VL 5.9 Live Edition

[tednugent]

OK it will let me install and I don't get any errors but when it reboots and starts to come up for the first time it says error 15? What am I doing wrong. If you want to know what i am installing it on it is a acre aspire 5520-5290 laptop(you can google and find all the specs) I want to use VL so bad on my laptop. please help?

[Masta]

Usually error 15 is GRUB related, VL uses LILO. Do you have another distro installed on there that is / was using GRUB?

You can try using the installation CD, instead of installing again, you can select to repair lilo (or "repair boot loader", something of that wording, sorry can't remember off top of my head), just follow prompts.

 After repairing, reboot, remove CD and see if that fixes the issue.

[tednugent]

Ok I did have another distro(mandrive) on but I did not even install lilo. what would be the easiest  way to get to install and work? what do i need to do to the hard drive? why can't it be like mandrive and just use the hole hard drive and erase eveything that is on it and give me just a clean install?

[nightflier]

The traditional (non-live) version has a different installer. You may want to use it instead.

[Masta]

You can run the live and open terminal use command

Code:

fdisk /mbr

then make sure your partitions are properly formatted, and run through the installer again.

Alternatively, you can use any of the 5.9 installation CDs, and repair lilo, which should do the trick, and you will be able to keep your current installation.

[tednugent]

Is there something I can do in gparted where it will just boot correctly? I followed the vector docs on the live cd and it said to make a linux swap 128mb and root ext3@3000mb and a home ext3 500mb or bigger and formatted but i got some error saying you will have to reboot to make it work but if I reboot then I have to start all over again..AAAAAAAAAAAAA. I tried that but I guess that did not work right either. I love the way VLlive runs and looks why does something have to be repaired? Isn't LILO for multi Operating systems? All I want on my laptop is Vector Linux, nothing else. Please don't let me have to put XP on here again. I have looked at those step by step guides for the installation but none of them cover what your supposed to do in gparted. HELP, PLEASE. Thanks in advance.   

[nightflier]

gparted: did you click the "Apply" button after making the changes? Some times the button is not visible and you have to make the window larger/wider before you can get to it.

[bigpaws]

Try cfdisk instead of garted.

Bigpaws

[tednugent]

Thanks everybody. I will try them now.

[tednugent]

well i tried the lilo on the cd and i was able to repair lilo and then reboot and i get 4 options. so i pick the default at the top (linux) and then it loads and up pops the text like log in but no desktop. so where did i go wrong? Anyway, here is what i have: 80G hard drive.and am assuming that i need 3 partitions. 1 being root. 2 swap. 3 home or the big one or what ever you call it. so how much do i need to have in root and swap to make this thing work?
Then do i need to make root bootable? i am assuming yes on that one. should root be formatted with ext3? should  swap be logical? I guess I need a step by step on gparted. any help will be appreciated.

[newt]

Well, it sounds like you may actually have VL installed correctly.  Maybe you chose a text login interface rather than the graphical you were expecting, OR maybe the video driver chosen for xorg is incompatible with your device and you're being "dumped" out to a text login.  Either way, you should be able to login with your user account at the text login, and then type 'startx' to get you to the desktop.  If everything works correctly, then in vasm you can change the login interface to be graphical as it seems that's what you're after.

Hope this helps!

[funky_uncle]

OK it will let me install and I don't get any errors but when it reboots and starts to come up for the first time it says error 15? What am I doing wrong. If you want to know what i am installing it on it is a acre aspire 5520-5290 laptop(you can google and find all the specs) I want to use VL so bad on my laptop. please help?

I get the same error. I try booting the live edition again (from a pendrive, not a CD, if that matters), but typing "lilo" in the terminal just produces "command not found". On my other computer, though (running Ubuntu Ibex), I do find lilo in the terminal, but "man lilo" doesn't mention anything about how to "repair" it.

The computer I'm having trouble on is an Asus Eee, and I made four partitions: two for linux distros, one for /files, and a swap space. VL is the only OS I have installed on it, I'm hoping to dualboot with some variation of Ubuntu later.

edit: if it matters, all my partitions are ext2, except for the swap space. I hear ext3 is safer, but slower.