Linux experts?
 

So I decided to find out what all the fuss about Linux was, and install it on an old XP machine laying about.

Dowloaded Linux Mint 15 and UNetBootin, made a bootable USB stick, installed it on the XP machine alongside the existing XP system as instructed. Got the wireless working. All good, poking around it all seems interesting.

But: can't get the Linux OS to boot -- on boot-up it still goes direct to XP, with no option to choose which OS.

Any ideas? Perusal of Linux support sites immediately leads to solutions in geek-ese. Maybe I'm not geeky enough.

That's odd. I haven't tried installing alongside Windows for a couple of years, but, from what I remember, it would either default to booting Linux, or give you a prompt while booting to press a key in the next couple of seconds to pick the operating system to boot.

Is the bios set to be able to boot from USB?

Re-read the original post. :E

Sounds like the last step of the installation didn't quite go to plan...(do you remember seeing screens referring to MBR, boot records, boot loaders or some such ? If so, do you recall what you selected ? ).

Other than that, unfortunately I'm in the same camp as MG23, all my Linux installs are either bare-metal or virtual machines....so I don't know much about parallel installs.

Mixture:
The install process didn't offer any options involving booting, except that if I selected a parallel install with XP I would be offered the option. Alas, no option.

I'm considering a restore, then reinstall without parallel OS.

My dual-boot installation of Mint 13 starts Linux by default unless you quickly choose Windows.

I chose 13 instead of 15, since 15 is clearly going to be supported for only a very short time. 13 (and the underlying Ubuntu) are LongTermSupport.

Re Linux Mint 15
 

I have been using a dual boot system - (This one an old Dell Vostro 1310) for the last 3 Years - At install, I was given the option to "Share" My linux install with the established XP - SP3 operating System - I did this, giving Ubuntu early ver 10.04 a share of my choice with the established operating SYS XP - Ubuntu was allocated 45 Gb of the available dis space on my 160 Gb Device, the install instituted a Grub loader - and as Mix has stated; you get a choice on Start up.

Mint may "want the whole" of the primary boot drive to install properly - the Co-Exsistance that I've enjoyed is now not recommended unless you have two separate physical drives installed.

To help and I have no special attachment to Ubuntu - I use 12.04 on both an upgraded Asus one Note Book (1.5 Gb - It can be done) and a cantankerous beast of an old Dual E8200 dual core Advent (just for the fun of a challenge) in it 64 bit form, with an Invidia Graphics card, successfully so far - Gimp 2.8 Photo editing ?

Its worth persevering - You can even install an anti-virus "Comodo 64 bit " in my case or CLAMAV, in case you are exchanging media between the systems.

CAT III

If the bios is not setup to boot from usb then the usb boot of Linux would be ignored and the system will boot from the hard drive so would go straight into xp.

Usb boot is normally disabled as it would be so easy to bypass any operating system and gain access to the hard disk by booting from an unsecured usb bootable system.

Does the system boot using UEFI? That will cause such problems.

Use of the phrase "old XP machine" makes me doubt this could be the problem but you never know.....

Try booting using the USB again & check what partitions you have on the hard drive:

Accessories > Disks

Click on your hard drive and does it show "Master Boot Record" or "UEFI" next to Partitioning?

Do you see partition types other than NTFS?

Unless I've completely and utterly misread the original question, he managed to install OK. Its the dual-boot functionality that's not working.

Hence my suggestion you are barking up the wrong tree with your talk of USB booting.

Indeed, as Mixture stated, the install to hard drive went okay. Disc partitioning seemed to go okay also. The problem was that I could not get the newly formed partition, into which the Mint installation had gone, to be the boot partition.

I've deleted the installation and reclaimed the disc partitions. I'm going to try a different Linux download.

To be continued...

Mint 16 is just out, anyway, so it's probably better to install that than have to upgrade in a few months when 15 goes out of support. I guess 17 will be the next long-term support version.

I seem to remember having a similar problem to the OP once.

I think the problem was when I chose the partitioning scheme and used the default suggestion.

It was set up to install Grub, the bootloader, on the USB stick rather than the hard drive - the system itself was installed to the correct partition.

I suggest you try a reinstall but choose the option to set your own partitioning.

Examine it closely and I think the error will become apparent.

I've just checked and when you get to the partitioning page, press the advanced partitioning option and look at the bit at the bottom where it suggests the bootloader partition.

You must ensure that this is a hard disk partition.

