Hi everyone. I am very satisfied with Zenwalk 4.8 Live CD and I also downloaded Zenwalk 5.0. Here is my problem:



I got this when I tried to install Zenwalk from CD. I have no idea what it is saying though. Besides this problem, I have some other questions to ask.

1a) I have 8 partitions for my 80GB HDD. I format two of them into the following formats: Linux (Number 83) and Linux Swap(Number 82). Did I do the right thing and choose the right format? There's a lot of choices to choose from so I was confused by it.

b) This is based on what I can remember. The details will be quite sketchy, hope you can bear with me. I remember something about having one partition for swap, another for root directory. Do I need another for non-root user directory?

2) As for the file system, which one do I choose? There's ext2, ext3, reiserfs and xfs? I read the descriptions but I don't know understand what they are talking about.

4) After a while when I tried to install, it detected FAT/NTFS and asked me if I want to add it to /etc/fstab. Is it advisable to do it?

I have a 256MB of ram if that will help.

Sorry for so many questions but after trying out PuppyLinux 2.0 and Vector Linux 5.9, Zenwalk is the one that really captivates me.

Thank you.

*I will be here for another one hour before I turn in because it's 9pm now. I will check back tomorrow morning at about 10am if no one replies. Thanks once again.

I will try to help you out with my somewhat limited knowledge.



Seems like the installer can't properly recognize your CD. The same thing happened to me once and I could solve it by entering the device by hand. (Should be /dev/sr0 if it is your only CD-Rom drive.)



May I ask why you have so many partitions on such a relatively small HDD? Besides that the numbers you specified should be correct.



"root directory", I assume, refers to the main directory i.e. "/" and not root's user directory. You don't specifically need a seperate partition for the users' directories. One partition for swap and one for the rest should be enough in most cases.



I think it is safe to always choose xfs here. It shouldn't make to much of a difference for a normal user anyways.



FAT/NTFS partitions are the ones formatted for Windows. If you add them to your fstab they will be visible from Zenwalk but if they are NTFS formatted they will be read-only.

Hope I could answer your questions.

I have only one CD-Rom drive. Where do I enter the command? I tried twice. The first time is when you load in the CD and it says 'Welcome to Zenwalk.... [Enter] to boot the default "ata" kernel"' and there's the following command line interface(CLI):



and I entered there:



and it gave me



so I pressed enter to load the default kernel.

After the scanning of my cd drive and said it could not detect it, I exit the setup and I found myself at the CLI again. This time it shows me this:



i proceeded to enter /dev/sr0 and it tells me



I tried with sudo root /dev/sr0 but nothing happens. So I'm stuck again.



So that when I format my windows again it will be faster. I uses very little space on my hdd too (less than 4Gb in total).

Thanks for answering my questions.

I just noticed that you cannot specify the CD-Rom drive during installation.
So i am sorry but i cannot help you with that problem.

Don't say that, you have helped me a lot. Thank you.

If it won't boot from your cd-rom, there is another way if you have another distro installed. It is all located in this wiki entry:
Install without CD-ROM

Now, if your computer can boot using a grub boot (floppy) disk or SGD, you can use this same method.

I am using windows xp only. Still, thanks for your help.

Even with windowsxp you can do this. You can use a tool like 7-zip to extract zenwalk iso. Then, if you can make yourself a grub boot floppy or, if your pc is USB bootable, a bootable grub USB flash memory. Then all you need to do is edit menu.lst to include the kernel and initrd of zenwalk installation iso.

Sorry but I don't get what you mean. Where do I extract Zenwalk iso to? Is it to my c drive(winxp) or to another partition of my HDD? (I have 8 partitions). If so, what format should the HDD be?

My PC is USB bootable because I tried it with DSL before. How do I make a grub boot USB? How do I include the kernel and initrd of Zenwalk iso? Because the command given by the link is linux command and I am running windowsxp, it means I have to install another Linux distro first.

Great. You can do the same with Puppy linux which comes with grub. I have a bootable SGD (super grub disk) usb that I fill with several live distros. You don't need SGD, because you can use grub to do this as well.

When I get home, I will write a more detailed instruction. Feel free to experiment if you wish. Basically it entails copying grub to a /boot directory in your usb. Install grub to mbr of your usb and create your menu.lst in /boot that points to where zenwalk is. In that sense you can even include it in your bootable USB. With grub, you can use any fs type but xfs.

