I'd try to get in the bios with a usb keyboard

I've managed to get into Windows using the usb keyboard & mouse trick!
Where do I go to get it to recognise the laptop keyboard & mouse?

Sounds like the keyboard and touchpad are perhaps damaged, maybe ribbon cable or some coffee in there?

Thing is I can fire up Linux & the keyboard & mouse works fine.... so it's deffo something gone weird in Windows.
Loads of the drivers have become damaged & unrepairable as well..... looks like I'll just have to grab whatever I need off it & put a clean OS in.
Stupid thing been on it's last legs for about 2 years but keeps coming back to life!

linux ftw , lol

^ so true!

I've got the files I wanted & I've fucked Windows off for now so I'm back to booting Linux from USB.
Couple of questions for you tech dudes...!
Is there a way I can save my session so that when I boot up from the usb again I don't have to keep logging into everything again?
Or, how can I save Linux to the hard drive without overwriting Windows but get the computer to boot from linux rather than Windows?

Space Bandit wrote:
Most versions of linux give you the option of installing linux on a separate partition during the install. You cant really save a live environment unless you perhaps save docs to USB or some other external media.

I would just part company with windows and be done with it, unless you really need to play certain games but apart from that theres nothing to hold you back IMHO.
I've always suggested people try out a mac, if they can cope with that then they can cope with linux.

You can save a live enviroment if you choose the option to use persistence when installing it to the USB, but the only one that I've found that does it persistently and with no errors is LinuxLive USB Creator, which is.... a Windows only app.

Linux Mint Mate is the way forward for a beginner in my opinion, as it's just all there already, and 9 times out of 10 it's worked 'out of the box' for me. Plus, there's a shit load of help available on their forum if you get stuck. If you're looking for something a bit more sleek looking though, have a look at Linux Mint Cinnamon. It's not quite so easy to navigate as the MATE edition, but it's much more pleasing to the eye

And yeah, as Andy says, most Linux installers will give you a really clear option to partition the hard drive in set-up.

andyh wrote:
The only reason I want to keep Windows is because I've got a shit load of music software on it & it took me absolutely ages to download it all and crack it all & install it all! I've also got a Mac with even more stuff on & that works happily.
I've tried looking at how to partition the drive with some instructions I found on the net & I'm still struggling! It's one of those where you get so far with it then it tells you to do something else but the command isn't actually there! Or so it seems..... :/

mild_peril wrote:

hmmmm I've got the Universal USB installer with Linux Mint Gnome edition which seems ok. I've managed to sort the usb out easy with Windows as the mrs has a Windows computer so that's no problem.
I'll have to look further into the drive partitioning... how does it know which os to boot from though or is that part of the partitioning?

That'll still do the job no problem. The LinuxLive one is a good tool though, and has never given me problems when I've want to set it to persistence mode so that it saves the sessions, applications and stuff that I've downloaded.

If you set the installer off from the USB, it will take you to the partition page after a few clicks, and you will see that it's a doddle and it will quite literally do it all for you. Just a case of 'install side by side with windows' and then select how much space you'd want to give the Linux install etc.. It's all in graphical form too, and really really straight forward.

And if you do decide to install it side by side, each time you boot up the laptop, you will come to a screen known as the 'grub' that will give you the option of choosing which OS to boot in to - which, naturally, is customisable

Space Bandit wrote:


Its a doddle

You might want to check and see if the music software runs under wine, if you do a full dvd install of mint then you can use crossover- www.codeweavers.com/products/#cxlinux

That even runs games on linux, including some directx games so it should have no problems at all with music software,

Right, I've sorted it now....... cheers for the tips. All installed on a partition & working nicely.
So what top apps can I get for it that are worth it?
Any decent games?

It's sadly lacking in the games department, although you can get the Steam client for it so things are definitely looking up there. Although I've had a reasonably good success rate running Windows games under wine..

And most of the apps that I use is already pre-loaded, but I almost always install glipper (clipboard manager - remembers all your copies and pastes), skype, audacity (audio editor), peer gurdian linux (same as peerblock for windows, use if you're downloading torrents), and deluge (torrent client, although mint comes with transmission)..

But just have a look in the software centre in the menu, plenty of stuff there

I'm not that arsed about games.... I've only got Chess on Windows ! Just thought I'd see if there was owt free worth meddling with and frittering away my life.
What is this Steam thing I keep hearing getting mentioned? I saw it a while ago when it came with a hideously hard to crack audio plug-in that I never got working.
I'll get some torrent stuff sorted....... I've got Transmission on my mac & it's not very good.... but it's the only torrent client I can find that works on the old ppc Macs. But it struggles to recognise a lot of torrent links.... which is really frustrating when you've spent ages hunting a torrent down!

Steam is basically just an application that you can install and buy games through, although it's fairly new to Linux, so there wasn't a lot of choice the last time I looked.

And deluge is my torrent client of choice, but there's plenty of other ones for Linux.. Just have a look in the software manager, you'll find loads of other bits and bobs in there too - and I'm sure there's one or two chess games.

Space Bandit wrote:
Wine+Crossover then try running your music software on the windows partition.

Steam works on it ofc.

Right, I'm happy enough using Mint 12 but I'm struggling a bit.
When I download stuff, I'm having to root through endless folders to find the install file.
Then when i try & run the installer it just comes up with loads of code & stuff.
Then even though it says it's complete, I can't find the app on the system!
I've just downloaded Wine to see if I can get some Windows apps going & just ended up with a headache!

Installers on linux come in either binary, package or tarball format.

Tarballs are .tar.gz extension and you compile it yourself from command line (rare nowadays except for l337 hax0rs etc)
Most are simple enough, ./configure then ./make install and then run the binary produced but you should always check the README file in the tarballs top folder.


Binary will be .sh or .bin extension and you just chmod +777 the filename from command line as root and run it with ./filename.sh for example.

Packages will be either .deb extension for ubuntu/mint/debian which you just open with package manager or if you're running a redhat based system such as centos or yellowdog etc then it'll be .rpm extension and you can install those from command line with rpm -ivh filename.rpm

the -v part of the switch means verbose and it'll tell you if you need to install any other packages first which the proggy needs to run, you'll find that small linux installs such as ubuntu desktop are often short on common dependencies such as gtk glibc etc.

Debian based OS also has apt-get which would pay dividends to learn to use and redhat based OS has yum which does the same job.

play on linux is ok, plus its free. its like a fancy frontend for wine i guess.