I don't think so, but it may have to be the first partition, which will be the one with windows on, but I should try it on the mint partition first.

It may also be worth checking out about fixmbr, fixboot?, which are windows commands to recover the windows xp boot system if you take off mint and get a Grub 22 (maybe 15) error.

Machine BIOS is not setup to boot from USB

Look for Boot Devices and Boot Order

"Reinstalling" won't help (for obvious reasons) unless you choose other installation options.

Mac

Having reread the initial post,I now I understand that the Linux was installed from a usb boot sick onto a hard disk position and the failure is from the hard disk. Therefore I shall apologise for the crap spouted and retreat forthwith.

Seasons Greetings to all.

Thanks, Finncapt -- you seem to have honed in on the problem. I'll try the installation again.

I'm sure Linux would be much more popular but for the ongoing "geekspeak" problem mentioned in the OP.

obgraham, if your computer has a working CD drive, I'd like to suggest a workaround which will enable you altogether to avoid struggles with Linux bootloading systems - at least until you become more familiar with things - and give you much quicker bootup than your USB stick. (I assume from your use of the latter that you know how to adjust the boot attempt priority sequence in your computer's BIOS Setup).

Puppy Linux (my long-time favourite) is extremely versatile and does not need to be 'installed' to your hard drive - f'rinstance, you may use a CD permanently for bootup, leaving whatever operating system is installed on your hard drive untouched (until you want to dump it, once you are happy with Linux). You have a choice of saving your Puppy stuff to a compressed file which Puppy will offer to create for you on your hard drive at your first shutdown, or (if your CD drive is write-capable) saving it to the CD (highly recommended; to use this option you will need to use Puppy to burn yourself a CD in special 'multisession' mode).

(You can use media such as USB sticks or SD cards instead of CDs, but the CD route is most likely the best for beginners).

Most importantly, Puppy Linux has a very friendly online support community of Linux experts who have the patience and goodwill to explain things to beginners in relatively simple terms rather than geekspeak.

Download Puppy

Enjoy.

Therein lies the problem.

Linux is a great big open source "community" project..... you are reliant on the community to code it, and reliant on the community to support it.

Given that the primary application of Linux is in a server environment, 80% of the linux community are either professional or amateur sysadmins, perfectly happy with the command line because they administer machines without displays connected.

The 20% of people who use the various GUIs implemented on top of Linux are then left with a lacklustre support infrastructure.

Add onto that the fact that different people use different Linux distributions that have differences ranging from minor to extreme, limits your support offerings even more.

Add onto that the need to differentiate between the GUI and the programs that run on it, and the differences in quality and pace of development on those.

That is, in an essence, why desktop adoption of Linux variants is not widespread and is unlikely to be so for a while yet. At least with Apple and Microsoft you know what you're getting.... application developers get an OS with clearly defined APIs etc., and the users get to reap the benefit of a more formal design and development process.

Actually, the primary application of Linux is embedded software. I can see four embedded Linux machines from my sofa (my Blu-Ray players, my TV and my Web cam). There are probably more in the house that I'm not aware of.

Android is just a GUI implemented on top of Linux, and the hundreds of millions of Android users seem to do OK with it.

It's not widespread on the desktop because it don't run all those ancient Windows programs people have accumulated over the years, it's not pre-installed on machines you can buy on the high street, and there's a lot of obscure hardware whose manufacturers haven't written drivers. Though, that said, there's now a lot of older hardware for which no modern Windows drivers exist, but are supported on Linux.

Obviously we'll never know, due to the inherent nature of linux (i.e. no licensing counts !).

However I suspect you are probably wrong there. Think about all the data centres around the world that power your embedded devices, the websites you peruse, and the emails you receive ..... crammed full of physical boxes that in all likelihood are running a version of Linux, and no doubt a large handful of virtual machines shoved onto each of the physical boxes. Add onto the datacentre use, all the individual uses at business premises and you see what I'm getting at....

Embedded use may be growing, but I don't think it has surpassed server use by any means. The embedded use may be geographically spread out, but don't underestimate the high-density use you see in the server world....

I think you well know you are clutching at straws there. You cannot compare a desktop OS to Android. :=

There are lots of reasons why Linux is not widespread on the desktop. Mine was one of them, yours is another...we could probably easily name a top 10 list of reasons why Linux is not yet ready for the desktop.

Dogle:
Unfortunately, no CD drive here. Maybe I'll load it onto an SD card instead.

Graham