That's the basic.

Thank you. I'll appreciate it.

Sorry for being later than I expected. I didn't get home until midnight (my local time). I am just going to walk you through from a blank usb pendrive installation just to help me keep track on this.

Here is what you need:
1. the ability to boot to a livedistro with grub in it, for example puppylinux, ubuntu, etc.
2. a usb pendrive that you want to make bootable

Steps:
1. First, after downloading zenwalk iso, extract all the files to a folder in any partition. If you are using windows, then your choice is either NTFS or FAT filesystem. Say for example you created a folder called zw-install in c:\. So extract all the files to c:\zw-install
2. Boot into your live distro and plug in the USB pendrive that you are going to use as your grub bootable USB. If you haven't formatted your USB pendrive, format it using gparted. I would suggest using non-windows filesystem, but it is entirely up to you. When you are done, mount it.

use this to list what drives are attached to your computer. The last one listed is the last you plugged into your computer. For example it is /dev/sdb and has one partition. That means the partition is /dev/sdb1, so you would do:

3. let's copy the grub files.

4. now that you are done, you are going to create a menu.lst file in /mnt/sdb1/boot/grub. Open up a text editor and save the file in /mnt/sdb1/boot/grub. The content of the menu.lst should be something like this:


A little note here: the format that grub understands for partition is (hdX,Y). X is for whether it is primary, secondary, tertiary, etc HD and it begins with 0. Y stands for the partition number. It also begins with 0. So, if you boot from your USB, I believe your USB is (hd0) and your primary HD is (hd1).
4. Now, it is time to install grub to the MBR of your usb pendrive:

Now, you will be placed in grub prompt. First thing you want to do is know where that usb pendrive is. To do that you use the command geometry (hdX) and replace X with 0, 1, 2, etc. It will tell you information about each drive and its partitions. Look for the one with one partition in the filesystem you have formatted your usb pendrive in. Let's say it is (hd1), so please do the following:

5. Your USB is now a bootable grub USB pendrive. Reboot from it and choose Zenwalk Install. If it is pointing to the correct location, the booting process should begin. If not, press "e" and edit root (hdX,Y) to point to the location. Press Enter to complete it and then press "b" to try again.
6. Once you are in the Installation Screen, choose Exit and you will be placed in the prompt. Do the follwoings:

Change XY to correct HD and partition. First HD is a, second b, and so forth. The partition numbering begins with 1. You can use the command fdisk -l to find it out. You have to remember where it,zw-install, is to do this step.
7. Go through the setup process and it will then ask you where the source is located. Choose "Install from a pre-mounted directory" and when you are asked for the directory where the installation files are, write

8. The rest should be self-explanatory.

Your grub USB bootable pendrive can be used for carrying multiple livedistros if you have several that you like. All you need to do is to create an entry for each in menu.lst.

Good luck! I hope I don't miss anything in this instruction.

Thank you very much for helping. There's no need to apologise.

I let you know what I did step by step.
First I extract Zenwalk iso to a folder called zeninstall in C drive (where my windowsxp reside). Then I went to format my USB drive in Puppy Linux with fat system. I followed step 1 until:



I don't understand the X and Y part? I am also confused about the primary, secondary, tertiary etc? Are you referring to c drive? I am really confused with the HD X and Y part.

Here is the screenshot after I entered 'fdisk -l'. Hope this will clarify more on my situation. If you need any other screenshot, please let me know.

Thanks for including the screenshot. Now, I know you only have one HD. That would make things easier. I noticed /dev/hda1 has * under boot, so that must be your c:\. In this case, in step 4 (hdX,Y) would either be (hd0,0) or (hd1,0). Don't worry about using which. Basically when you see grub menu at boot and you press Enter at the highlighed Zenwalk Install it will try load kernel and initrd. If it doesn't find it, it will give you errors and then take you back to the menu. At this point, you press e to go into the edit screen and you will be presented with the lines you can edit. Highlight the line you want to edit and press e, in this case root (hd...), and just replace the number after hd with the correct one. Finally, press Enter and press b.

In step 5, before you mount, issue fdisk -l to determine what your c:\ drive is called. It will look like your screenshot, but it will use /dev/sdXY designation rather than /dev/hdXY.

For step 4, I typed in


Before step 5, I got this:


I don't know if there's anything wrong. I have to reboot from USB on step 5, is that right?