So you decide one day that you want to use Linux. Thats Awesome! You already have my respect. My post could help you decide which one you want to dive into. Doesn’t matter if you want to go with Ubuntu or Linux Mint or more lightweight ones like Xubuntu, Bodhi or CrunchBang(#!). What you need now is some step by step tutorial to guide you through the process. The installation procedure for most distros is the same more or less.
I stumbled upon http://www.distrogeeks.com/ and they seem to have a huge list of how-tos for most of the linux flavors that you might be exploring. I read though this and realized that it is a really simple, straightforward, well explained guide to installing Crunchbang.
Go ahead start probing for the install instructions for your favorite distro.
Coming back to the Crunchbang installation, I am simply trying to list some observations here while I go through the steps explained in the post.
i. You might want to boot from USB rather than writing the ISO to a dvd. After installation is successful the dvd is as good as a coaster, so why waste one!
ii. For pt 12 of the tutorial, the installer is asking to use the entire disk for #! installation. Although this is good for newbies, more advanced users can opt for Manual option and select the partitions where they would like to install the OS.
iii. Pt 14 mentions partitioning scheme. Installing everything in one partition is good for starters but going ahead, you could manage your partitions differently.
That brings me to two things you need to know before or during any installation.
1) Booting from USB
Its very easy to convert ISO to a bootable USB. Precise instructions found on this page will help you do that.
Of course this needs your machine to have the boot from USB option. What!? Your machine does not have a Boot from USB option since its quite old? Fret not. I found a work around for this. The answer is PLOP Boot manager by Elmar Hanlhofer. Download the manager from here
I have tried the version 5.0.14 since the newer one seems to be still under test. But no harm. 5.0.14 works just fine. Unzip the contents. You will find a tiny iso ~500 kb. Write that to a cd and use that to boot your machine. After booting the PLOP manager from cd, it will let you choose “Boot from USB” and like magic the linux installation from your USB will start loading. Sweet!
2) Partitioning Disk for Linux installation
During setup, you can choose to remove existing partitions and create new ones to suit your installation need. Here is what i did.
a. Created a partition of about 12 GB which will be mounted as root “/”. This is where the system files will get installed.
b. Another partition of about 60 GB to be mounted as “/home” which will house all my data, music, videos etc
c. And a small 2.5 GB for linux swap. Roughly about the same size as my RAM.
This way if I need to reinstall linux or install Ubuntu, i could choose to install the system onto the first partition mounted as root “/” and leave the /home untouched. That way the data is intact.
As you can see, the specs of my machine are fairly low and CrunchBang installation is truly justified. I plan to cover gparted in a separate post. So stay tuned for that!
I suppose with that you will be better equipped when you do you Linux installation. Happy tinkering!
Leisure Linux 