Trying to get Ubuntu on Windows Xp laptop.

Did you check the md5hash? that would be the first step for any noob.  It's super simple to do an will prevent any unforeseen issues.

Next would be to present us with a picture of your drive partitions.  This will be very valuable to all here.  You can do this while in puppy or most other distro's or in XP.  At this point we don't even know if you can install a linux os untill we see what your partitions look like.  Recently I could not install because there was a little storage partition at the end of the drive that would not allow install.  So there was no freespace at the end, and that partition had to be removed. 

IMO you should not bother with puppy's at this point.  Puppy's are awesome, simple and fast, but, in my opinion better for advanced users.  Get a distro on the pc and then use/play around with puppy's when you got the basics down, checking hashes, testing a distro Live, posting screenshots etc.  With puppy you will have to create "Save File" as you don't want to, and cannot save to much to the CD, the more you save to CD the slower it will boot, each time.  You might also run into this issue with the wireless on top of learning how to create Save Files and the intricacies of puppy.  If you knew how to do all the stuff above I would say go for it.  I hope you like it though, and it works out in your favor.  

I am assuming you have Ethernet line for your desktop, you might need this to get wireless on laptop, and, the Ethernet might not work either, you won't know until you try it.  You could post the outcome from the directions I gave above but not necessary:  

I downloaded MD5-SHA-Checksum onto a flash card, and then I put it onto my laptop.  When I clicked on it, it says NET Framework Initialization Error. Below that it says to run this application, you must install one of the following verisions of the .NET Framework;v2.0.50727. It then says to contact the publisher for instructions about getting the appropriate version of the .NET Framework.

I will work on it some more tomorrow. I might have a virus, or I might need to download something else. How do I find partition? I may have done it before, but it might have been along time. I have another laptop, got it the same year, and is also a Dell. The one I'm working on I haven't used in a few years. The other one I used last year, and have been using it to get old pictures from. Still looking on there, and getting stuff transferred to the desktop.

Edited by rburkartjo, 19 April 2015 - 05:04 PM.

 

IMO you should not bother with puppy's at this point.  Puppy's are awesome, simple and fast, but, in my opinion better for advanced users

A Live Puppy is the easiest way to introduce Sam to linux, It is a small download, and Sam can be online fast.

I burned Puppy onto a CD, then put it on the laptop.  Under all rights reserved, this came up.

PXE-E61; Media test failure, check cable

PXE M0F; Exiting Broadcom PXE ROM

At the top, it says Broadcom UNDI PXE-2.1 v2.1.0

If it won't remove XP, I will try Puppy on the other laptop tomorrow.

is your comp booting ok with the XP. ?.as that is sometimes the sign of a Hard drive dying...????

If your trying to run puppy as a Live cd.... maybe your booting order is set wrong  ...  maybe when you go to boot up into XP press F2 ( maybe something else ) and see what the boot order is. very often it will be CD/DVD  > HD > USB > other  which should work.. 

I press F12.  I did it last year with Xpad. It worked with that. I burned it onto a CD on the other laptop.  It does take a while for it to start up.

 

 

  It does take a while for it to start up.

What, the notebook itself, or the Puppy CD? 

Note that while the progress of booting the puppy CD may seem to be slow at first, this could be for two reasons. First, a worn or getting worn optical drive. That's where Nick's tutorial of creating on a Flash drive can help.

Secondly, it takes a minute or so for the Puppy files to get ready (loaded into your memory), yet once it does, you're set. Once you see the screen in full, that OS ought to be fast, because it's no longer running from the optical drive or Flash drive, rather your (hopefully) healthy memory. At that point, it should be much faster than XP ever was & you can get things done. 

Read or watch the provided tutorials to get the most out of Puppy. While I can boot & run it, don't have the experience they do, yet you can learn this thing in no time. No not everything, yet plenty enough to get you headed in the right direction. 

rburkartjo & shadow-warrior also makes some good points. 

