re: Someone explain Linux to me?

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bencoleman

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I won't give you a step by step guide here, because they are all over the internet. Instead, what I will do is kind of explain the process, and hopefully clear some things up to help you understand what all is going to happen.


You will be installing an entirely new operating system on your computer. There are two basic ways this can happen: wipe everything and replace with Linux (Windows, your files, and your programs will be gone), or a dual-boot system (all of your Windows stuff will be "shoved aside" in a process called partitioning to make room for Linux) where you can choose which OS to start when you boot up. The wipe everything method is simpler and easier, but the Linux installer can probably guide you through the dual-boot partition process, though you will have to make a few decisions if you go this route.

The install process is easy. The hard part is getting the install started. The long and short of it is the computer has to boot up from a different drive (or a different partition on the same drive) than the one you're installing the OS onto. That is, the computer has to boot from either a CD/DVD, a USB drive, or any other sort of bootable media in order to install onto the computer's hard drive.

You plan to use a USB stick, so you need to write that ISO file to it. Now, the ISO file is a disk image. That is, it is kind of like a ZIP file in that there are actually many files contained inside that ISO file. So you can't just copy that big file onto the USB drive. This is where UNetbootin (or Win32 Disk Imager, as someone else mentioned) comes in. These programs are capable of properly extracting the ISO file onto the USB drive. And you will lose whatever is already on the USB drive.

Once you have the USB drive all set up, it's just a matter of making the computer boot from it. So your next possible hiccup is going to be accomplishing this. You may have to go into the BIOS and tell it to try booting from USB before it tries the hard drive.

If you can make it this far, the computer should happily boot from your Linux USB stick, and you will be presented with a fully functional desktop. You can play around with it this way just to see if you like it. You can run and install programs, browse the web, whatever. At this point, it still will not have touched your hard drive, so you can reboot with the USB out and go back to Windows. If, instead, you want to actually go ahead and install it to your hard drive, you just have to click the install icon on the desktop. Bear in mind the system will run slowly if booted from a DVD or USB. It will be MUCH faster once it is installed to your hard drive.