Zorin 9 - not as good as expected!

[AlexAtkin 10]

I can't forget VirtualBox as I primarily have it installed for Genymotion.

[anywebsite 10]

Well, it's owned by Oracle, so take that into consideration, you're always going to have problems with it & doesn't look like they'll get any better. Looks like the official Android runs better under qemu/kvm than Genymotion anyway.

Edited July 25, 2014 by anywebsite

[swarfendor437 14]

Cheers swarf,will have a look at that.

 

Hi corsaman132, Well I have just wasted 3 days and nights trying to just upload Part A of my two part Video on dual-booting Zorin 9 with Windows 7 using Easy BCD 2.2 Community Edition - and it keeps crashing out - so sadly the world will never get to see my video/s!

 

Oh Well, the price of not being on fast broadband I suppose!

[corsaman132 10]

No worries Swarf,i'll keep trying,managed to install it (on it's own) on another machine so the disc is ok,just can't get it to dual-boot!

[swarfendor437 14]

Hi Corsaman132, here is a text version!

 

This is for Windows 7 (Windows 8.1 was going to be my next vid - I will see how finances are later in year if I can afford an upgrade to my vimeo.com account).

 

1. Prepare Windows first by going into Windows 7, and if you don't have 'Computer' on desktop, go to menu, right-click and 'manage'.

 

2. Select the partition with 'C:' on it, right-click and select 'Properties', then go to 'Tools' Tab. Select 'Check disk' and make sure both boxes in the next pop-up screen are checked and then click on start which then brings up another window to select 'Schedule a scan' - click on that.

 

3. Close all windows and reboot - you will get the cursory 10 second count-down to cancel Chkdsk - DON'T - you could end up with an unbootable system - I did this on a 200 Gb drive and it took a good half-hour.

 

4. After chkdsk has completed it will reboot, give a cursory report that it is clean (hopefully - just as mine did) and you may get a brief message that there is no signal (from graphics card) and then your login screen will appear.

 

5. Go to 'Manage' once more and do a defrag analysis of C drive - uisng the same procedure above [2.] but click on Defrag tool - mine was only 4% so not needed but like to do this anyway for dual-booting - analysis took quite a while and then I ran the defragment option - another good half-hour.

 

6. Re-boot to windows once more to see if Windows finds a change and requires a reboot - this used to happen on XP but does not appear to be needed for Windows 7.

 

7. Go to Manage once more, right click the C: drive, Properties and 'Shrink drive' - let Windows do all the calculation and just accept what it offers - this will eventually after 15-20 minutes a reduced drive with unallocated space to the right of it. - This is where we will install Zorin. Put the Zorin DVD into the drive and reboot - use your one-time boot option (if you have one) to boot from DVD - Dells = F12, HP = Esc, if you have a 'homebrew' like the one I built with an Asus Mobo then F8 might be the button to press. Select the Optical Drive - if your machine does not have this option it will mean pressing the 'Del' key to enter BIOS and go to 'Boot' section then 'Boot Order' or 'Disk Priority' - usually pressing the + key will change the first default option (the hard disk) - on older machines you should also change second option as this would have been the optical drive (I am disregarding machines with Floppy Disks which would be 1!) and change to hard drive or you will go round in a loop!). Press F10 to save changes and exit.

 

8. Booting from Zorin 9 will bring up a blue screen with the symbol of a keyboard and Accessibility logo - as soon as you see this press the spacebar.

You will be taken to the 'language' selection, which is 'English' by default - press the Escape key then press F3 for the Keyboard map and use your cursor up arrow to select UK (default is US - I wonder why!), then if you have a notebook, press F6 (you may need to choose one of the options for some desktops as this affects whether you get to see the desktop - try default of none first but if this fails, reboot and select 'acpi=off'

 

9. Then press Enter to select the first menu option of trying without installing.

The screen will change to a glowing/pulsating 'Z' on a blue background - then darkness for quite some time, then a mouse cursor, then the desktop - the menu applet (a Z) takes quite some time to load. Be sure at this point you have a wired connection to your router/internet connection - and click on 'Install to Hard Disk/drive' icon on the desktop. (Alternatively, Menu | System Tools | Administration | Install Zorin OS).

 

9a. Can't remember at which point this screen appears but you get a check list that

 

a. you have enough space to install to

 

b. are connected to the internet

 

Be sure to check mark the bit about installing updates and other stuff during install - this is why it takes quite a bit of time to install!

 

10. Installation Options screen appears - choose the last option - 'Something Else' - this will launch the Partition Editor. Select the 'Free Space/Unallocated Space' then click on the '+' symbol, bottom left of the window that is open and a new interface opens - make it a Primary Partition with size 30000 Mibs (About 30 Gb) - you might get away with 15000 (15 Gb) but I like to play safe! - format to 'ext4' (ext2 if SSD) and mark as '/'. Next highlight the remaining unallocated space, '+' once more and this time create 'Extended Partition' - select this partition to add at the END the 'swap area' - I make this 4 Gb (4096) and then everything in front I create the last partition, '/home' where all your data and windows applications live at the 'BEGINNING' of the extended partition - make this 'logical'.

 

11. Crucial this bit - install GRUB on the partition marked '/' - this should be sda3 - remember the number - this is crucial for when you get to use Easy BCD 2.2 Community Edition.

 

12. The installer screen starts - begins with Language - default is English, click on 'next'

 

13. Memory is going - can't remember if Keyboard layout is next or 'where are you?' - anyways, because of what was chosen back at F3 on second screen that appeared it should pick up the fact it is English UK. clickk on 'next'.

