd network manager - Ethernet only, no PPPoE/DSL support yet

Since in Win 7 it shows my sister error 651, and this is error for PPP0E, I need a Linux distro with a PPPoE support. And with at least one browser preinstalled.

It would be good if is small as possible, but it does not matter since sister's USB is 4Gb big, so i can download bigger distro and burned it on cd/dvd.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/18/2010 06:01PM by panzer.

You could give Slitaz a try. Very small, 31 Mb.
Review in last weeks Distrowatch weekly, here :

http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20100111#feature

Citation :
"My laptop's Intel wireless card was picked up and used
without any manual configuring."

Would have to be checked, if the laptop screen would be
recognized correctly, no problem anyhow if it's not
widescreen.
Download here:

http://download.tuxfamily.org/slitaz/iso/cooking/slitaz-cooking.iso

Don't forget to change the passwords for tux and root
immediately.
For root type
su
into the console terminal.
Then change the root password with
passwd
and the tux password with
passwd tux.
Firefox is 3.5.3 .

If Slitaz should not work for you, try any of the
distros that I mentioned in my earlier post.
The big ones should all support wireless out of the box.

Regards

Fred

If you can boot from a CD, are you try with KNOPPIX V6.2CD?
(A CD is a small distro in front to a DVD distro)

K-Meleon in Spanish



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 01/18/2010 07:04PM by desga2.

Thanx, Desga and Fred.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/19/2010 09:09AM by panzer.

Another small distro : Slax

A+

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Mozilla/5.0 (x11; U; Linux x86_64; fr-FR; rv:38.0) Gecko/20100101 Ubuntu/12.04 K-Meleon/76.0

---

Web: http://jujuland.pagesperso-orange.fr/
Mail : alain [dot] aupeix [at] wanadoo [dot] fr

---

Ubuntu 12.04 - Gramps 3.4.9 - Harbour 3.2.0 - Hwgui 2.20-3 - K-Meleon 76.0 rc

---

i found a really good one called MyahOS" it has flash and java included and runs on low end and older systems and laptops quite fine. out of nearly 150 live cds i use this is the most complete and fastest for a live cd. its can be found at www.distrowatch.com type in the search field or scroll down the list inside of it. you will not be disappointed. might i recommend the "mouse pro" version

I like Myah too.
Another good distro is Wolvix.
Unfortunately Myah as Wolvix seem to have come to a standstill
and are practically gliding into a dormant state at the moment.
Both are distros that are made by one single person with a
little help from some helpers sometimes, and it is an enormous
amount of work to keep up an updated distro and its repositories,
and the servers have also to be paid.
Myah has the advantage that it already brings along an account
for a simple user, while in Wolvix such an account has to be added
first by the user.
The same thing is the case for Slax, which is also very good,
but comes with a root account only by default, and a simple
user account has to be created with adduser, and the sudoers file
has to be edited with visudo too.
An advantage of Slax is, that it can be easily personalized
by creating an own live CD after adding wanted apps and setting
up everything as necessary. The forum and support seem also very
much alive for Slax 6, after a period of silence following Slax 5.
This is also actually a one person distro as Myah and Wolvix,
but it seems to have many supporting helpers.

Fred

Another two lightweight distros:

Masonux
http://sites.google.com/site/masonux/home

Madbox
http://madbox.tuxfamily.org/

--- sig ---

Ok. I tried to reinstall XP and kick Win7 out. Setup found only one partition but I went ahead anyway.

Affter restart I got a message PXE E61 Media Test Failed Check cable.

i did not know what this error meant and went into Restore Console. There I found out that Master Boot Record is damaged. I reaired it with fixmbr and fixboot.

Still could not boot.

I restarted the comp and got only to the first page. No key is working, could not boot CD, ...

Is this hardware or software error?

I cannot answer the question myself, but from some
messages in forums turned up by Google it seems that
it is often a connection failure of the harddisk
and deconnecting and reconnecting could help, or
else a wrong setting in the BIOS.
Even a slight knocking on a laptop was described
as helpful in some cases.
I hope that you can fix it.

Fred

I tried that but no luck. Will try some more ...

Sister has guarantee so she will probably seek professional help. Now, finding and rescuing that lost partition, that is another story. I will try with Test Disk ...

Thanx

At first glance the problem you describe is the same I had once before.
I had once a similar nightmare after kicking XP Pro and trying to install W2k.
It took me a whole night to fix the problem. M$ doesn't like if you do such things and therefore tries to make it as difficult as possible :mad:
If your sister has a warranty and it applies to her problem than let the 'Pros' fix the problem.

I have no experience at all with W7 but what I would try first:
- check the BIOS for an antivirus protection setting and disable it if you find one
- unplug the CMOS battery (hard drive as well) and leave it so for a half an hour.
Time to rest and drink a coffee in peace before plugging the CMOS battery + hard drive and try again



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/20/2010 11:15AM by Yogi.

Quote
Yogi
At first glance the problem you describe is the same I had once before.
I had once a similar nightmare after kicking XP Pro and trying to install W2k.
It took me a whole night to fix the problem. M$ doesn't like if you do such things and therefore tries to make it as difficult as possible :mad:
If your sister has a warranty and it applies to her problem than let the 'Pros' fix the problem.

I have no experience at all with W7 but what I would try first:
- check the BIOS for an antivirus protection setting and disable it if you find one
- unplug the CMOS battery (hard drive as well) and leave it so for a half an hour.
Time to rest and drink a coffee in peace before plugging the CMOS battery + hard drive and try again

I cannot get into BIOS since keyboard is not working. Only on/off.

I thought of CMOS, but I do not want to open it. I am not familiar with notebook "inside organs".

If they won't help her, than I will try this.

My sister really do not care for notebook, just for lost partition with tons of pictures from parties, birthdays, etc.