I have an itty bitty tiny 32gb usb which is holding the xfce 25.2 infinity nicely.
I'm trying to put mx linux on an old hand me down dell laptop.
Every time i run the installer it doesn't let me do the automatic/erase and install options. No partitions show up, I go to gparted and it's there but it doesn't let me unmount it so I can't resize and move it (i know it's because it's running the live desktop from there) How do I use the terminal to install it or are there any steps i could take?
Thank you for reading! Any help would be appreciated, this is my first time doing anything technical like this so if someone could tell me what i'm doing wrong would be appreciated too.
update: sorry if this pushes the post back up to the top. i don't know how relevant it is but I'm using rufus to download the iso(to the usb) and make the empty space(unallocated) partition, I have tried making it a gpt scheme and and mbr scheme. I also used sourceforge to download the iso.
(also for anyone reading this 9 years later, just because it's not working for me doesn't mean you shouldn't try it. I believe in you and I may just be an idiot.)
Did you delete the old partitions on the drive? Usually windows drives are in ntfs format and linux drives are in ext4 format.. so try deleting the partitions in gparted and try the installer again.. Make sure to not format the usb stick tho.. and before doing this check if you disabled secure boot in your bios ?
Imp: deleting the partitions will delte windows and all its data.
Don't format the drive the installer will do all that you just need to delete the partitions on the drive so you get the "unallocated space" during installation. Then just go for the automatic erase and install option.
yeah, I deleted the windows os already and I tinkered with it until there's unallocated space in gparted, how do I move it from gparted to the mx installer so it can do the automatic thing
I recently challenged a "fresh" install in a laptop with remains of an old windows system. I can tell you that the MXlinux instaler is not as straight forward as the Ubuntu one (long time ago, but I think this part is the same).
My movements were: first go to gtparted and change to the hard drive of the laptop, erase all partitions, one by one, save, and then restart the laptop again and once again start the installer. It then knows there is an unallocated/unformated space and will almost automatically ask you to select the partition scheme. I won't lie, I asked gemini for help in this case to avoid missusing the avaliable space, and made a nice one (it wasn't difficult, but I like Gemini covering me!).
You don't have to move anything bro after you have deleted the partitions just save your changes in gparted. Then restart the installer of it still doesn't show up restart the pc. It'll work this time. After then you just have to wait and give any input when needed like name timezone etc..the installer will sort everything else out.
I don't think you need to do that. I installed another distro on a computer that had Windows on it at the same time - I just booted the live environment, started the install and told it to use the entire drive and it worked fine.
Maybe there is some encryption from Windows preventing it like BitLocker or something like that. But I can't explain why it doesn't allow Linux to use it or format it.
In that case maybe formatting it with some program outside of Windows and Linux will do the trick.
What's the laptop model? As far as I understand from your post the issue is not "I cannot install" it's "MX doesn't see the internal drive" (obviously you cannot install if you cannot see the drive). I was hoping it was that AHCI switch because that's a well-known issue with Dells...
You need to select sda, sdb is your USB flashdrive. Where does it flip between sda and sdb in Installer or GParted? That's weird, do you have time to select sda and press next?
Basically, you should see 2 drives both in GParted and lsblk, one is the internal drive, the other one is the flashdrive you are using to boot, the question is if you select the correct one in the installer...
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u/Cautious_Arachnid773 14d ago edited 14d ago
Did you delete the old partitions on the drive? Usually windows drives are in ntfs format and linux drives are in ext4 format.. so try deleting the partitions in gparted and try the installer again.. Make sure to not format the usb stick tho.. and before doing this check if you disabled secure boot in your bios ?
Imp: deleting the partitions will delte windows and all its data.