 

14. Where are you - enter Sheffield and be amazed at the number of places around the world that share our great City name! - and of course, ours is at the top! so select that (obviously!). once done, click on 'next'

 

15. Username etc screen next - DON'T use capitals in username.

System - rename this - preferably in lower case - no hyphens, no underscores, no gaps. DON'T checkmark 'encrypt home folder' or the OS will not insall or boot correctly!!! Click on Next. This takes a VERY long time!

 

16. After eventually it has completed installation, either carry on playing in live environment or re-boot into Windows 7.

 

17. In Windows 7 - Download Easy BCD 2.2 Community Edition from Softpedia.com. After install it offers you option to launch - do so - it even offers language to launch in - nice touch. Now then we need to add a Linux Partition so we go to the Penguin tab - for the Boot, drop down to GRUB2, (if memory serves me right the default is 'neo-smart' or some such).

Next select the partition where GRUB is - now this latest edition is very cool - you should recognise the smallest of the two GNU/Linux partitions of '/' and '/home' and it will also be indicated by the size we chose earlier - highlight that ('/') partition to select it to boot from. Next we give a name to the bootloader entry - mine is 'ZorinOS 9 32-bit Ultimate' - and that is what shows up as the second entry in my Windows 7 Boot loader on boot - the other neat thing that Easy BCD does is it automatically captures your existing mbr settings at point of launch after install!

 

Save your Easy BCD settings, close the application and re-boot - you now have an uninterrupted mbr so your Windows will NEVER be affected!

 

Hope my instructions are easy to follow peeps! Enjoy!

 

PS this will work with ANY GNU/Linux distro - you just have to be careful that you uncheck bootloader in GNU/Linux (this does not apply to Zorin but DID apply to Mint which is what the Matthew Moore video showed.

Edited August 1, 2014 by swarfendor43

[corsaman132 10]

Cheers Swarf,will try later,does it make a difference that it's a ssd? Installed first time on another pc with standard sata platter drive.It does go through the install but only shows up as 1.9gb on Zorin partition and will not boot,really don't want to format full drive and lose windows 7,just got it how i want it. If it doesn't work then so be it,i have it on another machine and will have a play on that. Is there any way of slowing the mouse 'scroll' down on Zorin as it seems to go too fast? I've looked in settings>mouse but there is no option to do it.

 

Thanks

Jay

[swarfendor437 14]

Hi Corsaman - I have NO experience of SSD's I seem to remember you have to TRIM SSD's before you can install - don't risk it mate! I am not sure on the scroll speed of the mouse - think it might need dconf-tools installing so you get dconf-editor - will write back when (if!) I find solution!

 

Here you go:

 

Install dconf-tools as follows - Menu | Accessories | Terminal

 

sudo apt-get install dconf-tools

 

This will put dconf Editor menu entry in System Tools - Launch it and in left pane (you need to click on those triangle pointers to expand them):

 

gnome | settings-daemon | peripherals | mouse

 

In right pane try changing values of:

 

motion-acceleration

 

motion-threshold

 

If you need any more help you know where to come!:

 

http://www.zoringroup.com/forum/

Edited August 1, 2014 by swarfendor43

[corsaman132 10]

Thanks Swarf, you're a star!

[swarfendor437 14]

Thanks Corsaman132, for your kind words! Glad to be appreciated, and glad to help (where I can!)

 

 

UPDATE - finally (after a lot of tweaking!) got the desktop panel (AWN = Taskbar for Windows users!) the way I like it!

 

http://www.zoringroup.com/forum/download/file.php?id=3287&mode=view

Edited August 1, 2014 by swarfendor43

[flynnroy 10]

i am getting Kernel requires pae, unable to boot issue for my dell d600 latitude with 1.8ghz centrino pentium M processor .2 gb ram.60 gb hd

its a 32 bit system I have tried a few Linux. Ubuntu. Zorin etc

any help

it will run ubunto 10.4 but not higher due to the pae kernal issue ?

Tried zorin 8.1 and same issues

 

Otherwise what's best o's for this old laptop as Windows is too slow

Edited September 2, 2014 by flynnroy

[corsaman132 10]

I think the pae issue is to do with the processor not being compatible/powerful. are you trying to install a 32 or 64 bit Chris?

[Boginspro 10]

i am getting Kernel requires pae, unable to boot issue for my dell d600 latitude with 1.8ghz centrino pentium M processor .2 gb ram.60 gb hd

its a 32 bit system I have tried a few Linux. Ubuntu. Zorin etc

any help

it will run ubunto 10.4 but not higher due to the pae kernal issue ?

Tried zorin 8.1 and same issues

 

Otherwise what's best o's for this old laptop as Windows is too slow

 

 

I don't think there is a Zorin 9 non PAE.

 

There is an explanation of PAE on Wikipedia., link below

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_Address_Extension

 

And there are a few work rounds regarding Ubuntu on Ask Ubuntu

 

http://askubuntu.com/questions/117744/how-can-i-install-on-a-non-pae-cpu-error-kernel-requires-features-not-present

 

My favourite distro for older machines is Puppy Linux, there are plenty of versions and you can try them all live first. Also they don't need installing in the normal way, you can just have a save file in another operating system partition or even save it on a partition without an operating system on it.

 

http://www.puppylinux.com/

 

or

 

http://puppylinux.org/main/Overview%20and%20Getting%20Started.htm