Beginner's Guide to Acquiring Linux

[loadedmind]

This guide covers the process of obtaining Linux and burning to a disk as this process seems to mystify some. For our example, we will be using a computer running Windows 7 since most folks already have a little experience using Windows and we'll use software called Infrarecorder available here:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/infrarecorder/files/InfraRecorder/0.53/ir053.exe/download

Tools required:
* Computer with access to the internet
* DVD burner
* Blank DVD disk

First, the website I use to browse the various flavors of Linux is http://distrowatch.com

Here, you can either search by the name of the distribution or click a dropdown to choose from the rather lengthy list. For this example, I'll use Linux Mint as our distribution. So, if you're following along, type Mint in the search box and hit Enter. This should take you straight to the page that provides information on Linux Mint. From this page, toward the middle, there's a section entitled, "Download Mirrors". Click the link to the right of this to be taken to the mirrors available for Mint. Try to choose the closest mirror to be kind to others downloading from their respective locations. We'll choose the Cinnamon Desktop version. The version you choose should be whichever your computer supports, 32-bit or 64-bit. If you're not sure which to choose, 32-bit should work.

Scroll down toward the bottom of the page to find the links for North America. For our location, we'll choose the University of Maryland, but should this mirror no longer exist, choose the one closest to you. At this point, you'll be prompted with a download popup (unless you've configured your browser to prevent them). We'll choose Save File and click Ok to download the ISO. After a while, your download should finish.

1) Insert your blank DVD into your DVD burner and close it.
2) Open Infrarecorder and when the popup appears, choose Write Image
3) Browse to the location of the file you just finished downloading, select it, then click Open
4) If you see nothing in the dropdown at the top of this window, this means Infrarecorder did not recognize your DVD burner and other steps will need to be taken. It's possible you may not have a DVD burner.
5) Assuming the top dropdown has the appropriate device chosen, click Ok to begin the burning process.

After the process completes, it will automatically eject. If the original goal was to try out Linux Mint as a LiveDVD where it doesn't touch the hard drive and runs from memory, you can simply push the tray back in and reboot the computer. Be sure to choose the option to boot from disk or you may have to enter the BIOS to set Boot Priority.

From the boot menu, choose the default option which is to boot into Live mode.

Hope this helps.