However if your HDD is slowing, this in itself may not 100% mean your HDD is dying, rather your bloated XP install is causing it to slow. Installing a fresh copy of Linux MInt (as rburkartjo suggested) would prove whether or not your HDD is dying. I've seen several times computers where installing a fresh OS helps. If you like Xubuntu, you can install to your HDD if you like, using the automated installer. Same with Linux Mint. 

That would also help is in determining your system's health. 

Hang in there, we'll find you a solution, the best available for you.

Cat

The CD dosen't start up. Just the laptop. Will try it on another laptop later today. When I started it from the CD, this comes up.

PXE-E61; Media test failure, check cable

PXE M0F; Exiting Broadcom PXE ROM

At the top, it says Broadcom UNDI PXE-2.1 v2.1.0

I tried it on the other laptop, and it didn't work there either. I even tried the flash card. Still didn't work. I then put the flash card in the desktop, and clicked on properties. It says, Type of file; ISO Image file(.is0)

Opens with; Roxio Creator. It has chage next to that. But I never had Roxio on the desktop. Just on that one laptop. I think that might be the problem. I removed it from the flash card, and downloaded it again. It said the same thing. Going to check the flash card, and see what else is on there.

I see you are having issues but I will post this if you get around to looking at your partitions: 

In XP - Start > Right click My Computer > Left click Manage > In the left window under Storage click Disk Management.  If you want, you can take a screenshot or just write down the partition information as best you can.

Advise seems to be to re-install first, then check HDD connections, if that don't work...then replace HDD, but I am just reading from the internet and what the guys here are saying.  I forget if you wanted to keep XP?  No one here stated this, so wait and see what they think of re-installing XP first, then retry the puppy or Ubuntu/xbuntu.  XP could very well be a mess, and considering you have other pc's you might want to install Xbuntu over XP so to use all that drive space for linux.

I tried it on the other laptop, and it didn't work there either. I even tried the flash card. Still didn't work. I then put the flash card in the desktop, and clicked on properties. It says, Type of file; ISO Image file(.is0)

Opens with; Roxio Creator. It has chage next to that. But I never had Roxio on the desktop. Just on that one laptop. I think that might be the problem. I removed it from the flash card, and downloaded it again. It said the same thing. Going to check the flash card, and see what else is on there.

I thought that might be an issue, I hate that program, it comes with XP if I remember right.  It seems to attach itself somehow to all files that it is used for so you will use it, just my opinion.

I tried it on the other laptop, and it didn't work there either. I even tried the flash card. Still didn't work. I then put the flash card in the desktop, and clicked on properties. It says, Type of file; ISO Image file(.is0)

Opens with; Roxio Creator. It has chage next to that. But I never had Roxio on the desktop. Just on that one laptop. I think that might be the problem. I removed it from the flash card, and downloaded it again. It said the same thing. Going to check the flash card, and see what else is on there.

Edited by Al1000, 20 April 2015 - 05:36 PM.

To make a Live USB for Puppy Linux.

1 Get a USB stick you don"t need. 1 or 2 GiB will be fine.

2 Format the USB stick to fat 32.

3 Use Unetbootin. http://sourceforge.net/projects/unetbootin/

4 Follow the instructions in the video.

5 Reset bios boot order

1. Restart your computer.
2. At the first text on the screen or when the Dell logo appears, tap F2 until the message Entering Setup appears.

6. Set USB Boot first or second

 

think of re-installing XP first, then retry the puppy or Ubuntu/xbuntu

Why would you need or bother, We are trying to boot from USB stick, It don't matter what's on the HDD or if 1 is even fitted. Please stop confusing the issue.

Edited by NickAu, 20 April 2015 - 05:58 PM.

I removed it from the flash card, and downloaded it again. It said the same thing. Going to check the flash card, and see what else is on there.

I think you should format the flash drive to Fat32 to wipe it clean > download the iso > Use Unetbootin to make a bootable usb, is that what you are doing?   

Edit: Sorry guys did not see your posts.

Edited by pcpunk, 20 April 2015 - 06:18 PM.